The Dr. fixed his piercing eyes upon Edward, for he began to suspect that his young friend"s views did not coincide with those which he had expressed.
Edward moved uneasily in his chair, bit his lips, and finally stammered out, "Well, I don"t know Dr., really, it seems like depriving a man of his liberty to legislate upon what he shall, or shall not sell."
"Even if he sells that which he knows will craze his neighbor"s brain, and cause him to commit the most atrocious crimes? When an individual directly, or indirectly aids and abets crime, ought he to escape punishment?"
Edward saw that he stood upon a plank of the rotten old platform, upon which so many have broken through, though they still hold to the decaying posts, and he ingeniously evaded the question.
"I"m afraid, Dr., you are over-exerting yourself," said he, "I will leave you to rest while I walk out and breathe the fresh air."
CHAPTER XI.
HARMLESS CONSPIRACY--THE GHOST--THE WIFE MURDERER--TIPPLING AND TATTLING--MISREPRESENTATIONS.
"Mr. Glutter, Dr. DeWolf wants you to fill this flask with brandy,"
said Sorrel Top entering the saloon of the former, about an hour after Edward had left the latter to repose.
"Certainly," said Hank, with a bland smile.
"Allow me to speak with you a moment, Mr. Glutter," said Edward Sherman, hastily leaving his seat near a billiard table, where he was watching the progress of a game, and taking Hank aside.
They whispered earnestly together for a few moments. "Very well," said Hank in conclusion, "I am willing to try that experiment if you wish it, but the Dr. is very stubborn, I have often tried to check him."
Then turning to Sorrel Top, "Tell the Dr. I have no brandy."
"Has no brandy?" exclaimed the Dr. as Sorrel Top delivered her message; "it"s a lie. O, I see how it is; Mr. Sherman was there, was he not?"
"Yes, sir."
Here the subject dropped, and the Dr. was unusually quiet and patient during the remainder of the day. But when Edward kindly offered to sit by him during the night, he would not listen to him.
"No, no," said he "I am quite well; the parade of watchers would only disturb my rest," so Edward contented himself to retire about midnight.
The Dr. lay perfectly quiet for an hour or two after Edward left him; he then crept softly out of bed, partially dressed himself, noiselessly out of bed, partially dressed himself, and then wrapping a sheet around him, crept out of the house, by a window which opened from the room to the piazza. Gliding down the steps and along the well-worn path he soon reached the brewery, and, as he was familiar with every part of the establishment, found no difficulty in gaining access to the saloon.
The proprietor was lying fast asleep in a room from which he could see and be seen by any one behind the bar. At the first click of the bottles he partially aroused and opened his eyes upon his ghost-like visitor.
Enveloped in white, and seen in the obscure light, the Dr."s. most familiar friends could not possibly have recognized him, and to Hank"s half awakened vision, he presented a really supernatural appearance.
Hank was not naturally superst.i.tious, and, obeying his first impulse, he shouted out, "Who in the d----l are you?"
The Dr. made a warning gesture with his hand, as if to compel silence, and the audacious questioner instinctively recoiled further back in his bed. His courage began to fail him, and a mixture of fear and astonishment kept him silent while his visitor remained, which was only long enough to secure the prize he was seeking among the contents of the shelves.
Not suspecting the full extent of the paralyzing effect his presence had had upon Hank, and fearing he might attempt to follow, the Dr.
took a circuitous route home, and in his haste stumbled over something which he discovered to be a shivering, half naked child, crouched upon the ground.
"What are you doing out here this time of night, my little fellow?"
said he.
"I"m afraid of papa," sobbed the child, "he said he"d skin me alive if I didn"t get out of his sight."
"What is your name? Where do you live? what bad thing have you been doing?" said the Dr., all in a breath.
"I live in a shanty out there, I am f.a.n.n.y Green. I ain"t done anything bad but cry, and I couldn"t help it, for papa was striking mamma so."
"Well, come with me, f.a.n.n.y, I"ll take you to your home, and I won"t let your papa hurt you."
"Are you an angel?" said f.a.n.n.y, feeling of the hand that held hers.
"No, I"m a man, my little girl."
"I thought you were one of those angels dressed in white that mamma told me about; they take folks to heaven, and I want to go there, I don"t want to go home."
They had now reached the wretched hovel that the child called her home, and she began to weep afresh.
"O, no, no! I dare not go in," she said, clinging convulsively to her protector, "I"m afraid he will kill me."
While she was speaking, the door was roughly flung open, and her unnatural parent rushed out, brandishing a heavy club; but, at sight of the figure clad in white, he dropped his bludgeon and ran off, howling like a wild beast deprived of its prey.
With a glad cry the child bounded into the shanty, and he heard her childish voice saying "mamma, don"t be afraid any more, papa has gone way off."
On reaching his room, the Dr. was relieved to find that his absence had remained undiscovered, and he drank himself off to sleep. He was, however, suddenly awakened quite early in the morning by loud exclamations coming from daddy, and, in the intervals, he distinguished the sound of the same childlike voice which was a.s.sociated with his night"s adventure. Immediately calling his old servant, he inquired the meaning of the commotion.
""Tween you and me," said daddy indignantly, "there"s more distruction; little f.a.n.n.y Green"s mother is dead; that brute of a husband has fairly killed her; knocked her skull in with a club."
"When did it happen?"
"O, in the night; f.a.n.n.y had run out door for to get out of his reach, and "tween you and me, she says a man with a white dress on led her back, and she found her mother dead on the floor. O! we"re havin" on"t dreadful now days; spirits walking the airth, never no good comes of sich things."
The murder and the reputed ghost, whom several of the inhabitants testified to having seen at the midnight hour, was the absorbing topic of conversation in the immediate neighborhood where the tragedy was enacted.
For several days succeeding the affair Hank Glutter"s saloon was the general rendezvous of the wonder-loving country people round about.
All appeared to enjoy the tippling vastly more than Hank himself.
It was not the thought of the needy wife sighing for the hard earned shilling, with which to provide for the many little forms that must go half clad, and the little feet uncovered during the approaching winter, for want of those bits of metal ringing out so sadly as they fell into his drawer, that clouded his unusually complacent smile; neither was it the remembrance of the cruel part he had acted in Little Wolf"s abduction that shook his sin-stained soul. He affected to discredit the appearance of the much-talked-of apparition, and yet he was continually tormented with a vague dread of a second visit from his ghost-ship, which he would have pursuaded himself was entirely a creature of the imagination, had not his missing fourth proof brandy bottle proved the contrary.
He had resolved not to mention the occurrence that had so strangely disturbed him, but, being one day alone with Edward, who had called particularly to make one of a company who were going out the day following to renew the search for Little Wolf, he ventured to communicate his secret to him.
"Why, Mr. Glutter, why didn"t you tell me before?" said Edward smiling in spite of the sad errand that had brought him there, "all this time you have needlessly tormented yourself."
"How so, Mr. Sherman?"
"Why, Dr. DeWolf swallows a portion of that fourth proof every day. I have no doubt it was he who paid you the visit. I am certain that he knows something about the murder of Mrs. Green, and he must have been the man in white that little f.a.n.n.y talks about. I see it all clearly now; Dr. DeWolf is the ghost, and he has kept his bed to prevent suspicion."
"I was confident," said Hank with a look of infinite relief, "that the Dr. would have his dram, spite of our machinations. I have known several such cases of apparently insatiable thirst, and it was impossible to keep liquor away from them. Sorrel Top"s husband, Harry Herrick, was the worst case of the kind that ever came under my observation. He drank quite moderately at first, but suddenly appeared to have lost all control over his appet.i.te. I reasoned with him in vain, and finally, out of pity to his family I refused him admission here altogether. Well, the result was he stole from my cellar what he could not beg; for the miserable creature was penniless, and before I was aware of it, he actually drank himself to death. It happened while Miss DeWolf was away at school, and on her return my conduct was basely misrepresented to her, and she espoused the widow"s cause and took her into her family, and ever after has treated me with contempt.
However, I harbor no ill will towards Miss DeWolf. I would gladly make one of your party, were it not entirely impossible for me to leave here; but believe me, I wish you success, Mr. Sherman."