He is purely your creation. Nature has very evidently given him up. He is dead. You are restoring him to life. You are making him, and he will be a monster, and with no mind.«

»He will be what you like, judge,« cried Trescott, in sudden, polite fury. »He will be anything, but, by God! he saved my boy.«

The judge interrupted in a voice trembling with emotion: »Trescott! Trescott! Don't I know?«

Trescott had subsided to a sullen mood. »Yes, you know,« he answered, acidly; »but you don't know all about your own boy being saved from death.« This was a perfectly childish allusion to the judge's bachelorhood. Trescott knew that the remark was infantile, but he seemed to take desperate delight in it.

But it passed the judge completely. It was not his spot.

»I am puzzled,« said he, in profound thought. »I don't know what to say.«

Trescott had become repentant. »Don't think I don't appreciate what you say, judge. But –«

»Of course!« responded the judge, quickly. »Of course.«

»It –« began Trescott.

»Of course,« said the judge.

In silence they resumed their dinner.

»Well,« said the judge, ultimately, »it is hard for a man to know what to do.«

»It is,« said the doctor, fervidly.

There was another silence. It was broken by the judge:

»Look here, Trescott; I don't want you to think –«

»No, certainly not,« answered the doctor, earnestly.

»Well, I don't want you to think I would say anything to – It was only that I thought that I might be able to suggest to you that – perhaps – the affair was a little dubious.«

With an appearance of suddenly disclosing his real mental perturbation, the doctor said: »Well, what would you do? Would you kill him?« he asked, abruptly and sternly.

»Trescott, you fool,« said the old man, gently.

»Oh, well, I know, judge, but then –« He turned red, and spoke with new violence: »Say, he saved my boy – do you see? He saved my boy.«

»You bet he did,« cried the judge, with enthusiasm. »You bet he did.« And they remained for a time gazing at each other, their faces illuminated with memories of a certain deed.

After another silence, the judge said, »It is hard for a man to know what to do.«

 

 

XII

Late one evening Trescott, returning from a professional call, paused his buggy at the Hagenthorpe gate. He tied the mare to the old tin-covered post, and entered the house. Ultimately he appeared with a companion – a man who walked slowly and carefully, as if he were learning. He was wrapped to the heels in an old-fashioned ulster. They entered the buggy and drove away.

After a silence only broken by the swift and musical humming of the wheels on the smooth road, Trescott spoke. »Henry,« he said, »I've got you a home here with old Alek Williams. You will have everything you want to eat and a good place to sleep, and I hope you will get along there all right. I will pay all your expenses, and come to see you as often as I can. If you don't get along, I want you to let me know as soon as possible, and then we will do what we can to make it better.«

The dark figure at the doctor's side answered with a cheerful laugh. »These buggy wheels don' look like I washed 'em yestehday, docteh,« he said.

Trescott hesitated for a moment, and then went on insistently, »I am taking you to Alek Williams, Henry, and I –«

The figure chuckled again. »No, 'deed! No seh! Alek Williams don' know a hoss! 'Deed he don't. He don' know a hoss from a pig.« The laugh that followed was like the rattle of pebbles.

Trescott turned and looked sternly and coldly at the dim form in the gloom from the buggy-top. »Henry,« he said, »I didn't say anything about horses. I was saying –«

»Hoss? Hoss?« said the quavering voice from these near shadows. »Hoss? 'Deed I don't know all erbout a hoss! 'Deed I don't.« There was a satirical chuckle.

At the end of three miles the mare slackened and the doctor leaned forward, peering, while holding tight reins. The wheels of the buggy bumped often over out-cropping bowlders.