He Fell In Love With His Wife - Edward Payson Roe (the speed reading book .txt) 📗

then gave the

girl his hand as he said, “Thank you, Jane. You’ve tried to be a true friend

to me today. I’ll show you that I don’t forget. I was a fool to get in such

a rage, but you can’t understand and must forgive me. Come, you see I’m quiet

now,” and he untied the horses and lifted her into his wagon.

 

“What yer doin’ to do?” she asked, as they drove away.

 

“I’m going to reward you for watching and listening to that scoundrel, but you

must not watch me or Mrs. Holcroft, or listen to what we say unless we speak

before you. If you do, I shall be very angry. Now, you’ve only one thing

more to do and that is, show me where this man is hiding.”

 

“But you won’t go near him alone?” inquired Jane in much alarm.

 

“You must do as I bid you,” he replied sternly. “Show me where he’s hiding,

then stay by the wagon and horses.”

 

“But he same as said he’d kill you.”

 

“You have your orders,” was his quiet reply.

 

She looked scared enough, but remained silent until they reached a shaded spot

on the road, then said, “If you don’t want him to see you too soon, better tie

here. He’s around yonder, in a grove up on the hill.”

 

Holcroft drove to a tree by the side of the highway and again tied his horses,

then took the whip from the wagon. “Are you afraid to go with me a little way

and show me just where he is?” he asked.

 

“No, but you oughtn’ ter go.”

 

“Come on, then! You must mind me if you wish to keep my good will. I know

what I’m about.” As in his former encounter, his weapon was again a long,

tough whipstock with a leather thong attached. This he cut off and put in his

pocket, then followed Jane’s rapid lead up the hill. Very soon she said,

“There’s the place I saw ‘im in. If you will go, I’d steal up on him.”

 

“Yes. You stay here.” She made no reply, but the moment he disappeared she

was upon his trail. Her curiosity was much greater than her timidity, and she

justly reasoned that she had little to fear.

 

Holcroft approached from a point whence Ferguson was expecting no danger. The

latter was lying on the ground, gnawing his nails in vexation, when he first

heard the farmer’s step. Then he saw a dark-visaged man rushing upon him. In

the impulse of his terror, he drew his revolver and fired. The ball hissed

near, but did no harm, and before Ferguson could use the weapon again, a blow

from the whipstock paralyzed his arm and the pistol dropped to the ground. So

also did its owner a moment later, under a vindictive rain of blows, until he

shrieked for mercy.

 

“Don’t move!” said Holcroft sternly, and he picked up the revolver. “So you

meant to kill me, eh?”

 

“No, no! I didn’t. I wouldn’t have fired if it hadn’t been in self-defense

and because I hadn’t time to think.” He spoke with difficulty, for his mouth

was bleeding and he was terribly bruised.

 

“A liar, too!” said the farmer, glowering down upon him. “But I knew that

before. What did you mean by your threats to my wife?”

 

“See here, Mr. Holcroft; I’m down and at your mercy. If you’ll let me off

I’ll go away and never trouble you or your wife again.”

 

“Oh, no!” said Holcroft with a bitter laugh. “You’ll never, never trouble us

again.”

 

“What, do you mean to murder me?” Ferguson half shrieked.

 

“Would killing such a thing as you be murder? Any jury in the land would

acquit me. You ought to be roasted over a slow fire.”

 

The fellow tried to scramble on his knees, but Holcroft hit him another savage

blow, and said, “Lie still!”

 

Ferguson began to wring his hands and beg for mercy. His captor stood over

him a moment or two irresolutely in his white-heated anger; then thoughts of

his wife began to soften him. He could not go to her with blood on his

hands—she who had taught him such lessons of forbearance and forgiveness. He

put the pistol in his pocket and giving his enemy a kick, said, “Get up!”

 

The man rose with difficulty.

 

“I won’t waste time in asking any promises from YOU, but if you ever trouble

my wife or me again, I’ll break every bone in your body. Go, quick, before my

mood changes, and don’t say a word.”

 

As the man tremblingly untied his horse, Jane stepped out before him and said,

“I’m a little idiotic girl, am I?”

 

He was too thoroughly cowed to make any reply and drove as rapidly away as the

ground permitted, guiding his horse with difficulty in his maimed condition.

 

Jane, in the exuberance of her pleasure, began something like a jig on the

scene of conflict, and her antics were so ridiculous that Holcroft had to turn

away to repress a smile. “You didn’t mind me, Jane,” he said gravely.

 

“Well, sir,” she replied, “after showin’ you the way to ‘im, you oughter not

grudge me seein’ the fun.”

 

“But it isn’t nice for little girls to see such things.”

 

“Never saw anything nicer in my life. You’re the kind of man I believe in,

you are. Golly! Only wished SHE’D seen you. I’ve seen many a rough and

tumble ‘mong farm hands, but never anything like this. It was only his pistol

I was ‘fraid of.”

 

“Will you do exactly what I say now?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Well, go home across the fields and don’t by word or manner let Mrs. Holcroft

know what you’ve seen or heard, and say nothing about meeting me. Just make

her think you know nothing at all and that you only watched the man out of

sight. Do this and I’ll give you a new dress.”

 

“I’d like somethin’ else ‘sides that.”

 

“Well, what?”

 

“I’d like to be sure I could stay right on with you.”

 

“Yes, Jane, after today, as long as you’re a good girl. Now go, for I must

get back to my team before this scamp goes by.”

 

She darted homeward as the farmer returned to his wagon. Ferguson soon

appeared and seemed much startled as he saw his Nemesis again. “I’ll keep my

word,” he said, as he drove by.

 

“You’d better!” called the farmer. “You know what to expect now.”

 

Alida was so prostrated by the shock of the interview that she rallied slowly.

At last she saw that it was getting late and that she soon might expect the

return of her husband. She dragged herself to the door and again called Jane,

but the place was evidently deserted. Evening was coming on tranquilly, with

all its sweet June sounds, but now every bird song was like a knell. She sunk

on the porch seat and looked at the landscape, already so dear and familiar,

as if she were taking a final farewell of a friend. Then she turned to the

homely kitchen to which she had first been brought. “I can do a little more

for him,” she thought, “before I make the last sacrifice which will soon bring

the end. I think I could have lived—lived, perhaps, till I was old, if I had

gone among strangers from the almshouse, but I can’t now. My heart is broken.

Now that I’ve seen that man again I understand why my husband cannot love me.

Even the thought of touching me must make him shudder. But I can’t bear up

under such a load much longer, and that’s my comfort. It’s best I should go

away now; I couldn’t do otherwise,” and the tragedy went on in her soul as she

feebly prepared her husband’s meal.

 

At last Jane came in with her basket of peas. Her face was so impassive as to

suggest that she had no knowledge of anything except that there had been a

visitor, and Alida had sunk into such depths of despairing sorrow that she

scarcely noticed the child.

 

Chapter XXXIII. “Shrink from YOU?”

 

Holcroft soon came driving slowly up the lane as if nothing unusual was on his

mind. Having tied his horses, he brought in an armful of bundles and said

kindly, “Well, Alida, here I am again, and I guess I’ve brought enough to last

well through haying time.”

 

“Yes,” she replied with averted face. This did not trouble him any now, but

her extreme pallor did and he added, “You don’t look well. I wouldn’t mind

getting much supper tonight. Let Jane do the work.”

 

“I’d rather do it,” she replied.

 

“Oh, well!” laughing pleasantly, “you shall have your own way. Who has a

better right than you, I’d like to know?”

 

“Don’t speak that way,” she said, almost harshly, under the tension of her

feelings. “I—I can’t stand it. Speak and look as you did before you went

away.”

 

“Jane,” said the farmer, “go and gather the eggs.”

 

As soon as they were alone, he began gently, “Alida—”

 

“Please don’t speak so to me today. I’ve endured all I can. I can’t keep up

another minute unless you let things go on as they were. Tomorrow I’ll try to

tell you all. It’s your right.”

 

“I didn’t mean to say anything myself till after supper, and perhaps not till

tomorrow, but I think I’d better. It will be better for us both, and our

minds will be more at rest. Come with me into the parlor, Alida.”

 

“Well, perhaps the sooner it’s over the better,” she said faintly and huskily.

 

She sunk on the lounge and looked at him with such despairing eyes that tears

came into his own.

 

“Alida,” he began hesitatingly, “after I left you this noon I felt I must

speak with and be frank with you.”

 

“No, no!!” she cried, with an imploring gesture, “if it must be said, let me

say it. I couldn’t endure to hear it from you. Before you went away I

understood it all, and this afternoon the truth has been burned into my soul.

That horrible man has been here—the man I thought my husband—and he has made

it clearer, if possible. I don’t blame you that you shrink from me as if I

were a leper. I feel as if I were one.”

 

“I shrink from YOU!” he exclaimed.

 

“Yes. Can you think I haven’t seen the repugnance growing in spite of

yourself? When I thought of that man—especially when he came today—I

understood WHY too well. I cannot stay here any longer. You’d try to be kind

and considerate, but I’d know how you felt all the time. It would not be safe

for you and it would not be right for me to stay, either, and that settles it.

Be—be as kind to me—as you can a few—a few hours longer, and then let me go

quietly.” Her self-control gave way, and burying her face in her hands, she

sobbed convulsively.

 

In a moment he was on his knees beside her, with his arm about her waist.

“Alida, dear Alida!” he cried, “we’ve both been in the dark about each other.

What I resolved to do, when I started for town, was to tell you that I had

learned to love you and to throw myself on your mercy. I thought you saw I

was loving you and that you couldn’t bear to think of such a thing in an old,

homely fellow like me. That was all