XIV.

The group below took no heed how the time passed. Thinking of it afterward, they said it seemed only a few moments before they heard amongst the fitful gusts of the wind, wearing away now, and the dull stirring of the tree without, a hurried, irregular footstep suddenly falling on the porch, a groping, nervous hand fumbling at the latch.

“Hev ye los’ yer manners ez ye can’t knock at the door,” said Peter Sawyer sardonically, speaking through his teeth, for he still held his pipe-stem in his mouth.

Ike had burst in without ceremony and stood upon the threshold, holding the door in one hand and gazing about with wild eyes, half blinded by the light, uncertain whether Skimpy was really absent or overlooked among the rest.

“I—I—kem ter see Skimpy,” he faltered.

Mrs. Sawyer had set the baby on the floor beside Bose, and had folded her arms stiffly. She looked at Ike with heightened color and a flashing eye.

“Waal, I ain’t keerin’ ef ye never see Skimpy ag’in,” she said indignantly, “considerin’ the way ye treat him. That thar boy air tender in his feelin’s, an’ he hev been settin’ hyar an’ cryin’ his eyes out ’count o’ you-uns. Ye want ter torment him some mo’, I s’pose.”

Ike stared bewildered. “I ain’t never tormented Skimp none ez I knows on.”

“Ye ain’t!” exclaimed Obadiah, scornfully. Then grotesquely distorting his face he careened to one side and began to wheeze distractingly—“Oh—aw—yi-i, Mister Ky-une, Oh—aw—ee-ee, Mister Ky-une.”

As Ike still stood holding the door open, the flames bowed fantastically before the wind, sending puffs of smoke into the room and scurrying ashes about the hearth.

“Kem in, ef ye air a-comin’, an’ go out ef ye air a-goin’,” said Mrs. Sawyer tartly. “Ennyhow we-uns will feel obligated ef ye’ll shet that door.”

The invitation was none too cordial, but Ike availed himself of the opportunity to speak, since the matter was so important.

He closed the door and sat down on the end of the bench where Skimpy had been sitting so short a time before.

“Skimp ’lows that’s the way ye mocked him,” said Obadiah. “An’ ye wants ter see him ag’in, do ye? Ef I war Skimp I’d gin ye sech a dressin’ ez ye wouldn’t want ter see _me_ ag’in soon.” He winked fiercely at Ike and nodded his head. Then he stuck his violin under his chin and began to saw away once more as if nothing had happened.

Ike gave a great gulp as if he literally swallowed a bitter dose in taking Obadiah’s defiance; the strain on his temper was severe, but he succeeded in controlling himself. It was in a calm and convincing voice that he said:—

“Oby, ye an’ me, an’ Skimp, and the t’others”—pointing to the tangled-up wrestlers—“hev been too good frien’s ter be parted by folks tattlin’ lies an’ tales from one ter ’nother. I never said sech. I never mocked Skimpy’s singin’ sence I been born. I hev sot too much store by Skimp fur that, an’ he oughter know it.”

Mrs. Sawyer’s expression softened. “Ye only would hev proved yerse’f a idjit ef ye hed faulted Skimpy’s singin’,” she said. Then, still more genially—“Set up closer ter the fire. It mus’ be airish out’n doors. Who d’ye reckon tole Skimp sech a wicked, mean story on ye?”

Ike trembled in his eagerness to tell. “I dunno fur true, Mis’ Sawyer, and mebbe I oughtn’t ter say, but I b’lieves it be Jerry Binwell, kase Skimpy hev been goin’ a powerful deal with him lately, an’”—

Peter Sawyer turned suddenly upon the boy. “The truth ain’t in ye, Ike Guyther. Ye knows ez yer dad an’ yer uncle, an’ yerse’f an’ yer folks ginerally, air the only critters in the Cove ez would ’sociate with Jerry Binwell, an’ live in fellowship with him under the same roof. I ’low they air crazy—plumb bereft. It’s yer folks ez hev harbored him hyar, an’ ye can’t tar Skimpy with sayin’ he consorts with sech. I forbid Skimp ever ter go with you-uns enny mo’, so’s ter keep him out’n Binwell’s way. Now, sir; ye can’t shoulder him off on Skimpy!”

Ike’s face turned scarlet. “I hev glimpsed Skimp with him ag’in an’ ag’in. An’ I b’lieves he be a-goin’ ter git Skimp inter mischief.”

Obadiah laid his fiddle down on his knee, pursed up his lips, and looked aggravatingly cross-eyed at Ike, up from his toes to the crown of his head.

“’Twouldn’t take much mo’, Ike, ter make _me_ settle you-uns,” he observed.

“I ain’t keerin’ fur you-uns, Obadiah!” cried Ike. “I hev kem ter say my say—an’ I’m a-goin’ ter do it. I b’lieve Jerry Binwell air arter old Squair Torbett’s money what folks ’low he hid in a box in a hollow o’ Keedon Bluffs.”

Peter Sawyer’s pipe had fallen from his hand, and the fire and tobacco and ashes rolled out upon the hearth. He gave it no heed. He sat motionless, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his surprised, intent eyes fixed upon the boy’s face.

“I never s’picioned at fust what he war arter, though I seen him foolin’ roun’ them Bluffs an’ a-climbin’ on the ledges. But I knowed ’twar suthin’ cur’us. An’ whenst I seen Skimp along o’ him so much I kem hyar this evenin’ an’ tried ter warn him. But ter-night I hearn Jerry Binwell ax uncle Ab—him it war ez holped the Squair hide the box whilst Jerry Binwell watched—what hollow he hid it in.”

“An’—an’—did Ab tell him?” demanded Peter Sawyer, leaning down, his excited face close to Ike’s, his eyes full of curiosity and more—intention, suspicion.

Once again Ike recognized the false position into which his uncle was thrust. How could any man’s honest repute survive a misunderstanding like this? He realized that in his eager desire to save his friend his tongue had outstripped his prudence.

“I jes’ wanter tell Skimp what I hearn,” he said, declining to answer categorically, “an’ then let him go on with Binwell ef he wants ter. I war feared he’d purvail on Skimp, by foolin’ him somehows, ter snake inter them hollows an’ git that box fur him. Whar be Skimp?”

“Asleep in bed, whar he oughter be, Ike,” said Skimpy’s mother contentedly rocking by the fire.

Peter Sawyer hesitated for a moment. Then he slowly rose. “’Twon’t hurt Skimp ter wake him up. He mought ez well hear this ez not.”

He winked at his wife. He thought that if Skimpy were present he himself would hear more of the whereabouts of the box, which might prove of service in the constable’s search for it, when the ladder could be found or a substitute provided. He walked toward the primitive stairway, feeling very clever and a trifle surprised at the promptitude and acumen of his decision. He himself would wake Skimpy in order to give him a quiet caution not to become involved in any quarrel that might restrain or prevent Ike’s disclosure. He tramped slowly and heavily up the ladder as if he were not used to it, and indeed he seldom ascended into the roof-room, its chief use being that of a dormitory for the boys. As he left the bright scene below, suffused with mellow light, the shadows began to gloom about him as if they came down a rung or two to meet him or to lend him a helping hand; he raised his eyebrows and peered curiously about. His head was hardly above the level of the floor of the loft before he became aware that the roof-room was full of motion. He gave a sudden start, and stood still to stare, to collect his senses that surely had played him false. No,—solemnly wavering to and fro, a pace here, a measure there, was the gaunt company of old clothes, visible in the glimmer through the crevices of the floor, and bearing the semblance of life in the illusions of the faint light and the failing shadow, as if they had outwitted fate somehow, despite their owners’ mounds in the little mountain graveyard. Peter Sawyer gasped—then he shivered. And it was, perhaps, this involuntary expression of physical discomfort which led his mind to judge of cause and effect. “The winder mus’ be open,” he said through his chattering teeth.

The next moment he saw it—he saw the purplish square amidst the darkness of the walls; the naked boughs of the tree without; and high, high—for he was looking upward—the massive looming mountain, and the moon, the yellow waning moon, rising through the gap in the range.

“The wind’s laid,” he muttered, “or the flappin’ o’ that thar shutter would hev woke the boy afore this time.”

He clumsily ascended the remaining rungs and strode across the floor to Skimpy’s bed, looking now with curious half-averted eyes at the lifelike figures of the old clothes, and then at the yellow moon shining through the little window into the dusky place, and drawing the shadow of the neighboring tree upon the floor.

Sawyer’s hand touched the pillow.

“Skimpy!” he said. And again, “Skimpy!”

It was a louder tone. A penetrating quality it had, charged as it was with a sudden, keen fear.

“Fetch a light!” he cried, running to the top of the ladder, dashing away the spectral garments. “Fetch the lantern, Oby, or a tallow dip.”

Below they heard his quick footsteps returning to the bed as they sprang up, affrighted, yet hardly knowing what had happened.

“Skimpy!” his voice sounded strong again—reassured; he could not, would not believe this thing. “Quit foolin’, sonny; whar hev ye hid?”

Skimpy’s mother had waited for neither the candle nor the lantern; she mounted the ladder by the light of the fire, and she understood what had happened almost as soon as Ike did, as pale and dismayed he looked over her shoulder into the dusky garret. The golden moonlight fell through the little window upon the slowly-pacing clothes, and drew the image of the bare tree upon the floor, and slanted upon the empty bed by which Peter Sawyer stood crying aloud—“He hev gone, wife; he hev gone!”