The Prodigal Judge
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE JUDGE RECEIVES A LETTER
After he had parted with Solomon Mahaffy the judge applied himself diligently
to shaping that miracle-working document which he was preparing as an offset to
whatever risk he ran in meeting Fentress. As sanguine as he was sanguinary he
confidently expected to survive the encounter, yet it was well to provide for a
possible emergency—had he not his grandson's future to consider? While thus
occupied he saw the afternoon stage arrive and depart from before the City
Tavern.
Half an hour later Mr. Wesley, the postmaster, came sauntering up the street.
In his hand he carried a letter.
"Howdy," he drawled, from just beyond the judge's open door.
The judge glanced up, his quill pen poised aloft.
"Good evening, sir; won't you step inside and be seated?" he asked
graciously. His dealings with the United States mail service were of the most
insignificant description, and in personally delivering a letter, if this was
what had brought him there, he felt Mr. Wesley had reached the limit of official
courtesy and despatch.
"Well, sir; it looks like you'd never told us more than two-thirds of the
truth!" said the postmaster. He surveyed the judge curiously.
"I am complimented by your opinion of my veracity," responded that gentleman
promptly. "I consider two-thirds an enormously high per cent to have achieved."
"There is something in that, too," agreed Mr. Wesley. "Who is Colonel Slocum
Price Turberville?"
The judge started up from his chair.
"I have that honor," said he, bowing.
"Well, here's a letter come in addressed like that, and as you've been using
part of the name I am willing to assume you're legally entitled to the rest of
it. It clears up a point that off and on has troubled me considerable. I can
only wonder I wa'n't smarter."
"What point, may I ask?"
"Why, about the time you hung out your shingle here, some one wrote a letter
to General Jackson. It was mailed after night, and when I seen it in the morning
I was clean beat. I couldn't locate the handwriting and yet I kept that letter
back a couple of days and give it all my spare time. It ain't that I'm one of
your spying sort—there's nothing of the Yankee about me!"
"Certainly not," agreed the judge.
"Candid, Judge, I reckon you wrote that letter, seeing this one comes under a
frank from Washington. No, sir—I couldn't make out who was corresponding with
the president and it worried me, not knowing, more than anything I've had to
contend against since I came into office. I calculate there ain't a postmaster
in the United States takes a more personal interest in the service than me. I've
frequently set patrons right when they was in doubt as to the date they had
mailed such and such a letter." As Mr. Wesley sometimes canceled as many as
three or four stamps in a single day he might have been pardoned his pride in a
brain which thus lightly dealt with the burden of official business. He
surrendered the letter with marked reluctance.
"Your surmise is correct," said the judge with dignity. "I had occasion to
write my friend, General Jackson, and unless I am greatly mistaken I have my
answer here." And with a fine air of indifference he tossed the letter on the
table.
"And do you know Old Hickory?" cried Mr. Wesley.
"Why not? Does it surprise you?" inquired the judge. It was only his innate
courtesy which restrained him from kicking the postmaster into the street, so
intense was his desire to be rid of him.
"No, I don't know as it does, judge. Naturally a public man like him is in
the way of meeting with all sorts. A politician can't afford to be too blame
particular. Well, next time you write you might just send him my regards—G. W.
M. de L. Wesley's regards—there was considerable contention over my getting this
office; I reckon he ain't forgot. There was speeches made, I understand the lie
was passed between two United States senators, and that a quid of tobacco was
throwed in anger." Having thus clearly established the fact that he was a more
or less national character, Mr. Wesley took himself off.
When he had disappeared from sight down the street, the judge closed the
door. Then he picked up the letter. For along minute he held it in his hand,
uncertain, fearful, while his mind slipped back into the past until his inward
searching vision ferreted out a handsome soldierly figure—his own.
"That's what Jackson remembers if he remembers anything!" he muttered, as
with trembling fingers he broke the seal. Almost instantly a smile overspread
his battered features. He hitched his chin higher and squared his ponderous
shoulders. "I am not forgotten—no, damn it—no!" he exulted under his breath,
"recalls me with sincere esteem and considers my services to the country as well
worthy of recognition—" the judge breathed deep. What would Mahaffy find to say
now! Certainly this was well calculated to disturb the sour cynicism of his
friend. His bleared eyes brimmed. After all his groping he had touched hands
with the realities at last! Even a federal judgeship, though not an office of
the first repute in the south had its dignity—it signified something! He would
make Solomon his clerk! The judge reached for his hat. Mahaffy must know at once
that fortune had mended for them. Why, at that moment he was actually in receipt
of an income!
He sat down, the better to enjoy the unique sensation. Taxes were being
levied and collected with no other end in view than his stipend—his ardent fancy
saw the whole machinery of government in operation for his benefit. It was a
singular feeling he experienced. Then promptly his spendthrift brain became
active. He needed clothes—so did Mahaffy—so did his grandson; they must take a
larger house; he would buy himself a man servant; these were pressing
necessities as he now viewed them.
Once again he reached for his hat, the desire to rush off to Belle Plain was
overmastering.
"I reckon I'd be justified in hiring a conveyance from Pegloe," he thought,
but just here he had a saving memory of his unfinished task; that claimed
precedence and he resumed his pen.
An hour later Pegloe's black boy presented himself to the judge. He came
bearing a gift, and the gift appropriately enough was a square case bottle of
respectable size. The judge was greatly touched by this attention, but he began
by making a most temperate use of the tavern-keeper's offering; then as the
formidable document he was preparing took shape under his hand he more and more
lost that feeling of Spartan fortitude which had at first sustained him in the
presence of temptation. He wrote and sipped in complete and quiet luxury, and
when at last he had exhausted the contents of the bottle it occurred to him that
it would be only proper personally to convey his thanks to Pegloe. Perhaps he
was not uninspired in this by ulterior hopes; if so, they were richly rewarded.
The resources of the City Tavern were suddenly placed at his disposal. He
attributed this to a variety of causes all good and sufficient, but the real
reason never suggested itself, indeed it was of such a perfidious nature that
the judge, open and generous-minded, could not have grasped it.
By six o'clock he was undeniably drunk; at eight he was sounding still deeper
depths of inebriety with only the most confused memory of impending events; at
ten he collapsed and was borne up-stairs by Pegloe and his black boy to a remote
chamber in the kitchen wing. Here he was undressed and put to bed, and the
tavernkeeper, making a bundle of his clothes, retired from the room, locking the
door after him, and the judge was doubly a prisoner.
Rousing at last from a heavy dreamless sleep the judge was aware of a faint
impalpable light in his room, the ashen light of a dull October dawn. He was
aware, too, of a feeling of profound depression. He knew this was the aftermath
of indulgence and that he might look forward to forty-eight hours of utter
misery of soul, and, groaning aloud, he closed his eyes, Sleep was the thing if
he could compass it. Instead, his memory quickened. Something was to happen at
sunup—he could not recall what it was to be, though he distinctly remembered
that Mahaffy had spoken of this very matter—Mahaffy, the austere and implacable,
the disembodied conscience whose fealty to duty had somehow survived his own
spiritual ruin, so that he had become a sort of moral sign-post, ever pointing
the way yet never going it himself. The judge lay still and thought deeply as
the light intensified itself. What was it that Mahaffy had said he was to do at
sun-up? The very hour accented his suspicions. Probably it was no more than some
cheerless obligation to be met, or Mahaffy would not have been so concerned
about it. Eventually he decided to refer everything to Mahaffy. He spoke his
friend's name weakly and in a shaking voice, but received no answer.
"Solomon!" he repeated, and shifting his position, looked in what should have
been the direction of the shake-down bed his friend occupied. Neither the bed
nor Mahaffy were there. The judge gasped he wondered if this were not a
premonition of certain hallucinations to which he was not a stranger. Then all
in a flash he remembered Fentress and the meeting at Boggs', something of how
the evening had been spent, and a spasm of regret shook him.
"I had other things to think of. This must never happen again!" he told
himself remorsefully.
He was wide-awake now. Doubtless Pegloe had put him to bed. Well, that had
been thoughtful of Pegloe—he would not forget him—the City Tavern should
continue to enjoy his patronage. It would be something for Pegloe to boast of
that judge Slocum Price Turberville always made his place headquarters when in
Raleigh. Feeling that he had already conferred wealth and distinction on the
fortunate Pegloe the judge thrust his fat legs over the side of his bed and
stood erect. Stooping he reached for his clothes. He confidently expected to
find them on the floor, but his hand merely swept an uncarpeted waste. The judge
was profoundly astonished.
"Maybe I've got 'em on, I don't recall taking them off!" he thought
hopefully. He moved uncertainly in the direction of the window where the light
showed him his own bare extremities. He reverted to his original idea that his
clothes were scattered about the floor.
He was beginning to experience a great sense of haste, it was two miles to
Boggs' and Fentress would be there at sun-up. Finally he abandoned his quest of
the missing garments and turned to the door. To say that he was amazed when he
found it locked would have most inadequately described his emotions. Breathing
deep, he fell back a step or two, and then with all the vigor he could muster
launched himself at the door. But it resisted him. "It's bolted on the other
side!" he muttered, the full measure of Pegloe's perfidy revealing itself to his
mind.
He was aghast. It was a plot to discredit him. Pegloe's hospitality had been
inspired by his enemy, for Pegloe was Fentress' tenant.
Again he attacked the door; he believed it might be possible to force it from
its hinges, but Pegloe had done his work too well for that, and at last, spent
and breathless, the judge dropped down on the edge of his bed to consider the
situation. He was without clothes and he was a prisoner, yet his mind rose
splendidly to meet the difficulties that beset him. His greatest activities were
reserved for what appeared to be only a season of despair. He armed himself with
a threelegged stool he had found and turned once more to the door, but the stout
planks stood firm under his blows.
"Unless I get out of here in time I'm a ruined man!" thought the judge.
"After this Fentress will refuse to meet me!"
The window next engaged his attention. That, too, Pegloe had taken the
precaution to fasten, but a single savage blow of the stool shattered glass and
sash and left an empty space that framed the dawn's red glow. The judge looked
out and shook his head dubiously. It was twelve feet or more to the ground, a
risky drop for a gentleman of his years and build. The judge considered making a
rope of his bedding and lowering himself to the ground by means of it, he
remembered to have read of captives in that interesting French prison, the
Bastille, who did this. However, an equally ingenious but much more simple use
for his bedding occurred to him; it would form a soft and yielding substance on
which to alight. He gathered it up into his arms, feather-tick and all, and
pushed it through the window, then he wriggled out across the ledge, feet first,
and lowering himself to the full length of his arms, dropped.
He landed squarely on the rolled-up bed with a jar that shook him to his
center. Almost gaily he snatched up a quilt, draping it about him after the
manner of a Roman, toga, and thus lightly habited, started across Mr. Pegloe's
truck-patch, his one thought Boggs' and the sun. It would have served no purpose
to have gone home, since his entire wardrobe, except for the shirt on his back,
was in the tavern-keeper's possession, besides he had not a moment to lose, for
the sun was peeping at him over the horizon.
Unobserved he gained the edge of the town and the highroad that led past
Boggs' and stole a fearful glance over his shoulder. The sun was clear of the
treetops, he could even feel the lifeless dust grow warm beneath his feet; and
wrapping the quilt closer about him he broke into a labored run.
Some twenty minutes later Boggs' came in sight. He experienced a moment of
doubt—suppose Fentress had been there and gone! It was a hideous thought and the
judge groaned. Then at the other end of the meadow near the woods he
distinguished several men, Fentress and his friends beyond question. The judge
laughed aloud. In spite of everything he was keeping his engagement, he was
plucking his triumph out of the very dregs of failure. The judge threw himself
over the fence, a corner of the quilt caught on one of the rails; he turned to
release it, and in that instant two pistol shots rang out sharply in the morning
air.