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In the Midst of Alarms

R >> Robert Barr >> In the Midst of Alarms




"What! to jail?" cried his horrified friend, his conscience now
troubling him, as the parting came, for his lack of kindness to an old
comrade.

"Not if the court knows herself. But to Buffalo, which is pretty much
the same thing. Still, thank goodness, I don't need to stay there long.
I'll be in New York before I'm many days older. I yearn to plunge into
the arena once more. The still, calm peacefulness of this whole
vacation has made me long for excitement again, and I'm glad the
warrant has pushed me into the turmoil."

"Well, Richard, I'm sorry you have to go under such conditions. I'm
afraid I have not been as companionable a comrade as you should have
had."

"Oh, you're all right, Renny. The trouble with you is that you have
drawn a little circle around Toronto University, and said to yourself:
'This is the world.' It isn't, you know. There is something outside of
all that."

"Every man, doubtless, has his little circle. Yours is around the
_Argus_ office."

"Yes, but there are special wires from that little circle to all the
rest of the world, and soon there will be an Atlantic cable."

"I do not hold that my circle is as large as yours; still, there is
something outside of New York, even."

"You bet your life there is; and, now that you are in a more
sympathetic frame of mind, it is that I want to talk with you about.
Those two girls are outside my little circle, and I want to bring one
of them within it. Now, Renmark, which of those girls would you choose
if you were me?"

The professor drew in his breath sharply, and was silent for a moment.
At last he said, speaking slowly:

"I am afraid, Mr. Yates, that you do not quite appreciate my point of
view. As you may think I have acted in an unfriendly manner, I will try
for the first and final time to explain it. I hold that any man who
marries a good woman gets more than he deserves, no matter how worthy
he may be. I have a profound respect for all women, and I think that
your light chatter about choosing between two is an insult to both of
them. I think either of them is infinitely too good for you--or for me
either."

"Oh, you do, do you? Perhaps you think that you would make a much
better husband than I. If that is the case, allow me to say you are
entirely wrong. If your wife was sensitive, you would kill her with
your gloomy fits. I wouldn't go off in the woods and sulk, anyhow."

"If you are referring to me, I will further inform you that I had
either to go off in the woods or knock you down. I chose the less of
two evils."

"Think you could do it, I suppose? Renny, you're conceited. You're not
the first man who has made such a mistake, and found he was barking up
the wrong tree when it was too late for anything but bandages and
arnica."

"I have tried to show you how I feel regarding this matter. I might
have known I should not succeed. We will end the discussion, if you
please."

"Oh, no. The discussion is just beginning. Now, Renny, I'll tell you
what you need. You need a good, sensible wife worse than any man I
know. It is not yet too late to save you, but it soon will be. You
will, before long, grow a crust on you like a snail, or a lobster, or
any other cold-blooded animal that gets a shell on itself. Then nothing
can be done for you. Now, let me save you, Renny, before it is too
late. Here is my proposition: You choose one of those girls and marry
her. I'll take the other. I'm not as unselfish as I may seem in this,
for your choice will save me the worry of making up my own mind.
According to your talk, either of the girls is too good for you, and
for once I entirely agree with you. But let that pass. Now, which one
is it to be?"

"Good God! man, do you think I am going to bargain with you about my
future wife?"

"That's right, Renny. I like to hear you swear. It shows you are not
yet the prig you would have folks believe. There's still hope for you,
professor. Now, I'll go further with you. Although I cannot make up my
mind just what to do myself, I can tell instantly which is the girl for
you, and thus we solve both problems at one stroke. You need a wife who
will take you in hand. You need one who will not put up with your
tantrums, who will be cheerful, and who will make a man of you. Kitty
Bartlett is the girl. She will tyrannize over you, just as her mother
does over the old man. She will keep house to the queen's taste, and
delight in getting you good things to eat. Why, everything is as plain
as a pikestaff. That shows the benefit of talking over a thing. You
marry Kitty, and I'll marry Margaret. Come, let's shake hands over it."
Yates held up his right hand, ready to slap it down on the open palm of
the professor, but there was no response. Yates' hand came down to his
side again, but he had not yet lost the enthusiasm of his proposal. The
more he thought of it the more fitting it seemed.

"Margaret is such a sensible, quiet, level-headed girl that, if I am as
flippant as you say, she will be just the wife for me. There are depths
in my character, Renmark, that you have not suspected."

"Oh, you're deep."

"I admit it. Well, a good, sober-minded woman would develop the best
that is in me. Now, what do you say, Renny?"

"I say nothing. I am going into the woods again, dark as it is."

"Ah, well," said Yates with a sigh, "there's no doing anything with you
or for you. I've tried my best; that is one consolation. Don't go away.
I'll let fate decide. Here goes for a toss-up."

And Yates drew a silver half dollar from his pocket. "Heads for
Margaret!" he cried. Renmark clinched his fist, took a step forward,
then checked himself, remembering that this was his last night with the
man who had at least once been his friend.

Yates merrily spun the coin in the air, caught it in one hand, and
slapped the other over it.

"Now for the turning point in the lives of two innocent beings." He
raised the covering hand, and peered at the coin in the gathering
gloom. "Heads it is. Margaret Howard becomes Mrs. Richard Yates.
Congratulate me, professor."

Renmark stood motionless as a statue, an object lesson in self-control.
Yates set his hat more jauntily on his head, and slipped the epoch-
making coin into his trousers pocket.

"Good-by, old man," he said. "I'll see you later, and tell you all the
particulars."

Without waiting for the answer, for which he probably knew there would
have been little use in delaying, Yates walked to the fence and sprang
over it, with one hand on the top rail. Renmark stood still for some
minutes, then, quietly gathering underbrush and sticks large and small,
lighted a fire, and sat down on a log, with his head in his hands.




CHAPTER XXII.


Yates walked merrily down the road, whistling "Gayly the troubadour."
Perhaps there is no moment in a man's life when he feels the joy of
being alive more keenly than when he goes to propose to a girl of whose
favorable answer he is reasonably sure--unless it be the moment he
walks away an accepted lover. There is a magic about a June night, with
its soft, velvety darkness and its sweet, mild air laden with the
perfumes of wood and field. The enchantment of the hour threw its spell
over the young man, and he resolved to live a better life, and be
worthy of the girl he had chosen, or, rather, that fate had chosen for
him. He paused a moment, leaning over the fence near the Howard
homestead, for he had not yet settled in his own mind the details of
the meeting. He would not go in, for in that case he knew he would have
to talk, perhaps for hours, with everyone but the person he wished to
meet. If he announced himself and asked to see Margaret alone, his
doing so would embarrass her at the very beginning. Yates was naturally
too much of a diplomat to begin awkwardly. As he stood there, wishing
chance would bring her out of the house, there appeared a light in the
door-window of the room where he knew the convalescent boy lay.
Margaret's shadow formed a silhouette on the blind. Yates caught up a
handful of sand, and flung it lightly against the pane. Its soft patter
evidently attracted the attention of the girl, for, after a moment's
pause, the window opened carefully, while Margaret stepped quickly out
and closed it, quietly standing there.

"Margaret," whispered Yates hardly above his breath.

The girl advanced toward the fence.

"Is that _you_?" she whispered in return, with an accent on the
last word that thrilled her listener. The accent told plainly as speech
that the word represented the one man on earth to her.

"Yes," answered Yates, springing over the fence and approaching her.

"Oh!" cried Margaret, starting back, then checking herself, with a
catch in her voice. "You--you startled me--Mr. Yates."

"Not Mr. Yates any more, Margaret, but Dick. Margaret, I wanted to see
you alone. You know why I have come." He tried to grasp both her hands,
but she put them resolutely behind her, seemingly wishing to retreat,
yet standing her ground.

"Margaret, you must have seen long ago how it is with me. I love you,
Margaret, loyally and truly. It seems as if I had loved you all my
life. I certainly have since the first day I saw you."

"Oh, Mr. Yates, you must not talk to me like this."

"My darling, how else _can_ I talk to you? It cannot be a surprise
to you, Margaret. You must have known it long ago."

"I did not, indeed I did not--if you really mean it."

"Mean it? I never meant anything as I mean this. It is everything to
me, and nothing else is anything. I have knocked about the world a good
deal, I admit, but I never was in love before--never knew what love was
until I met you. I tell you that----"

"Please, please, Mr. Yates, do not say anything more. If it is really
true, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I hope nothing I have said or
done has made you believe that--that--Oh, I do not know what to say! I
never thought you could be in earnest about anything."

"You surely cannot have so misjudged me, Margaret. Others have, but I
did not expect it of you. You are far and away better than I am. No one
knows that so well as I. I do not pretend to be worthy of you, but I
will be a devoted husband to you. Any man who gets the love of a good
woman," continued Yates earnestly, plagiarizing Renmark, "gets more
than he deserves; but surely such love as mine is not given merely to
be scornfully trampled underfoot."

"I do not treat your--you scornfully. I am only sorry if what you say
is true."

"Why do you say _if_ it is true? Don't you know it is true?"

"Then I am very sorry--very, _very_ sorry, and I hope it is
through no fault of mine. But you will soon forget me. When you return
to New York----"

"Margaret," said the young man bitterly, "I shall never forget you.
Think what you are doing before it is too late. Think how much this
means to me. If you finally refuse me, you will wreck my life. I am the
sort of man that a woman can make or mar. Do not, I beg of you, ruin
the life of the man who loves you."

"I am not a missionary," cried Margaret with sudden anger. "If your
life is to be wrecked, it will be through your own foolishness, and not
from any act of mine. I think it cowardly of you to say that I am to be
held responsible. I have no wish to influence your future one way or
another."

"Not for good, Margaret?" asked Yates with tender reproach.

"No. A man whose good or bad conduct depends on anyone but himself is
not my ideal of a man."

"Tell me what your ideal is, so that I may try to attain it."

Margaret was silent.

"You think it will be useless for me to try?"

"As far as I am concerned, yes."

"Margaret, I want to ask you one more question. I have no right to, but
I beg you to answer me. Are you in love with anyone else?"

"No!" cried Margaret hotly. "How dare you ask me such a question?"

"Oh, it is not a crime--that is, being in love with someone else is
not. I'll tell you why I dare ask. I swear, by all the gods, that I
shall win you--if not this year, then next; and if not next, then the
year after. I was a coward to talk as I did; but I love you more now
than I did even then. All I want to know is that you are not in love
with another man.

"I think you are very cruel in persisting as you do, when you have had
your answer. I say no. Never! never! never!--this year nor any other
year. Is not that enough?"

"Not for me. A woman's 'no' may ultimately mean 'yes.'"

"That is true, Mr. Yates," replied Margaret, drawing herself up as one
who makes a final plunge. "You remember the question you asked me just
now?--whether I cared for anyone else? I said 'no.' That 'no' meant
'yes.'"

He was standing between her and the window, so she could not escape by
the way she came. He saw she meditated flight, and made as though he
would intercept her, but she was too quick for him. She ran around the
house, and he heard a door open and shut.

He knew he was defeated. Dejectedly he turned to the fence, climbing
slowly over where he had leaped so lightly a few minutes before, and
walked down the road, cursing his fate. Although he admitted he was a
coward for talking to her as he had done about his wrecked life, yet he
knew now that every word he had spoken was true. What did the future
hold out to him? Not even the incentive to live. He found himself
walking toward the tent, but, not wishing to meet Renmark in his
present frame of mind, he turned and came out on the Ridge Road. He was
tired and broken, and resolved to stay in camp until they arrested him.
Then perhaps she might have some pity on him. Who was the other man she
loved? or had she merely said that to give finality to her refusal? In
his present mood he pictured the worst, and imagined her the wife of
some neighboring farmer--perhaps even of Stoliker. These country girls,
he said to himself, never believed a man was worth looking at unless he
owned a farm. He would save his money, and buy up the whole
neighborhood; _then_ she would realize what she had missed. He
climbed up on the fence beside the road, and sat on the top rail, with
his heels resting on a lower one, so that he might enjoy his misery
without the fatigue of walking. His vivid imagination pictured himself
as the owner in a few years' time of a large section of that part of
the country, with mortgages on a good deal of the remainder, including
the farm owned by Margaret's husband. He saw her now, a farmer's faded
wife, coming to him and begging for further time in which to pay the
seven per cent. due. He knew he would act magnanimously on such an
occasion, and grandly give her husband all the time he required.
Perhaps then she would realize the mistake she had made. Or perhaps
fame, rather than riches, would be his line. His name would ring
throughout the land. He might become a great politician, and bankrupt
Canada with a rigid tariff law. The unfairness of making the whole
innocent people suffer for the inconsiderate act of one of them did not
occur to him at the moment, for he was humiliated and hurt. There is no
bitterness like that which assails the man who has been rejected by the
girl he adores--while it lasts. His eye wandered toward the black mass
of the Howard house. It was as dark as his thoughts. He turned his head
slowly around, and, like a bright star of hope, there glimmered up the
road a flickering light from the Bartletts' parlor window. Although
time had stopped as far as he was concerned, he was convinced it could
not be very late, or the Bartletts would have gone to bed. It is always
difficult to realize that the greatest of catastrophes are generally
over in a few minutes. It seemed an age since he walked so hopefully
away from the tent. As he looked at the light the thought struck him
that perhaps Kitty was alone in the parlor. She at least would not have
treated him so badly as the other girl; and--and she was pretty, too,
come to think of it. He always did like a blonde better than a
brunette.

A fence rail is not a comfortable seat. It is used in some parts of the
country in such a manner as to impress the sitter with the fact of its
extreme discomfort, and as a gentle hint that his presence is not
wanted in that immediate neighborhood. Yates recollected this, with a
smile, as he slid off and stumbled into the ditch by the side of the
road. His mind had been so preoccupied that he had forgotten about the
ditch. As he walked along the road toward the star that guided him he
remembered he had recklessly offered Miss Kitty to the callous
professor. After all, no one knew about the episode of a short time
before except himself and Margaret, and he felt convinced she was not a
girl to boast of her conquests. Anyhow, it didn't matter. A man is
surely master of himself.

As he neared the window he looked in. People are not particular about
lowering the blinds in the country. He was rather disappointed to see
Mrs. Bartlett sitting there knitting, like the industrious woman she
was. Still it was consoling to note that none of the men-folks were
present, and that Kitty, with her fluffy hair half concealing her face,
sat reading a book he had lent to her. He rapped at the door, and it
was opened by Mrs. Bartlett, with some surprise.

"For the land's sake! is that you, Mr. Yates?"

"It is."

"Come right in. Why, what's the matter with you? You look as if you had
lost your best friend. Ah, I see how it is,"--Yates started,--"you have
run out of provisions, and are very likely as hungry as a bear."

"You've hit it first time, Mrs. Bartlett. I dropped around to see if I
could borrow a loaf of bread. We don't bake till to-morrow."

Mrs. Bartlett laughed.

"Nice baking you would do if you tried it. I'll get you a loaf in a
minute. Are you sure one is enough?"

"Quite enough, thank you."

The good woman bustled out to the other room for the loaf, and Yates
made good use of her temporary absence.

"Kitty," he whispered, "I want to see you alone for a few minutes. I'll
wait for you at the gate. Can you slip out?"

Kitty blushed very red and nodded.

"They have a warrant out for my arrest, and I'm off to-morrow before
they can serve it. But I couldn't go without seeing you. You'll come,
sure?"

Again Kitty nodded, after looking up at him in alarm when he spoke of
the warrant. Before anything further could be said Mrs. Bartlett came
in, and Kitty was absorbed in her book.

"Won't you have something to eat now before you go back?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Mrs. Bartlett. You see, the professor is waiting
for me."

"Let him wait, if he didn't have sense enough to come."

"He didn't. I offered him the chance."

"It won't take us a moment to set the table. It is not the least
trouble."

"Really, Mrs. Bartlett, you are very kind. I am not in the slightest
degree hungry now. I am merely taking some thought of the morrow. No; I
must be going, and thank you very much."

"Well," said Mrs. Bartlett, seeing him to the door, "if there's
anything you want, come to me, and I will let you have it if it's in
the house."

"You are too good to me," said the young man with genuine feeling, "and
I don't deserve it; but I may remind you of your promise--to-morrow."

"See that you do," she answered. "Good-night."

Yates waited at the gate, placing the loaf on the post, where he forgot
it, much to the astonishment of the donor in the morning. He did not
have to wait long, for Kitty came around the house somewhat
shrinkingly, as one who was doing the most wicked thing that had been
done since the world began. Yates hastened to meet her, clasping one of
her unresisting hands in his.

"I must be off to-morrow," he began.

"I am very sorry," answered Kitty in a whisper.

"Ah, Kitty, you are not half so sorry as I am. But I intend to come
back, if you will let me. Kitty, you remember that talk we had in the
kitchen, when we--when there was an interruption, and when I had to go
away with our friend Stoliker?"

Kitty indicated that she remembered it.

"Well, of course you know what I wanted to say to you. Of course you
know what I want to say to you now."

It seemed, however, that in this he was mistaken, for Kitty had not the
slightest idea, and wanted to go into the house, for it was late, and
her mother would miss her.

"Kitty, you darling little humbug, you know that I love you. You must
know that I have loved you ever since the first day I saw you, when you
laughed at me. Kitty, I want you to marry me and make something of me,
if that is possible. I am a worthless fellow, not half good enough for
a little pet like you; but, Kitty, if you will only say 'yes,' I will
try, and try hard, to be a better man than I have ever been before."

Kitty did not say "yes" but she placed her disengaged hand, warm and
soft, upon his, and Yates was not the man to have any hesitation about
what to do next. To practical people it may seem an astonishing thing
that, the object of the interview being happily accomplished, there
should be any need of prolonging it; yet the two lingered there, and he
told her much of his past life, and of how lonely and sordid it had
been because he had no one to care for him--at which her pretty eyes
filled with tears. She felt proud and happy to think she had won the
first great love of a talented man's life, and hoped she would make him
happy, and in a measure atone for the emptiness of the life that had
gone before. She prayed that he might always be as fond of her as he
was then, and resolved to be worthy of him if she could.

Strange to say, her wishes have been amply fulfilled, and few wives are
as happy or as proud of their husbands as Kitty Yates. The one woman
who might have put the drop of bitterness in her cup of life merely
kissed her tenderly when Kitty told her of the great joy that had come
to her, and said she was sure she would be happy; and thus for the
second time Margaret told the thing that was not, but for once Margaret
was wrong in her fears.

Yates walked to the tent a glorified man, leaving his loaf on the
gatepost behind him. Few realize that it is quite as pleasant to be
loved as to love. The verb "to love" has many conjugations. The earth
he trod was like no other ground he had ever walked upon. The magic of
the June night was never so enchanting before. He strode along with his
head and his thoughts in the clouds, and the Providence that cares for
the intoxicated looked after him, and saw that the accepted lover came
to no harm. He leaped the fence without even putting his hand to it,
and then was brought to earth again by the picture of a man sitting
with his head in his hands beside a dying fire.




CHAPTER XXIII.


Yates stood for a moment regarding the dejected attitude of his friend.

"Hello, old man!" he cried, "you have the most 'hark-from-the-tombs'
appearance I ever saw. What's the matter?"

Renmark looked up.

"Oh, it's you, is it?"

"Of course it's I. Been expecting anybody else?"

"No. I have been waiting for you, and thinking of a variety of things."

"You look it. Well, Renny, congratulate me, my boy. She's mine, and I'm
hers--which are two ways of stating the same delightful fact. I'm up in
a balloon, Renny. I'm engaged to the prettiest, sweetest, and most
delightful girl there is from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What d'ye
think of that? Say, Renmark, there's nothing on earth like it. You
ought to reform and go in for being in love. It would make a man of
you. Champagne isn't to be compared to it. Get up here and dance, and
don't sit there like a bear nursing a sore paw. Do you comprehend that
I am to be married to the darlingest girl that lives?"

"God help her!"

"That's what I say. Every day of her life, bless her! But I don't say
it quite in that tone, Renmark. What's the matter with you? One would
think you were in love with the girl yourself, if such a thing were
possible."

"Why is it not possible?"

"If that is a conundrum, I can answer it the first time. Because you
are a fossil. You are too good, Renny; therefore dull and
uninteresting. Now, there is nothing a woman likes so much as to
reclaim a man. It always annoys a woman to know that the man she is
interested in has a past with which she has had nothing to do. If he is
wicked and she can sort of make him over, like an old dress, she revels
in the process. She flatters herself she makes a new man of him, and
thinks she owns that new man by right of manufacture. We owe it to the
sex, Renny, to give 'em a chance at reforming us. I have known men who
hated tobacco take to smoking merely to give it up joyfully for the
sake of the women they loved. Now, if a man is perfect to begin with,
what is a dear, ministering angel of a woman to do with him? Manifestly
nothing. The trouble with you, Renny, is that you are too evidently
ruled by a good and well-trained conscience, and naturally all women
you meet intuitively see this, and have no use for you. A little
wickedness would be the making of you."

"You think, then, that if a man's impulse is to do what his conscience
tells him is wrong, he should follow his impulse, and not his
conscience?"

"You state the case with unnecessary seriousness. I believe that an
occasional blow-out is good for a man. But if you ever have an impulse
of that kind, I think you should give way to it for once, just to see
how it feels. A man who is too good gets conceited about himself."

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