The Law of Hemlock Mountain

by Hugh Lundsford

  CHAPTER XIX

  At last she turned abruptly away, in order that the misery which wouldno longer submit to concealment might not show itself in her eyes, andstood looking out of the window.

  Spurrier crossed with anxious swiftness and took her again into hisarms.

  "When I have finished this business trip," he declared fervently, "ourseparations shall end. They have been too many and too long--but I'vepaid for them in loneliness, dear. This call, that I'm answering now,is unexpected but it's imperative and I can't disobey it."

  She turned then, slowly and gravely, but with no lightening of theburdened anxiety in her eyes.

  "It's not just that you have to go away, Jack," she told him. "It's agreat deal more than that."

  "What else is there, dearest?" His question was intoned with surprise."When we are together, I have nothing else to ask of life. Have you?"

  "The place has been changed--mightily changed," she went on musinglyas though talking to herself rather than to him. "And yet the wallsare the same as they were that day--when we both thought we had to diehere together."

  "They are the dearer for that," he exclaimed fervently. "That was whatmade us see things truly."

  "I wonder," she questioned, then meeting his eyes steadily she went onas though determined to say what must be said.

  "When you called Brother Hawkins in to marry us, I was afraid. I wasafraid because I thought you were only doing it out of kindness, andthat afterward you'd be ashamed of me."

  "Ashamed of you," he echoed with indignant incredulity. "In God's namehow could I be?"

  "Or if not ashamed of me that you couldn't help knowing that Iwas--what I am--all right here in the hills but that outside--Iwouldn't do."

  "If you were ever afraid of that, it was only because you wereundervaluing yourself. You surely haven't any ghost of such a fearleft now."

  For a little she stood silent again torn between the loyalty thathesitated to question him and the pride that was hurt.

  Finally she said simply: "It's a bigger fear now. Unless I'munpresentable, why do you--never take me anywhere with you?"

  John Spurrier laughed, vastly relieved that the mountain of heranxiety had resolved itself, as he thought, into a mole-hill. He couldlaugh because he had no suspicion of the chronic soreness of her heartand his answer was lightly made.

  "These trips have all been in connection with the sort of business,Glory, that would have meant keeping me away from you whether you hadgone to town or not. When we travel together--and I want that we shalltravel a great deal--I must be free to devote myself to you. I want toshow the world to you and I want to show you to the world."

  That declaration he fancied ought to resolve her fears of his beingashamed of her.

  "If you were afraid I'd seem out of place," she assured him, "I mightbe right sorry--and yet I think I'd understand. I'm not a fool and Iknow I'd make mistakes, but I was raised a lawyer's daughter and I'vegot a pretty good business head--yet you've never told me anything ofwhat this business is that calls you away. You always treat me as ifthere were no use in even trying to make me understand it."

  The man no longer laughed. He could not explain that it was ratherbecause she might understand too well than not well enough. Even toher, until he was ready to prove his intent by his actual deeds, itseemed impossible to give that story without the seeming of theplunderer of her people.

  "When the time comes that releases me from my pledge of absolutesecrecy, dear," he told her earnestly, "I mean to tell you all aboutmy business--and I think you'll approve, then. Now I don't talkbecause I have no right to."

  Again there was silence, after which Glory said in a voice of stillresolution which he had never heard from her before:

  "I'm ignorant and uncultivated, Jack, but to me marriage is a fullpartnership--or it isn't anything. When Mr. Harrison came, I saw forthe first time just how I looked to men like him. I was just 'porewhite trash.'"

  "Did he----" Spurrier broke off and his face went abruptly white withpassion. Had Harrison been there at that moment he would have stoodin danger at the hands of his employee, but Glory shook her head andhastened to quiet him.

  "He wasn't impolite, Jack. It wasn't that--only I read in his eyeswhat he tried to hide. I only told you that because I wanted you tounderstand me. People here say that you give me everything butyourself; that I'm not good enough for you except right here wherethere's nothing better."

  "That is a damned lie," he expostulated. "Who says it?"

  "Only women-folks and gossipy grannies that you can't fight with,Jack," she answered steadily. "But I've thought about it lots. I'vecome to think, dear, that maybe you ought to be free--and if youought," she paused, then the final assertion broke from her with anagonized voice, "then, I love you enough to set you free."

  Spurrier seized her in his arms and his words came choked withvehement feeling.

  "I want you, Glory. I want you always and I couldn't live without you.When I have to go away I endure it only by thinking of coming back toyou. If you ever set me free as you call it, it will be only because_you_ don't want _me_. I suppose in that case I'd try to take mymedicine--but I think it would about kill me."

  "There's no danger of that, dear," she declared.

  The man drew away for a moment and fumbled for words. His aptness ofspeech had deserted him and at last he spoke clumsily:

  "It's hard to explain just now, when you've accused me of not takingyou into my confidence, but I stand at a point, Glory, where I've gotthe hardest fight ahead of me I ever made. I stand to be ruined or tomake good. I've got to use every minute and every thought incompetition with quick brains and enormous power. Until its over Imust be a machine with one idea ... and I'll fail, dear, unless I cantake with me the knowledge that you trust me."

  She looked up into his face and the misery in her eyes gave place toconfidence.

  "Go ahead, Jack," she said. "I believe in you and I'm not even afraidof your failing." After a moment she clasped her arms tightly abouthim and added vehemently: "But whether you succeed or fail, come backto me, dear, because, except for your sake, it won't make anydifference to me."

  That same afternoon Spurrier found time to visit the "witch woman." Ithad dawned upon him since that night in the Senate chamber that, afterall, Sim Colby might have been the least dangerous of his enemies, andthe thought made him inquisitive.

  The old crone made her magic with abundant grotesquerie, but at itsend she peered shrewdly into his eyes, and said:

  "I reads hyar in the omends thet mebby ye comes too late."

  Spurrier smiled grimly. He thought that himself.

  "I dis'arns," went on the hag portentously, "thet a blind manimpereled ye mightily--a blind man thet plays a fiddle--but tharsothers beside him thet dwells fur away an' holds a mighty power ofwealth."

  A blind man! Spurrier's remembrance flashed back to the visit of blindJoe Givins and the papers incautiously left on his table. Yet if hewas genuinely blind they could have meant nothing to him--and if hewas not genuinely blind it was hard to conceive of human nervesenduring without wincing that test of the gun thrust against thetemple.

  Spurrier rose and paid his fee. Had he seen her in time, this warningwould have averted disaster. Now it was something of a post-mortem.

  At the door of Martin Harrison's office several days later Spurrierdrew back his shoulders and braced himself. It was impossible toignore the fact that he stood on the brink of total ruin; that hissole hope lay in persuading his principal that with more time and moremoney he would yet be able to succeed--and Harrison was as plastic topersuasion as a brass Buddha.

  But he had steeled himself for the interview--and now he turned theknob and swung back the mahogany door.

  Spurrier was familiar enough with the atmosphere of that office toread the signs correctly. The hushed air of nervousness that hung overit now betokened a chief in a mood which no one sought to stir tofurther irritation.

  Always in the past Spurrier had b
een deferentially ushered into aprivate office and treated as the future chief. Now, as though he werealready a disinherited heir, he was left in the general waiting room,and he was left there for an hour. That cooling of the heel, herecognized as a warning of the cold reception to come--and an auguryof ruin.

  At last he was called in, but he went with an unruffled demeanor whichhid from the principal's eye how near to breaking his inwardconfidence was strained.

  "I wired you to come at once," began Harrison curtly, and Spurriersmiled as he nodded.

  "I came at once, sir, except that I hadn't been home for some time,and it was necessary to make a stop there."

  "Home," Martin's brows lifted a trifle. "You mean the mountains."

  "Certainly--for the time being, I'm located there."

  "We may as well be honest with each other," asserted the magnate. "Iconsider that under the circumstances you behaved with seriousdiscourtesy and without candor." For a casual moment his glance dwelton the portrait of Vivien which stood on his table.

  "I disagree with you, sir. I preferred relating the full circumstances,which were unusual, when there was an opportunity to do so in person.I was kept there by your interests as well as my own."

  "That recital," said the older man dryly, "is your concern. Now that Iknow the facts I find myself uninterested in the details. You havechosen your way. The question is whether we can travel it together."

  "And I presume that the first point of that question demands a fullreport upon the business operations."

  "So far as I can see, they have collapsed."

  "They have by no means collapsed."

  Suddenly the wrath that had been smoldering in Harrison's eyes burstinto tempest. He brought his clenched fist down upon his desk untilinkwells and accessories rattled.

  This man's moments of equinox were terrifying to those who must bowto his will--and his will held sway over broad horizons. If JohnSpurrier had not been intrepid he must have collapsed under thewithering violence of the passion that rained on him.

  "Before God," cried Harrison, pacing his floor like a lion that lashesitself to frenzy, "you undertook to avenge me on Trabue. You havedrawn on me with carte-blanche liberties and spent fortunes like aprodigal! You have assured me that you had, at all times, thesituation well in hand. Then, through some damned blunder, you failed.Let the money loss slide. Damn the money! I'm the laughingstock of thebusiness world. I'm delivered over to Trabue's enjoyment as a boob whofailed. I'm an absurdity, and you're responsible!"

  "When you've finished, sir," said Spurrier quietly, "I shall endeavorto show you that none of those things have happened--that our failureis temporary and that when you undertook this enterprise you were inno impetuous haste as to the time of its accomplishment."

  "The legislature doesn't meet for two years," Harrison barked back athim. "That will be two years of preparation for Trabue. Now he's fullywarned, where do we get off?"

  "At our original point of destination, sir."

  The opportunity hound began his argument. His demeanor of unruffledcalm and entire confidence began to exercise its persuasive force.Harrison cooled somewhat, but Spurrier was fighting, beneath his pose,as a man who has cramps in deep water fights for his life. These fewminutes would determine his fate, and he was totally at the mercy ofthis single arbiter.

  "I have now all the options we need on the far side of HemlockMountain," Spurrier summarized at last. "All except one tract whichbelongs to Bud Hawkins, who is a preacher and a friend of mine. Hemust have more generous terms, but I will be able to do business withhim."

  "You talk of the options on the far side of the ridge," Harrison brokein belligerently. "That is the minor field."

  "I'll be able to repeat that performance on the near side."

  "You will not! A repetition of your performance is the last thing wecrave. Any movement now would be only a piling up of warnings. For thepresent you will give every indication of having abandoned theproject."

  "That is my idea, sir. I was not speaking of immediate but futureactivities. Also----" In spite of his desperation of plight theyounger man's bearing flashed into a challenging undernote of its oldaudacity, "when I used the word 'repeat' I referred to the successfulportion of my effort. There was no failure on the land end. It was thecharter that went wrong--through the deceit of a man we had totrust."

  "A man whom you selected," Harrison caught him up. "You understood, inadvance, the chances of your game. It was agreed upon your owninsistence that your hand should be absolutely free--and freedom ofmethod carries exclusiveness of responsibility. Traitors exist. Theydon't furnish excuses."

  "Nor am I making them. I am merely stating facts which you seeminclined to confuse. I grant the failure but I also claim the partialsuccess."

  Harrison seated himself, and as the interview stretched Spurrier'snerves stretched with it under the placid surface of his plunger'scamouflage. He had, as yet, no way of guessing how the verdict wouldgo, and now the capitalist's face was hardened in discouragement. Itwas a face of merciless inflexibility. The sentence had been preparedin the judge's mind. There remained only its enunciation.

  "Nothing is to be gained by mincing my words, Spurrier," declaredSpurrier's chief. "We know precisely where you stand."

  Harrison extended his hand with its fingers spread and closed itslowly into a clenched fist. "I hold you--there! I can crush you to apulp of absolute ruin. You know that. The only question is whether Iwant, or not, to do it."

  "And whether, or not, you can afford to do it," amended the other withan audacity that he by no means felt. "You must decide whether you canafford to accept tamely and as a final defeat, a mere reversal, whichI--and no one else--can turn into eventual victory."

  "I have duly considered that. I had implicit confidence in yourabilities. You have struck at my personal feeling for you by a silencethat was not frank. You have allied yourself with the mountain peopleby marriage, and we stand on opposite sides of the line of interest.You have all the while been watched by our enemies, and I regard youas a defeated man. If I choose to cast you aside, you go to the scrapheap. You will never recover."

  That was an assertion which there was neither health nor wisdom incontradicting and Spurrier waited. His last card was played.

  "And I am going to cast you aside--bankrupt you--ruin you!" blazed outHarrison, "unless you absolutely meet my requirements during a periodof probation. That period will engage you in a very different matter.For the present you are through with the Kentucky mountains. The newtask will be a difficult one, and it should put you on your mettle. Itis one that can't be accomplished at all unless you can do it. Youhave that one chance to retrieve yourself. Take it or leave it."

  "What are your terms?"

  "You will sail to-morrow for Liverpool. I will give you explicitinstructions to-night. Go prepared for an extended stay abroad."

  For the first time Spurrier's face paled and insurrection flared inhis pupils.

  "Sail for Europe to-morrow!" he exclaimed vehemently. "I'll see youdamned first! Doesn't it occur to you that a man has his human side? Ihave a wife and a home and when I am ordered to leave them for anindefinite time I'm entitled to a breathing space in which to set myown affairs in shape. I am willing enough to undertake yourbidding--but not to-morrow."

  Spurrier paused at the end of his outbreak and stood looking down atthe seated figure, which to all intents and purposes might have beenthe god that held, for him, life and death in his hand.

  And as he looked Spurrier thought he had never seen such glacialcoldness and merciless indifference in any human face. He had knownthis man in the thundering of passion before which the walls about himseemed to tremble, but this manifestation of adamant implacability wasnew, and he realized that he had invited destruction in defying it.

  "As you please," replied Harrison crisply, "but it's to-morrow or notat all. I've already outlined the alternative and since you refuse,our business seems concluded. Next time you feel disposed to talk ort
hink of what you're entitled to, remember that my view is different.All your claims stand forfeit in my judgment. You are entitled to justwhat I choose to offer--and no more."

  The chief glanced toward the door with a glance of dismissal, and thedoor became to Spurrier the emblem of finality. Yet he did not at oncemove toward it.

  "I appreciate the need of prompt obedience, where there is an urge ofhaste," he persisted, "but if a few days wouldn't imperil results, Iwant those days to make a flying trip to Kentucky and to my wife."

  The face of the seated man remained obdurately set but his eyes blazedagain with a note of personal anger.

  "At a time when I was reasonably interested, you chose to leave meunenlightened about your domestic arrangements. Now I can claim noconcern in them. Most wives, however, permit their husbands suchlatitude of movement as business requires. If yours does not it isyour own misfortune. I think that's all."

  Spurrier knew that the jaws of the trap were closing on him. He hadbeen too hasty in his outburst and he turned toward the door, but ashis hand fell on the bronze knob Harrison spoke again.

  "Think it over, Spurrier. I can--and will ruin you--unless you yield.It is no time for maudlin sentiment, but until five-thirty thisafternoon, I shall not consider your answer final. Up to that hour youmay reconsider it, if you wish."

  "I will notify you at five," responded the lieutenant as he lethimself out and closed the door behind him.

  That day the opportunity hound spent in an agony of conflictingemotions. That the other held a bolt of destruction and was in themood to launch it he did not pretend to doubt. If it were launchedeven the land upon which his cottage stood would no longer be his own.He must either return to Glory empty-handed and bankrupt, or strainwith a new tax, the confidence he had asked of her, with the pledgethat he would return soon and for good.

  But if, even at the cost of humbled pride and Glory's hurt, hemaintained his business relations, the path to eventual successremained open.

  As long as the cards were being shuffled chance beckoned and at fiveo'clock Spurrier went into a cigar-store booth and called a downtowntelephone number.

  "You hold the whip hand, sir," he announced curtly when a secretary hadput Harrison on the wire. "When do I report for final instructions?"

  "Come to my house this evening," ordered the master.

  Most of the hours of that evening, except the two in Harrison's study,Spurrier spent in writing to Glory, tearing up letter after letterwhile the nervous moisture bedewed his brow. It was so impossible togive her any true or comprehensive explanation of the pressing weightof compulsion. His messages must have the limp of unreason. He wascrossing the ocean without her and she would read into it a sort ofabandonment that would hurt and wound her. He had taxed everythingelse in life, and now he was overtaxing her loyalty.

  Yet he believed that if in his depleted treasury of life there was onething left upon which he could draw prodigally and with faith, it wasthat love; a love that would stand staunch though he were forced tohurt it once again.

  So Spurrier sailed and, having arrived on European soil, took up thework that threw him into relations with men of large caliber in CapelCourt and Threadneedle Street. His mission carried him to thecontinent as well; from Paris to Brussels and from Brussels to Hamburgand Berlin, where the quaint customs of the Kentucky Cumberlandsseemed as remote as the life of Mars--remote but, to Spurrier, asalluring as the thought of salvation to a recluse who has foreswornthe things of earth.

  In terms of dead reckoning, Berlin is as far from Hemlock Mountain asHemlock Mountain is from Berlin, but in terms of human relations Gloryfelt the distance as infinitely greater than did her husband. To himthe Atlantic was only an ocean three thousand miles wide; oftencrossed and discounted by familiarity. To her it was a measurelesswaste separating all she knew from another world. To him continentaldimensions were reckoned in hours of commonplace railway journeying,but to her the "measured mile" was both lengthwise and perpendicular,and when she passed old friends she fancied that she detected in theirglances either pity for her desertion or the smirk of "I-told-you-so"malevolence.

  It even crept to her ears that "some folks" spoke of her as "thewidder Spurrier" and that Tassie Plumford had chuckled, "I reckon he'sdone gone off an' left her fer good an' all this time. Folks says he'sfled away cl'ar acrost ther ocean-sea."

  Glory told herself that she had promised faith and that she was in nodanger of faltering, but as the weeks lengthened into months and themonths followed each other, her waiting became bitter.

  In Berlin John Spurrier passed as a British subject, bearing Britishpassports. That had been part of the careful plan to prevent discoveryof what American interests he represented and it had proven effective.He had almost accomplished the difficult task of self-redemption, sethim by the man whose confidence he had strained.

  Then came the bolt out of heaven. The inconceivable suddenness of thewar cloud belched and broke, but he remained confident that he wouldhave a chance to finish up before the paralysis cramped bourse andexchange.

  England would not come in, and he, the seeming British subject, wouldhave safe conduct out of Germany.

  Now he must get back. This would mean the soaring of oil prices, andalong new lines the battle must be pitched back there at home, beforeit was too late.

  So Spurrier finished his packing. He was going out onto thestreets to watch the upflame of the war spirit and to make railwayreservations.

  There was a knock at the door and the man opened it. Stiffly erect,stood a squad of military police and stiffly their lieutenantsaluted.

  "You are Herr John Spurrier?" he inquired.

  The man nodded.

  "It is, perhaps, in the nature of a formality, which you will be ableto arrange," said the officer. "But I am directed to place you underarrest. England is in the war. You are said to be a former soldier."