"I done told Sister Adaline Hoskins," he said, "to come by here for dat book to-morrer mawnin" at sebin o"clock, for to kyar" it to de meetin" of de bo"d of "rangements, and dat book gwine to be here when she come."
So, Uncle Bushrod put on his old brown suit, got his thick hickory stick, and meandered through the almost deserted streets of Weymouthville. He entered the bank, unlocking the side door, and found the pa.s.s-book where he had left it, in the little back room used for consultations, where he always hung his coat. Looking about casually, he saw that everything was as he had left it, and was about to start for home when he was brought to a standstill by the sudden rattle of a key in the front door. Some one came quickly in, closed the door softly, and entered the counting-room through the door in the iron railing.
That division of the bank"s s.p.a.ce was connected with the back room by a narrow pa.s.sageway, now in deep darkness.
Uncle Bushrod, firmly gripping his hickory stick, tiptoed gently up this pa.s.sage until he could see the midnight intruder into the sacred precincts of the Weymouth Bank. One dim gas-jet burned there, but even in its nebulous light he perceived at once that the prowler was the bank"s president.
Wondering, fearful, undecided what to do, the old coloured man stood motionless in the gloomy strip of hallway, and waited developments.
The vault, with its big iron door, was opposite him. Inside that was the safe, holding the papers of value, the gold and currency of the bank. On the floor of the vault was, perhaps, eighteen thousand dollars in silver.
The president took his key from his pocket, opened the vault and went inside, nearly closing the door behind him. Uncle Bushrod saw, through the narrow aperture, the flicker of a candle. In a minute or two--it seemed an hour to the watcher--Mr. Robert came out, bringing with him a large hand-satchel, handling it in a careful but hurried manner, as if fearful that he might be observed. With one hand he closed and locked the vault door.
With a reluctant theory forming itself beneath his wool, Uncle Bushrod waited and watched, shaking in his concealing shadow.
Mr. Robert set the satchel softly upon a desk, and turned his coat collar up about his neck and ears. He was dressed in a rough suit of gray, as if for travelling. He glanced with frowning intentness at the big office clock above the burning gas-jet, and then looked lingeringly about the bank--lingeringly and fondly, Uncle Bushrod thought, as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes.
Now he caught up his burden again and moved promptly and softly out of the bank by the way he had come locking the front door behind him.
For a minute or longer Uncle Bushrod was as stone in his tracks. Had that midnight rifler of safes and vaults been any other on earth than the man he was, the old retainer would have rushed upon him and struck to save the Weymouth property. But now the watcher"s soul was tortured by the poignant dread of something worse than mere robbery.
He was seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the Weymouth honour were about to be lost. Ma.r.s.e Robert robbing the bank! What else could it mean? The hour of the night, the stealthy visit to the vault, the satchel brought forth full and with expedition and silence, the prowler"s rough dress, his solicitous reading of the clock, and noiseless departure--what else could it mean?
And then to the turmoil of Uncle Bushrod"s thoughts came the corroborating recollection of preceding events--Mr. Robert"s increasing intemperance and consequent many moods of royal high spirits and stern tempers; the casual talk he had heard in the bank of the decrease in business and difficulty in collecting loans.
What else could it all mean but that Mr. Robert Weymouth was an absconder--was about to fly with the bank"s remaining funds, leaving Mr. William, Miss Letty, little Nan, Guy, and Uncle Bushrod to bear the disgrace?
During one minute Uncle Bushrod considered these things, and then he awoke to sudden determination and action.
"Lawd! Lawd!" he moaned aloud, as he hobbled hastily toward the side door. "Sech a come-off after all dese here years of big doin"s and fine doin"s. Scan"lous sights upon de yearth when de Weymouth fambly done turn out robbers and "bezzlers! Time for Uncle Bushrod to clean out somebody"s chicken-coop and eben matters up. Oh, Lawd! Ma.r.s.e Robert, you ain"t gwine do dat. "N Miss Letty an" dem chillun so proud and talkin" "Weymouth, Weymouth," all de time! I"m gwine to stop you ef I can. "Spec you shoot Mr. n.i.g.g.e.r"s head off ef he fool wid you, but I"m gwine stop you ef I can."
Uncle Bushrod, aided by his hickory stick, impeded by his rheumatism, hurried down the street toward the railroad station, where the two lines touching Weymouthville met. As he had expected and feared, he saw there Mr. Robert, standing in the shadow of the building, waiting for the train. He held the satchel in his hand.
When Uncle Bushrod came within twenty yards of the bank president, standing like a huge, gray ghost by the station wall, sudden perturbation seized him. The rashness and audacity of the thing he had come to do struck him fully. He would have been happy could he have turned and fled from the possibilities of the famous Weymouth wrath. But again he saw, in his fancy, the white reproachful face of Miss Letty, and the distressed looks of Nan and Guy, should he fail in his duty and they question him as to his stewardship.
Braced by the thought, he approached in a straight line, clearing his throat and pounding with his stick so that he might be early recognized. Thus he might avoid the likely danger of too suddenly surprising the sometimes hasty Mr. Robert.
"Is that you, Bushrod?" called the clamant, clear voice of the gray ghost.
"Yes, suh, Ma.r.s.e Robert."
"What the devil are you doing out at this time of night?"
For the first time in his life, Uncle Bushrod told Ma.r.s.e Robert a falsehood. He could not repress it. He would have to circ.u.mlocute a little. His nerve was not equal to a direct attack.
"I done been down, suh, to see ol" Aunt M"ria Patterson. She taken sick in de night, and I kyar"ed her a bottle of M"lindy"s medercine.
Yes, suh."
"Humph!" said Robert. "You better get home out of the night air.
It"s damp. You"ll hardly be worth killing to-morrow on account of your rheumatism. Think it"ll be a clear day, Bushrod?"
"I "low it will, suh. De sun sot red las" night."
Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off--three miles away, at the Jimtown switch--he heard the faint whistle of the coming train, the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty, terrible Weymouth--he bearded him there at the brink of the awful thing that was about to happen.
"Ma.r.s.e Robert," he began, his voice quivering a little with the stress of his feelings, "you "member de day dey-all rode de tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin", and you crown Miss Lucy de queen?"
"Tournament?" said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth.
"Yes, I remember very well the--but what the deuce are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go "long home, Bushrod. I believe you"re sleep-walking."
"Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder," continued the old man, never heeding, "wid a s"ord, and say: "I mek you a knight, Suh Robert--rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach." Dat what Miss Lucy say. Dat"s been a long time ago, but me nor you ain"t forgot it. And den dar"s another time we ain"t forgot--de time when Miss Lucy lay on her las" bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: "Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr.
Robert. Seem like"--so Miss Lucy say--"he listen to you mo" dan to anybody else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to "suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be "round wid him. He am like a little child sometimes"--so Miss Lucy say, wid her eyes shinin" in her po", thin face--"but he always been"--dem was her words--"my knight, pure and fearless and widout reproach.""
Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.
"You--you old windbag!" he growled through a cloud of swirling cigar smoke. "I believe you are crazy. I told you to go home, Bushrod.
Miss Lucy said that, did she? Well, we haven"t kept the scutcheon very clear. Two years ago last week, wasn"t it, Bushrod, when she died? Confound it! Are you going to stand there all night gabbing like a coffee-coloured gander?"
The train whistled again. Now it was at the water tank, a mile away.
"Ma.r.s.e Robert," said Uncle Bushrod, laying his hand on the satchel that the banker held. "For Gawd"s sake, don" take dis wid you. I knows what"s in it. I knows where you got it in de bank. Don" kyar"
it wid you. Dey"s big trouble in dat valise for Miss Lucy and Miss Lucy"s child"s chillun. Hit"s bound to destroy de name of Weymouth and bow down dem dat own it wid shame and triberlation. Ma.r.s.e Robert, you can kill dis ole n.i.g.g.e.r ef you will, but don"t take away dis "er" valise. If I ever crosses over de Jordan, what I gwine to say to Miss Lucy when she ax me: "Uncle Bushrod, wharfo" didn" you take good care of Mr. Robert?""
Mr. Robert Weymouth threw away his cigar and shook free one arm with that peculiar gesture that always preceded his outbursts of irascibility. Uncle Bushrod bowed his head to the expected storm, but he did not flinch. If the house of Weymouth was to fall, he would fall with it. The banker spoke, and Uncle Bushrod blinked with surprise. The storm was there, but it was suppressed to the quietness of a summer breeze.
"Bushrod," said Mr. Robert, in a lower voice than he usually employed, "you have overstepped all bounds. You have presumed upon the leniency with which you have been treated to meddle unpardonably. So you know what is in this satchel! Your long and faithful service is some excuse, but--go home, Bushrod--not another word!"
But Bushrod grasped the satchel with a firmer hand. The headlight of the train was now lightening the shadows about the station. The roar was increasing, and folks were stirring about at the track side.
"Ma.r.s.e Robert, gimme dis "er" valise. I got a right, suh, to talk to you dis "er" way. I slaved for you and "tended to you from a child up. I went th"ough de war as yo" body-servant tell we whipped de Yankees and sent "em back to de No"th. I was at yo" weddin", and I was n" fur away when yo" Miss Letty was bawn. And Miss Letty"s chillun, dey watches to-day for Uncle Bushrod when he come home ever" evenin". I been a Weymouth, all "cept in colour and ent.i.tlements. Both of us is old, Ma.r.s.e Robert. "Tain"t goin" to be long till we gwine to see Miss Lucy and has to give an account of our doin"s. De ole n.i.g.g.e.r man won"t be "spected to say much mo" dan he done all he could by de fambly dat owned him. But de Weymouths, dey must say dey been livin" pure and fearless and widout reproach.
Gimme dis valise, Ma.r.s.e Robert--I"m gwine to hab it. I"m gwine to take it back to the bank and lock it up in de vault. I"m gwine to do Miss Lucy"s biddin". Turn "er loose, Ma.r.s.e Robert."
The train was standing at the station. Some men were pushing trucks along the side. Two or three sleepy pa.s.sengers got off and wandered away into the night. The conductor stepped to the gravel, swung his lantern and called: "h.e.l.lo, Frank!" at some one invisible. The bell clanged, the brakes hissed, the conductor drawled: "All aboard!"
Mr. Robert released his hold on the satchel. Uncle Bushrod hugged it to his breast with both arms, as a lover clasps his first beloved.
"Take it back with you, Bushrod," said Mr. Robert, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "And let the subject drop--now mind! You"ve said quite enough. I"m going to take the train. Tell Mr. William I will be back on Sat.u.r.day. Good night."
The banker climbed the steps of the moving train and disappeared in a coach. Uncle Bushrod stood motionless, still embracing the precious satchel. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving in thanks to the Master above for the salvation of the Weymouth honour.
He knew Mr. Robert would return when he said he would. The Weymouths never lied. Nor now, thank the Lord! could it be said that they embezzled the money in banks.
Then awake to the necessity for further guardianship of Weymouth trust funds, the old man started for the bank with the redeemed satchel.
Three hours from Weymouthville, in the gray dawn, Mr. Robert alighted from the train at a lonely flag-station. Dimly he could see the figure of a man waiting on the platform, and the shape of a spring-waggon, team and driver. Half a dozen lengthy bamboo fishing-poles projected from the waggon"s rear.
"You"re here, Bob," said Judge Archinard, Mr. Robert"s old friend and schoolmate. "It"s going to be a royal day for fishing. I thought you said--why, didn"t you bring along the stuff?"
The president of the Weymouth Bank took off his hat and rumpled his gray locks.