The Landloper by Holman Day (ereader ebook .txt) 📖

going to bring you down a little," he sneered. "I hate to do it, but you've got to be shown where your real friends are. I have given your mother a chance to say something to you, and say it right. But she hasn't done it, and I don't propose to be made the goat." In his anger he was not choice in his language. "You go home and ask her whether or not she owes me five thousand dollars. Oh, you needn't open your eyes at me in that style! It's time we all got down to cases in this thing, Kate. I've waited for her long enough. She has simply fluffed me along. Now she has got to do her part."
"Have you lost your mind?" she demanded.
"No! But I lost five thousand dollars when I loaned it to your mother. Kate, she told me she had a stock deal on--that she would be able to pay it back. Listen! I may as well go the limit with you. I took money that wasn't mine so that I could help your mother out--it was because I loved you. Now you realize how much I have loved you. I protected your mother. And now, by the gods, if you and she don't come to the scratch in this thing and do right by me I'll show up why she had to be protected, and after that you'll never draw a happy breath again in your life. I advised you to talk with your mother once before. This time you'd better to it."
She leaned back in her chair, white and trembling, for his tones carried conviction.
"I have hated to open this thing up, Kate. I have waited a long time, hoping you'd understand that I would make a good husband--that I deserved to have you. I'm only speaking out now so that you'll wake up. You've got to stand by the man who has stood by you. Go talk with your mother!"
After he had hurried out she went back to her work, but her fingers could only fumble at the keys. By effort of will persons of strong character can compose themselves after disaster has been confirmed; but impending disaster that is hinted at--guessed at--is a menace which paralyzes. She was endeavoring to write down what Richard Dodd had revealed of the plans of Walker Farr. She understood that the mighty power of the state machine was now doubling its fist over the head of the stranger who had come into her life in such peculiar fashion. At the same moment she was cowering under the threat of something she did not fully understand.
And from the Dodds--uncle and nephew--came the menace which loomed over both of them.
Then to her came Peter Briggs, who had been summoned to a conference in the inner office; by direction of his chief he had been reading to Judge Warren certain entries penciled in the note-book which he guarded with the elastic band.
"The governor wants you to add these items to the record, so that the judge can have a copy," said Mr. Briggs to the confidential secretary. "The subject isn't a very genteel one, Miss Kilgour, but orders are orders, and you'll have to excuse me."
And Mr. Briggs kept snapping the elastic band nervously while he dictated, carefully looking away from the young woman.
In such manner Kate Kilgour learned of the existence of Zelie Dionne and of the child whom Walker Farr had protected; Mr. Briggs's zeal in the interest of his employer had made him a partisan in that affair, with easy conscience regarding the matter of the details. The bald record showed that Farr and the girl had cared for the child between them, had nursed it with grief and solicitude, had borne it to the plot of land where the little graves were crowded so closely. Mr. Briggs complacently avoided dates and age and the minuter details. He even pleaded the case, having caught a cue from Colonel Dodd; his record left the impression that Walker Farr, who had come from nowhere--nobody knew when--had lived in Marion unknown and unnoticed at the time when he had compassed the ruin of a confiding girl.
"A scalawag, and a bad one!" commented Mr. Briggs, closing his note-book. "And of course there's worse to come! Posing as a reformer--that's the way such renegades work the thing. A new game for every new place!"
And Kate Kilgour, remembering the vagrant on the broad highway, wrote down the arraignment of this person, trying to understand her emotions.
Her own eyes had seen him garbed as a tramp, plainly a homeless nomad.
Her ears had just listened to the story of his shame.
But after a time, in spite of what she had seen and heard, that strange instinct which dominates the feminine mind in spite of what the mere senses affirm took possession of her.
She had known from the first that Richard Dodd's garments, his attitude, his professions, his position did not make him what her woman's heart desired.
But, somehow, this other man, no matter what he seemed to be from outward appearance, stood forth for her from all the world. At times, in her ponderings, she had disgustedly termed her mood regarding him pure lunacy. Then she gave rein to the domination of her intuition; the man was not what he seemed to be!
She determined to put him out of her thoughts for ever.
Just then, however, writing out the story of his turpitude, she must needs have him in her mind.
She wondered whether he were honest in his attempts to help the poor people.
She had believed that he was when he had faced Colonel Dodd.
She determined that she would make some investigation of her own in regard to the mysterious person who had taken such possession of her thoughts since she had met him in the highway--whose personality had so pricked her curiosity. She comforted herself by calling her interest mere curiosity. That was it! If this man were what they claimed he was she might help in revealing him as an enemy of the poor folks.
And then to her came another thought.
She looked around the offices where she worked and bitter lines were etched in her forehead and about her mouth.
The place had become hateful. She was conscious of a passionate desire to be free from the atmosphere of that central web of the Great Spider.
She bent over her work and hurried.
What was the shadow over her home?
She realized that she was not thinking clearly in the matter. She knew that impulse was driving her. But it was impulse which was uncontrollable. For a long time she had understood the sinister influence which had radiated from that office in the First National block. But it had been rather the impersonal influence of partisan politics and she had had little knowledge of the persons concerned. But, now that the situation had been so sharply pointed by recent happenings, she understood better what had gone on in the past.
This stranger, whoever he was, seemed to be fighting for the good of the people. She had heard him declare his principles boldly; she knew the selfishness of the men who opposed him. She resolved to know more.
It was close upon six o'clock when she finished the transcription.
She had given much thought to her own affairs while she had been working. And now she allowed impulse to dominate. She resolved to leave that employment which brought her into contact with Richard Dodd and where her duties required her to prepare material for the ruin of a man who seemed to be doing an unselfish duty, no matter what they said. She did not try to analyze that quixotic impulse; she merely obeyed.
She tied up the packet of manuscript, addressed it to Colonel Dodd, and slipped under the string a sealed note. In that note she resigned her position, stating that a matter of personal honor demanded that she leave instantly. She did not qualify that statement by any explanation. But she knew in her own heart just what it meant. For when she left the office she did not hasten straight home as her anxious fears prompted her; she made a detour around by Gamonic Mill in search of one Provancher, who, she had learned, tended the rack of the canal.
The thought that dominated all other thoughts and comforted her was the reflection that she was no longer the confidential secretary of Colonel Symonds Dodd, and that now she might obey certain promptings of both curiosity and conscience.
The rumble of the big turbines was stilled when she came to the fence which surrounded the rack, and old Etienne was starting away with rake and pike-pole. But when she called he came to her--wondering, much abashed, for she was by far the prettiest lady he had ever seen.
"Are you the friend of Mr. Walker Farr?" she asked, and she was even more embarrassed than he.
"I am too poor mans to be call a friend, ma'm'selle. I can just say that he is grand mans that I love."
"Then you are the one to give him this message. Tell him that men who are fighting him in politics intend to do him great harm and that he must be very careful. Tell him that he will understand who these men are."
"_Oui_, ma'm'selle. But will he understand who tell me that thing?"
Her cheeks were crimson. "No, no! He mustn't know that."
"Then he will tell me, 'Poh, old Etienne, you know nottings what you talk about.' He is very bold mans, and he not scare very easy."
"But he must be cautious, for these men have power. He need not be afraid of them, but he must watch carefully. You tell him that they want to make out bad things about him so that they can print them in the papers and hurt the cause he is working for. Can you remember?"
"_Oui_, ma'm'selle! I never forget anything what may be for his good. I will tell him."
She hesitated for a long time and stared wistfully at the old man. She started to go away and then returned to the fence, plainly mustering her courage.
"Do you know whether there is anything--about him--which wicked men can use to hurt him?" she stammered.
"I only know about him what I know, ma'm'selle," he replied, with a gentle smile nestling in the wrinkles of his withered face.
"Could you tell me some of the things you know?" she asked, after much effort, striving to make her voice calmly inquiring.
Old Etienne set the rake and the pike-pole against the fence. "I will be quick in what I tell you, ma'm'selle, for I have no place to ask you to take the seat. But I'm sure you will listen very well to this what I say."
And he told her the story of Rosemarie.
But he did not go back as far as the pitiful figure on the canal bank, he made no mention of the water-soaked wad of paper which bore a mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten. He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding that this man who had come into her life possessed depths which she longed to probe.
"But the child!" she ventured, after Etienne had finished the story of how the