The Stillwater Tragedy

  XIII

  After a turn through the shops to assure himself that order wasrestored, Richard withdrew in the direction of his studio. Margaretwas standing at the head of the stairs, half hidden by the scarletcreeper which draped that end of the veranda.

  "What are you doing there?" said Richard looking up with a brightsmile.

  "Oh, Richard, I saw it all!"

  "You didn't see anything worth having white cheeks about."

  "But he struck you ... with the knife, did he not?" saidMargaret, clinging to his arm anxiously.

  "He didn't have a knife, dear; only a small chisel, which couldn'thurt any one. See for yourself; it is merely a cat-scratch."

  Margaret satisfied herself that it was nothing more; but shenevertheless insisted on leading Richard into the workshop, andsoothing the slight inflammation with her handkerchief dipped inarnica and water. The elusive faint fragrance of Margaret's hair asshe busied herself about him would of itself have consoled Richardfor a deep wound. All this pretty solicitude and ministration was newand sweet to him, and when the arnica turned out to be cologne, andscorched his cheek, Margaret's remorse was so delicious that Richardhalf wished the mixture had been aquafortis.

  "You shouldn't have been looking into the yard," he said. "If Ihad known that you were watching us it would have distracted me. WhenI am thinking of you I cannot think of anything else, and I had needof my wits for a moment."

  "I happened to be on the veranda, and was too frightened to goaway. Why did you quarrel?"

  In giving Margaret an account of the matter, Richard refrainedfrom any mention of his humiliating visit to Welch's Court thatmorning. He could neither speak of it nor reflect upon it withcomposure. The cloud which shadowed his features from time to timewas attributed by Margaret to the affair in the yard.

  "But this is the end of it, is it not?" she asked, with troubledeyes. "You will not have any further words with him?"

  "You needn't worry. If Torrini had not been drinking he wouldnever have lifted his hand against me. When he comes out of hispresent state, he will be heartily ashamed of himself. His tongue isthe only malicious part of him. If he hadn't a taste for drink andoratory,--if he was not 'a born horator,' as Denyven calls him,--hewould do well enough."

  "No, Richard, he's a dreadful man. I shall never forget hisface,--it was some wild animal's. And you, Richard," added Margaretsoftly, "it grieved me to see you look like that."

  "I was wolfish for a moment, I suppose. Things had gone wronggenerally. But if you are going to scold me, Margaret, I would ratherhave some more--arnica."

  "I am not going to scold; but while you stood there, so white andterrible,--so unlike yourself,--I felt that I did not know you,Richard. Of course you had to defend yourself when the man attackedyou, but I thought for an instant you would kill him."

  "Not I," said Richard uneasily, dreading anything like a rebukefrom Margaret. "I am mortified that I gave up to my anger. There wasno occasion."

  "If an intoxicated person were to wander into the yard, papa wouldsend for a constable, and have the person removed."

  "Your father is an elderly man," returned Richard, not relishingthis oblique criticism of his own simpler method. "What would beproper in his case would be considered cowardly in mine. It was myduty to discharge the fellow, and not let him dispute my authority. Iought to have been cooler, of course. But I should have lost casteand influence with the men if I had shown the least personal fear ofTorrini,--if, for example, I had summoned somebody else to do what Ididn't dare do myself. I was brought up in the yard, remember, and toa certain extent I have to submit to being weighed in the yard's ownscales."

  "But a thing cannot be weighed in a scale incapable of containingit," answered Margaret. "The judgment of these rough, uninstructedmen is too narrow for such as you. They quarrel and fight amongthemselves, and have their ideas of daring; but there is a highersort of bravery, the bravery of self-control, which I fancy they donot understand very well; so their opinion of it is not worthconsidering. However, you know better than I."

  "No, I do not," said Richard. "Your instinct is finer than myreason. But you _are_ scolding me, Margaret."

  "No, I am loving you," she said softly. "How can I do that morefaithfully than by being dissatisfied with anything but the best inyou?"

  "I wasn't at my best a while ago?"

  "No, Richard."

  "I can never hope to be worthy of you."

  But Margaret protested against that. Having forced him to look athis action through her eyes, she outdid him in humility, and then theconversation drifted off into half-breathed nothings, which, thoughthey were satisfactory enough for these two, would have made a thirdperson yawn.

  The occurrence at Slocum's Yard was hotly discussed that night atthe Stillwater hotel. Discussions in that long, low bar-room, wherethe latest village scandal always came to receive the finishinggloss, were apt to be hot. In their criticism of outside men andmeasures, as well as in their mutual vivisections, there was anunflinching directness among Mr. Snelling's guests which is not to befound in more artificial grades of society. The popular verdict onyoung Shackford's conduct was as might not have been predicted,strongly in his favor. He had displayed pluck, and pluck of thetougher fibre was a quality held in so high esteem in Stillwater thatany manifestation of it commanded respect. And young Shackford hadshown a great deal; he had made short work of the most formidable manin the yard, and given the rest to understand that he was not to betampered with. This had taken many by surprise, for hitherto animperturbable amiability had been the leading characteristic ofSlocum's manager.

  "I didn't think he had it in him," declared Dexter.

  "Well, ye might," replied Michael Hennessey. "Look at the lad'seye, and the muscles of him. He stands on his own two legs like amonumint, so he does."

  "Never saw a monument with two legs, Mike."

  "Didn't ye? Wait till ye're layin' at the foot of one. But ye'llwait many a day, me boy. Ye'll be lucky if ye're supploid with ahead-stone made out of a dale-board."

  "Couldn't get a wooden head-stone short of Ireland, Mike."Retorted Dexter, with a laugh. "You'd have to import it."

  "An' so I will; but it won't be got over in time, if ye go oninterruptin' gintlemen when they're discoorsin'. What was I sayin',any way, when the blackguard chipped in?" continued Mr. Hennessey,appealing to the company, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe byknocking the bowl in the side of his chair.

  "You was talking of Dick Shackford's muscle," said Durgin, "andyou never talked wider of the mark. It doesn't take much muscle, ormuch courage either, to knock a man about when he's in liquor. Thetwo wasn't fairly matched."

  "You are right there, Durgin," said Stevens, laying down hisnewspaper. "They weren't fairly matched. Both men have the samepounds and inches, but Torrini had a weapon and that mad strengththat comes to some folks with drink. If Shackford hadn't made a neattwist on the neckerchief, he wouldn't have got off with a scratch."

  "Shackford had no call to lay hands on him."

  "There you are wrong, Durgin," replied Stevens. "Torrini had nocall in the yard; he was making a nuisance of himself. Shackfordspoke to him, and told him to go, and when he didn't go Shackford puthim out; and he put him out handsomely,--'with neatness anddispatch,' as Slocum's prospectuses has it."

  "He was right all the time," said Piggott. "He didn't strikeTorrini before or after he was down, and stood at the gate like agentleman, ready to give Torrini his chance if he wanted it."

  "Torrini didn't want it," observed Jemmy Willson. "Ther' isn'tnothing mean about Torrini."

  "But he 'ad a dozen minds about coming back," said Denyven.

  "We ought to have got him out of the place quietly," said JeffStavers; "that was our end of the mistake. He is not a bad fellow,but he shouldn't drink."

  "He was crazy to come to the yard."

  "When a man 'as a day off," observed Denyven, "and the beer isn'tnarsty, he 'ad better stick to the public 'ouse."

  "Oh
, you!" exclaimed Durgin. "Your opinion don't weigh. You took ablack eye of him."

  "Yes, I took a black heye,--and I can give one, in a hemergency.Yes, I gives and takes."

  "That's where we differ," returned Durgin. "I do a more genteelbusiness; I give, and don't take."

  "Unless you're uncommon careful," said Denyven, pulling away athis pipe, "you'll find yourself some day henlarging your business."

  Durgin pushed back his stool.

  "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" interposed Mr. Snelling, appearing frombehind the bar with a lemon-squeezer in his hand, "we'll have no blackeyes here that wasn't born so. I am partial to them myself whennature gives them; and I propose the health of Miss Molly Hennessey,"with a sly glance at Durgin, who colored, "to be drank at the expenseof the house. Name your taps, gentlemen."

  "Snelling, me boy, ye'd win the bird from the bush with yerbeguilin' ways. Ye've brought proud tears to the eyes of an agedparent, and I'll take a sup out of that high-showldered bottle whichyou kape under the counter for the gentle-folk in the other room."

  A general laugh greeted Mr. Hennessey's selection, and peace wasrestored; but the majority of those present were workmen fromSlocum's, and the event of the afternoon remained the uppermosttheme.

  "Shackford is a different build from Slocum," said Piggott.

  "I guess the yard will find that out when he gets to beproprietor," rejoined Durgin, clicking his spoon against the emptyglass to attract Snelling's attention.

  "Going to be proprietor, is he?"

  "Some day or other," answered Durgin. "First he'll step into thebusiness, and then into the family. He's had his eye on Slocum's girlthese four or five years. Got a cast of her fist up in his workshop.Leave Dick Shackford alone for lining his nest and making it soft allround."

  "Why shouldn't he?" asked Stevens. "He deserves a good girl, andthere's none better. If sickness or any sort of trouble comes to apoor man's door, she's never far off with her kind words and themthings the rich have when they are laid up."

  "Oh, the girl is well enough."

  "You couldn't say less. Before your mother died,"--Mrs. Durgin haddied the previous autumn,--"I see that angil going to your house manya day with a little basket of comforts tucked under her wing. Butshe's too good to be praised in such a place as this," added Stevens.After a pause he inquired, "What makes you down on Shackford? He hasalways been a friend to you."

  "One of those friends who walk over your head," replied Durgin. "Iwas in the yard two years before him, and see where he is."

  "Lord love you," said Stevens, leaning back in his chair andcontemplating Durgin thoughtfully, "there is marble and marble; someis Carrara marble, and some isn't. The fine grain takes a polish youcan't get on to the other."

  "Of course, he is statuary marble, and I'm full of seams andfeldspar."

  "You are like the most of us,--not the kind that can be worked upinto anything very ornamental."

  "Thank you for nothing," said Durgin, turning away. "I came fromas good a quarry as ever Dick Shackford. Where's Torrini to-night?"

  "Nobody has seen him since the difficulty," said Dexter, "exceptPeters. Torrini sent for him after supper."

  As Dexter spoke, the door opened and Peters entered. He wentdirectly to the group composed chiefly of Slocum's men, and withoutmaking any remark began to distribute among them certain small bluetickets, which they pocketed in silence. Glancing carelessly at hispiece of card-board, Durgin said to Peters,--

  "Then it's decided?"

  Peters nodded.

  "How's Torrini?"

  "He's all right."

  "What does he say?"

  "Nothing in perticular," responded Peters, "and nothing at allabout his little skylark with Shackford."

  "He's a cool one!" exclaimed Durgin.

  Though the slips of blue pasteboard had been delivered andaccepted without comment, it was known in a second through thebar-room that a special meeting had been convened for the next nightby the officers of the Marble Workers' Association.