Teeftallow/Chapter 19

THE abrupt closing of the meeting spread an aura of evil over the dismissed congregation. One old woman, Mrs. Wendler, trembled out that she felt like she was walking home "under condemnation." Her very phraseology held a Biblical flavour because the hill folk are a remnant of that violent religious ferment in England during the time of Wesley, Calvin, and Penn. Among the homeward procession prevailed the same fearful psychology. In the darkness they sensed the presence of the Prince of Darkness.

This sentience of vast evil pursued both Abner and Nessie back to the Scovell House. On the way they exchanged a few dampened remarks in low voices.

Once Nessie said, "Tug Beavers broke up the meeting."

Abner said he reckoned he did, but what made the preacher pick on Tug?

"I guess he saw Tug was a hard case."

For Nessie to call his friend a "hard case" disturbed Abner. He was surprised that the girl, whose moods so exquisitely fitted his own, should form so erroneous a judgment.

"Tug really wants to do right, Nessie," said Abner in the gentlest remonstrance.

The girl looked around at her companion in the gloom.

"He picked a poor way to show it—breakin' up the meetin'."

"It wasn't jest Tug."

"Why couldn't he go to the mourners' bench when the preacher ast him?"

"Well"—Abner could think of no reason why any mortal man should not go to the mourners' bench and bewail his ​sins publicly if a preacher requested it—"I don't know—nobody else got up neither."

"But the preacher ast him."

"Well, as I say, I don't know, but I tell you one thing: Tug means to throw his influence in the right direction, he's told me that lots of times."

The girl was astonished. "How can he unless he does right?"

"Why, he jest wants to throw his influence, you know, no matter what he does hisse'f."

"But that don't make no sense!"

"Why, it does!"

"How does it/"

"Why, his influence, Nessie . . ."

Abner could simply stare at her because he had already reduced his proposition to its lowest terms. He was unaware that he was trying to expound a bit of masculine mysticism which the innately logical feminine mind would always reject. Abner easily conceived Tug as a bundle of influences, desires, acts, tendencies, in which his act might point in one direction, his influence another, and so on to infinity; but Nessie, womanlike, kept all these components of a man fused into one indissoluble personality; she could not possibly conceive of a man acting one way and wanting to throw his influence another. When Abner's explanation had dissolved on his tongue, Nessie said quietly, but with the deep satisfaction that the woman who is in love with a man gets out of his downfalls when pitted against her:

"You see—you haven't got nothin' to say."

Her little self-satisfied tone, her unjust reflection on Tug, and the fact that he really had nothing to say, because the emotion he felt was too delicate for words—this wounded Abner. It amazed him that she did not feel it herself, and disappointed him.

"Well," said Abner flatly, "Tug's one of the best-hearted fellows in the world no matter what he does on the outside."

This, of course, was a simple restatement of his paradox.

​"I'm glad you think so," she said in a certain tone, and silence ensued.

Each knew that the other had been wounded. They walked the rest of way to the Scovell House almost in silence.

Now, on their way home, under the gloom of a certain elm, Abner had not exactly planned, but a notion certainly had flitted through his head that he would kiss Nessie, or at least attempt to; but now, after this unhappy discussion and the way she had said, "I'm glad you think so," the caress had become impossible. He really did not want to kiss her now. He would not if he could. If she should put her arms about his neck and say, "I was wrong, kiss me and forgive me," he would coldly undo her arms and say, "No, not after you are glad I think so. . . ."

Nevertheless, when the two came to the gloomy elm, Abner walked under it in a state of deep depression. He felt somehow as if Nessie had vanished and a strange girl walked in her stead. Then a flicker of his former apprehension for Tug passed through his mind.

"I do hope nothing has happened to Tug."

"What makes you think anything has?" asked Nessie in her cold voice.

"Well, the preacher has been tellin' what awful things happen to folks who don't do like he says."

"That's so," agreed Nessie, a little impressed, but still unsympathetic.

The rest of the way to the hotel they maintained a strained silence. They let themselves in the hotel door as silently as they could and went upstairs past the light on the newel post.

At his door Abner said, "Good-night" in an unnatural voice, and Nessie returned it briefly and hurried on. While Abner neither loved her nor would forgive her on any terms, he remained looking after her with a shaken feeling, his hand resting on his doorknob. He could not see her, but he heard her enter her room at the end of the hall, then ​heard her moving around on the inside. A few minutes later he could barely make out a suppressed sobbing.

As Abner listened, his heart went down and down in the most melancholy fashion. He felt as if he had committed a crime.

He went into his room and was too depressed even to strike a light; but got off his shoes and trousers and coat in the darkness and tumbled sickly into his unmade bed. A great weight lay on his diaphragm. Certainly the congregation was right—the devil was at large on this ill-starred night.

He lifted his head from his pillow and listened intently for a long time, but was not certain whether he could hear Nessie still sobbing or not. It seemed to him all possible joy had gone out of life.

The woes of eighteen are absolute; untempered by philosophy, unsoftened by comparison. They are the worst that can ever befall any human being.

Abner did not know how long he lay in the darkness with his head full of dismal fancies, but presently he became aware of a rumour of distant voices. How long he had heard it he did not know, but when he noticed it, he knew it had been going on for perhaps a minute. It had arisen by the faintest crescendo out of complete silence.

But now that he had heard it, it held a certain overtone that brought him up instantly, sitting on this side of his bed, holding his breath and listening. Presently the confusion resolved into voices and a clatter of hoofs. Somewhere down the street he heard a window raised and somebody called, "What's the matter?" He heard a reply, but could not catch the words. The sounds of hoofs grew louder, the voices came closer. Someone directed, "Go for a doctor!"

Abner jumped up from his bed, ran to his window, lifted the sash and looked out, letting the sash rest on his back.

Immediately the hoofbeats drew up at the hotel; out of the confusion a voice called desperately,

​"Abner Teeftaller! Abner! Abner Te-e-eftaller!"

"What is it?" shouted Abner, shocked at the tone.

"Come on down here, quick!"

"What's the matter?"

"Tug's hurt! We got to carry him up to his room!"

A shock of supernatural horror shot through Abner and chilled his face. He knew now this was what he had expected. He whirled, struck the corner of the dresser, banged down the window sash, cursed, groped for his clothes, found only his trousers, huddled into them; the next moment went hurrying in sock feet through the hallway.

He could see the dark shape of the banisters against the reflections from the lamp on the stairpost below. He started to run downstairs when the lamp moved. When he got to the head of the steps, he saw the light held aloft by a hand and four men bringing up the body of Tug Beavers. In the yellow illumination the ghastly face did not look like Tug's. The four men bore the body with the shaky carefulness of untrained nurses. As they worked upward, one of Tug's hands slipped off his body and hung down at an awkward angle. The bearers paused to lay it back on the stomach again.

Among the crowd streaming up after the body, Abner could hear, "Is he dead?" "I don't know." "Shot in the back." "Picked him up on the road from Squire Meredith's!" "Know who done it?" "Hell far, ever'body knows who done it!"

Moved by some violent impulse Abner whirled and dashed down the hall. He knocked sharply at the girl's door.

"Nessie! Nessie!" he called urgently.

Already a light was moving on the inside. The next moment the door opened and Nessie, with a candle in her hand, her hair down and in her nightgown, stared at Abner with a pale face.

"You were right, Nessie!" gasped the youth in a horror-struck voice.

"What do you mean—what is it?"

​"Peck Bradley shot Tug! I knew he would!"

Horror filled Nessie's face; she cried, "Oh, Abner!" and her shaking hand could hardly hold her candle.

Next moment Abner rushed back to his own room. The bearers were laying Tug on the bed, and up the crowded stairs hurried the doctor, the loiterers pressing to one side to let him pass.

The man of medicine had his bags. When he entered the room he called for more lights and a bowl of hot water. There was a confused passing of this message downstairs. Presently Miss Scovell appeared with her dress half fastened; in one hand she bore a plain lamp, in the other the flowered parlour lamp. Behind her, rather more than half asleep, dozed the Negro boy with a bowl of warm water insecurely held. Someone took it.

"Turn him over on his face," directed the doctor.

The four men turned Tug over. At the sight exposed came gasps and exclamations. Two or three of the weak-stomached left the room. The doctor stooped over Tug with probes and knives.

"Buckshot," he said in an undertone.

"Will he git well, Doctor?"

"How do I know! Get out of here, you folks who ain't doin' anything!"

There was a half-hearted movement toward the door. The doctor began cutting, and a number of the curious bolted from the room.

Among these was Abner.