CHAPTER V
Little Jim's Tutors
"Whiskey" Mason had been for more than three years with Downey. He wasan adroit barkeep. He knew every favourite "mix" and how to use thethickest glasses that would ever put the house a little more ahead ofthe game. But the Widow soon convinced herself that certain rumoursalready hinted at were well-founded, and that Mason's salary did notjustify his Sunday magnificence. Mason had long been quite convincedthat he was the backbone of the business and absolutely indispensable.Therefore he was not a little surprised when the queen, in the beginningof her reign, invited him to resign his portfolio and seek his fortuneelsewhere, the farther off the better to her liking.
Mason went not far, but scornfully. He took lodgings in the town to waitand see the inevitable wreck that the widow was inviting for her house.For two months he waited, but was disappointed. The hotel continued inbusiness; the widow had not come to beg for his return; his credit wasbeing injured with excessive use; and as he had found no other work, hetook the stage to the larger town of Petersburg some thirty miles away.Here he sought a job, in his special craft of "joy mixer" but, failingto find that, he turned his attention to another near akin. In thosedays the liquor laws of Canada provided a heavy fine for any breach ofregulation; and of this the informant got half. Here was an easy andhonourable calling for which he was well equipped.
* * * * *
It has ever been law in the man's code that he must protect the place hedrinks in, so that the keepers of these evil joints are often carelessover little lapses. Thus Whiskey Mason easily found a victim, and withinthree days was rich once more with half of the thousand-dollar fine thatthe magistrate imposed.
He felt that all the country suddenly was his lawful prey. He could notlong remain in Petersburg, where he was soon well known and shunned. Hehad some trouble, too, for threats against his life began to reach himmore and more. It was the magistrate himself who suggestedcontemptuously, "You had better take out a pistol license, my friend;and you would be safer in a town where no one knows you."
In those early days before his dismissal by Kitty, Mason's life andLittle Jim's had no point of meeting. Six years later, when he returnedto Links, Jimmy was discovering great possibilities in the stables ofthe Inn. Mason often called at the bar-room where he had once been theruling figure, and was received with cold aloofness. But he was used tothat; his calling had hardened him to any amount of human scorn. Hestill found a kindred spirit, however, in the stable man, Watsie Hall,and these two would often "visit" in the feed room, which was afavourite playground of the bright-haired boy.
It is always funny if one can inspire terror without actual danger tothe victim. Mason and Hall taught Jim to throw stones at sparrows, cats,and dogs, when his mother was not looking. He hardly ever hit them, andhis hardest throw was harmless, but he learned to love the sport. Astray dog that persisted in stealing scraps which were by right theheritage of hens, was listed as an enemy, and together they showed Jimhow to tie a tin can on the dog's tail in a manner that producedamazingly funny results and the final disappearance of the cur in achorus of frantic yelps.
These laboratory experiments on animals developed under the able tutors,and Jim was instructed in the cat's war dance, an ingenious mode ofinspiring puss to outdo her own matchless activity in a series of wildgyrations, by glueing to each foot a shoe of walnut shell, half filledwith melted cobbler's wax to hold it on. Flattered by their attentionsat first, the cat purred blandly as they fitted on the shoes. Jim's eyeswere big and bright with tensest interest. The cat was turned loose inthe grain room. To hear her own soft pads drop on the floor, each with asharp, hard crack, must have been a curious, jarring experience. To findat every step a novel sense of being locked in, must have conjured updeep apprehensions in her soul. And when she fled, and sought to scalethe partition, to find that her claws were gone--that she was now athing with hoofs--must have been a horrid nightmare. Fear entered intoher soul, took full control; then followed the wild erratic circlingaround the room, with various ridiculous attempts to run up the walls,which were so insanely silly that little James shrieked for joy, andjoining in with the broom, urged the cat to still more amazing evidencesof muscular activity not excelled by any other creature.
It was rare sport with just a sense of sin to give it tang, for he hadbeen forbidden to torment the cat, and Jim saw nothing but the funnyside; he was only seven.
It was a week later that they tried the walnut trick again, and Jim waseager to see the "circus." But the cat remembered; she drove her teethdeep into Hall's hand and fought with a feline fury that is alwaysterrifying. Jim was gazing in big-eyed silence, when Hall, enraged,thrust the cat into the leg of a boot and growled, "I'll fix yerbiting," and held her teeth to the grindstone till the body in the bootwas limp.
At the first screech of the cat, Jim's whole attitude had changed.Amusement and wild-eyed wonder had given way to a shocking realizationof the wicked cruelty. He sprang at Hall and struck him with all thebest vigour of his baby fists. "Let my kitty go, you!" and he kicked thehostler in the shins until he himself was driven away. He fled indoorsto his mother, flung himself into her arms and sobbed in newly awakenedhorror. To his dying day he never forgot that cry of pain. He had beenin the way of cruel training with these men, but the climax woke him up.It was said that he never after was cruel to any creature, but this issure--that he never after cared to be with cats of any sort.
This was the end of Hall, so far as his life had bearing on that ofJames Hartigan Second; for Kitty dismissed him promptly as soon as sheheard the story of his brutality.
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Of all the specimens of fine, physical manhood who owned allegiance toDowney's Hotel, Fightin' Bill Kenna was the outstanding figure. He wasnot so big as Mulcahy, or such a wrestler as Dougherty, or as skilled aboxer as McGraw; he knew little of the singlestick and nothing ofknife- or gun-play; and yet his combination of strength, endurance andbullet-headed pluck made him by general voice "the best man in Links."
Bill's temper was fiery; he loved a fight. He never was worsted, thenearest thing to it being a draw between himself and Terry Barr. Afterthat Terry went to the States and became a professional pugilist ofnote. Bill's social record was not without blemish. He was known to haveappropriated a rope, to the far end of which was attached another man'shorse. He certainly had been in jail once and should have been there adozen times, for worse crimes than fighting. And yet Bill was firmlyestablished as Bible bearer in the annual Orangemen's parade and wouldhave smashed the face of any man who tried to rob him of his holyoffice.
Kenna was supposed to be a farmer, but he loved neither crops nor land.The dream of his exuberant life was to be a horse breeder, for whichprofession he had neither the capital nor the brains. His social andconvivial instincts ever haled him townward, and a well-worn chair inDowney's bar-room was by prescriptive right the town seat of WilliamKenna, Esq., of the Township of Opulenta. Bill had three other goodqualities besides his mighty fists. He was true to his friends, he waskind to the poor and he had great respect for his "wurd as a mahn." Ifhe gave his "wurd as a mahn" to do thus and so, he ever made a strenuouseffort to keep it.
Bill was madly in love with Kitty Hartigan. She was not unmoved by thehuge manliness of the warlike William, but she had too much sense tooverlook his failings, and she held him off as she did a dozen more--herdevoted lovers all--who hung around ever hoping for special favour. Butthough Kitty would not marry him, she smiled on Kenna indulgently andthus it was that this man of brawn had far too much to say in shapingthe life of little Jim Hartigan. High wisdom or deep sagacity wasscarcely to be named among Kenna's attributes, and yet instinctively henoted that the surest way to the widow's heart was through her boy. Thisexplained the beginning of their friendship, but other things soonentered in. Kenna, with all his faults, was a respecter of women,and--they commonly go together--a clumsy, awkward, blundering lover ofchildren. Little Jim
was bright enough to interest any one; and, withthe certain instinct of a child, he drifted toward the man whose heartwas open to him. Many a day, as Kenna split some blocks of wood thatwere over big and knotty for the official axeman, Jim would come towatch and marvel at the mighty blows. His comments told of theimaginative power born in his Celtic blood:
"Bill, let's play you are the Red Dermid smiting the bullhide bearingLachlin," he would shout, and at once the brightness of his mentalpicture and his familiarity with the nursery tales of Erin that werecurrent even in the woods created a wonder-world about him. Then hisUlster mind would speak. He would laugh a little shamefaced chuckle athimself and say:
"It's only Big Bill Kenna splitting wood."
Bill was one of the few men who talked to Jim about his father; and,with singular delicacy, he ever avoided mentioning the nauseating factthat the father was a papist. No one who has not lived in the time andplace of these feuds can understand the unspeakable abomination impliedby that word; it was the barrier that kept his other friends frommention of the dead man's name; and yet, Bill spoke with kindlyreverence of him as, "a broth of a bhoy, a good mahn, afraid of no wan,and as straight as a string."
Among the occasional visitors at the stable yard was young Tom Ford,whose father owned the mill and half the town. Like his father, Tom wasa masterful person, hungry for power and ready to rule by force. On theoccasion of his first visit he had quarrelled with Jim, and being olderand stronger, had won their boyish fight. It was in the hour of hishumiliation that Kenna had taken Jim on his knee and said:
"Now Jim, I'm the lepricaun that can tache you magic to lick that fellowaisy, if ye'll do what I tell you." And at the word "lepricaun," theCelt in Jim rose mightier than the fighting, bullet-headed Saxon. Hiseager word and look were enough.
"Now, listen, bhoy. I'll put the boxing gloves on you every day, an'I'll put up a sack of oats, an' we'll call it Tom Ford; an' ye must hitthat sack wi' yer fist every day wan hundred times, twenty-five on thetop side and siventy-five on the bottom side for the undercut is worthmore than the uppercut anny day; an' when ye've done that, ye're makingmagic, and at the end of the moon ye'll be able to lick Tom Ford."
Jim began with all his ten-year-old vigour to make the necessary magic,and had received Bill's unqualified approval until one day he appearedchewing something given him by one of the men as a joke. Jim pausedbefore Bill and spat out a brown fluid.
"Fwhat are ye doing?" said Bill; then to his disgust, he found that Jim,inspired probably by his own example, was chewing tobacco.
"Spit it out, ye little divil, an' never agin do that. If ye do thatthree times before ye're twenty-one, ye'll make a spell that will breakyou, an' ye'll never lick Tom Ford."
Thus, with no high motive, Kenna was in many ways, the guardian of thechild. Coarse, brutish, and fierce among men, he was ever good to theboy and respectful to his mother; and he rounded out his teaching by thedoctrine: "If ye give yer word as a mahn, ye must not let all hellprevent ye holding to it." And he whispered in a dreadful tone that senta chill through the youngster's blood: "It'll bring the bone-rot on yeif ye fail; it always does."
It is unfortunate that we cannot number the town school principal as alarge maker of Jim's mind. Jim went to school and the teacher did thebest he could. He learned to read, to write and to figure, but booksirked him and held no lure. His joy was in the stable yard and the barnwhere dwelt those men of muscle and of animal mind; where the boxinggloves were in nightly use, the horses in daily sight, and the world ofsport in ring or on turf was the only world worth any man's devotion.
There were a dozen other persons who had influence in the shaping of thelife and mind of Little Jim Hartigan; but there was one thatoverpowered, that far outweighed, that almost negatived the rest; thatwas his mother. She could scarcely read, and all the reading she evertried to do was in her Bible. Filled with the vision of what she wishedher boy to be--a minister of Christ--Kitty sent him to the publicschool, but the colour of his mind was given at home. She told him thestories of the Man of Galilee, and on Sundays, hand in hand, they wentto the Presbyterian Church, to listen to tedious details thatillustrated the practical impossibility of any one really winning out inthe fight with sin.
She sang the nursery songs of the old land and told the tales of magicthat made his eyes stare wide with loving, childish wonder. She told himwhat a brave, kind man his father had been, and ever came back to theworld's great Messenger of Love. Not openly, but a thousand times--in athousand deeply felt, deeply meant, unspoken ways--she made him knowthat the noblest calling man might ever claim was this, to be a heraldof the Kingdom. Alone, on her knees, she would pray that her boy mightbe elected to that great estate and that she might live to see him goingforth a messenger of the Prince of Peace.
Kitty was alive to the danger of the inherited taste for drink in herson. The stern, uncompromising Presbyterian minister of the town, inwhose church the widow had a pew, was temperate, but not an abstainer;in fact, it was his custom to close the day with a short prayer and atall glass of whiskey and water. While, with his advice, she hadentirely buried her doctrinal scruples on the selling of drink to themoderate, her mother-heart was not so easily put to sleep. Her boybelonged to the house side of the hotel. He was not supposed to enterthe saloon; and when, one day, she found an unscrupulous barkeeperactually amusing himself by giving the child a taste of the liquid fire,she acted with her usual promptitude and vigour. The man was given justenough time to get his hat and coat, and the boy was absolutelyforbidden the left wing of the house. Later, in the little room where hewas born, she told Jim sadly and gently what it would mean, whatsuffering the drinking habit had brought upon herself, and thus, for thefirst time, he learned that this had been the cause of his father'sdeath. The boy was deeply moved and voluntarily offered to pledgehimself never to touch a drop again so long as he lived. But his motherwisely said:
"No, Jim; don't say it that way. Leaning backward will not make yousafer from a fall; only promise me you'll never touch it till you areeighteen; then I know you will be safe."
And he promised her that he never would; he gave his word--no more; foralready the rough and vigorous teaching of Bill Kenna had gripped him insome sort. He felt that there was no more binding seal; that any morewas more than man should give.
When Jim was twelve he was very tall and strong for his age, and almosttoo beautiful for a boy. His mother, of course, was idolatrous in herlove. His ready tongue, his gift of reciting funny or heroic verse, andhis happy moods had made him a general favourite, the king of the stableyard. Abetted, inspired and trained by Kenna, he figured in many aboyish fight, and usually won so that he was not a little pleased withhimself in almost every way. Had he not carried out his promise of twoyears before and thrashed the mayor's son, who was a year older thanhimself, and thereby taught a lesson to that stuck-up, purse-proudyoungster? Could he not ride with any man? Yes, and one might add, matchtongues with any woman. For his native glibness was doubly helped by thevast, unprintable vocabularies of his chosen world, as well as by choicephrases from heroic verse that were a more exact reflex of his mind.
Then, on a day, came Whiskey Mason drifting into Links once more. He wasmaking an ever scantier living out of his wretched calling, and had sunkas low as he could sink. But he had learned a dozen clever tricks tomake new victims.
At exactly eleven o'clock, P.M., the bar-room had been closed, as was bylaw required. At exactly eleven five, P.M. a traveller, sick and weak,supported by a friend, came slowly along the dusty road to the door,and, sinking down in agony of cramps, protested he could go no fartherand begged for a little brandy, as his friend knocked on the door,imploring kindly aid for the love of heaven. The barkeeper was obdurate,but the man was in such a desperate plight that the Widow Hartigan wassummoned. Ever ready at the call of trouble her kindly heart responded.The sick man revived with a little brandy; his friend, too, seemed inneed of similar help and, uttering voluble expressions of gratitude, thetravellers we
nt on to lodgings on the other side of the town, carryingwith them a flask in which was enough of the medicine to meet a newattack if one should come before they reached their destination.
At exactly eleven ten, P.M., these two helpless, harmless strangersreceived the flask from Widow Hartigan. At exactly eight A.M., the nextday, at the opening of the Magistrate's office, they laid theirinformation before him, that the Widow Hartigan was selling liquor outof hours. Here was the witness and here was the flask. They had not paidfor this, they admitted, but said it had been "charged." All the townwas in a talk. The papers were served, and on the following day, incourt, before Tom Ford, the Mayor, the charge was made and sworn to byMason, who received, and Hall, who witnessed and also received, theunlawful drink.
It was so evidently a trumped-up case that some judges would havedismissed it. But the Mayor was human; this woman had flouted his wife;her boy had licked his boy. The fine might be anything from one hundredup to one thousand dollars. The Mayor was magnanimous; he imposed theminimum fine. So the widow was mulcted a hundred dollars for playing therole of good Samaritan. Mason and Hall got fifty dollars to divide, andfive minutes later were speeding out of town. They left no address. Inthis precautionary mood their instincts were right, though later eventsproved them to be without avail.
Just one hour after the disappearance of Mason, Kenna came to town andheard how the Widow's open-hearted kindness had led her into a snare.His first question was: "Where is he?" No one knew, but every one agreedthat he had gone in a hurry. Now it is well known that experienced menseeking to elude discovery make either for the absolute wilderness orelse the nearest big city. There is no hiding place between. Kenna didnot consult Kitty. He rode, as fast as horse could bear his robust bulkto Petersburg where Mason had in some sort his headquarters.
It was noon the next day before Bill found him, sitting in the far endof the hardware shop. Mason never sat in the saloons, for the barkeeperswould not have him there. He did not loom large, for he always tried tobe as inconspicuous as possible, and his glance was shifty.
Bill nodded to the iron dealer and passed back to the stove end of thestore. Yes, there sat Mason. They recognized each other. The whiskeysneak rose in trepidation. But William said calmly, "Sit down."
"Well," he continued with a laugh, "I hear you got ahead of the Widdy."
"Yeh."
"Well, she can afford it," said Bill. "She's getting rich."
Mason breathed more freely.
"I should think ye'd carry a revolver in such a business," said William,inquiringly.
"Bet I do," said Mason.
"Let's have a look at it," said Kenna. Mason hesitated.
"Ye better let me see it, or----" There was a note of threat for thefirst time. Mason drew his revolver, somewhat bewildered. Before theinformer knew what move was best, Kenna reached out and took the weapon.
"I hear ye got twenty-five dollars from the Widdy."
"Yeh." And Mason began to move nervously under the cold glitter inKenna's eyes.
"I want ye to donate that to the orphan asylum. Here, Jack!" Kennacalled to the clerk, "Write on a big envelope 'Donation for the orphanasylum. Conscience money.'"
"What does it say?" inquired Bill, for he could not read. The clerk heldout the envelope and read the inscription.
"All right," said Bill, "now, Mason, jest so I won't lose patience withyou and act rough like, hand over that twenty-five."
"I ain't got it, I tell you. It's all gone."
"Turn out your pockets, or I will."
The whiskey sneak unwillingly turned out his pockets. He had fifteendollars and odd.
"Put it in that there envelope," said Bill, with growing ferocity. "Nowgum it up. Here, Jack, will ye kindly drop this in the contribution boxfor the orphans while we watch you?" The clerk entered into the humourof it all. He ran across the street to the gate of the orphan asylum anddropped the envelope into the box. Mason tried to escape but Bill'smighty hand was laid on his collar. And now the storm of animal ragepent up in him for so long broke forth. He used no weapon but his fists,and when the doctor came, he thought the whiskey man was dead. But theybrought him round, and in the hospital he lingered long.
It was clearly a case of grave assault; the magistrate was ready toissue a warrant for Kenna's arrest. But such was Bill's reputation thatthey could get no constable to serve it. Meanwhile, Mason hung betweenlife and death. He did not die. Within six weeks, he was able to sit upand take a feeble interest in things about him, while Bill at Linkspursued his normal life.
Gossip about the affair had almost died when the Mayor at Petersburgreceived a document that made him start. The Attorney General of theProvince wrote: "Why have you not arrested the man who committed thatassault? Why has no effort been made to administer justice?"
The Mayor was an independent business man, seeking no political favours,and he sent a very curt reply. "You had better come and arrest himyourself, if you are so set on it."
That was why two broad, square men, with steadfast eyes, came one dayinto Links. They sought out Bill Kenna and found him in the bar-room,lifting the billiard table with one hand, as another man slipped wedgesunder it to correct the level. Little Jim, though he had no businessthere at all, stood on the table itself and gave an abundance of orders.
"Are you William Kenna?" said the first of the strangers.
"I am that," said he.
"Then I arrest you in the Queen's name"; and the officer held up a paperwhile the other produced a pair of handcuffs.
"Oi'd like to see ye put them on me." And the flood of fight in himsurged up.
He was covered by two big revolvers now, which argument had no whit ofpower to modify his mood; but another factor had. The Widow who hadentered in search of Jim and knew the tragedy that hung by a hair, spedto his side: "Now, Bill, don't ye do it! I forbid ye to do it!"
"If they try to put them on me, I'll kill or be killed. If they jist actdacent, I'll go quiet."
"Will ye give yer word, Bill?"
"I will, Kitty; I'll give me word as a mahn. I'll go peaceable if theydon't try to handcuff me."
"There," said Kitty to the officers. "He's give his word; and if you'rewise, ye'll take him at that."
"All right," said the chief constable, and between them William moved tothe door.
"Say, Bill, ye ain't going to be took?" piped little Jim. He had watchedthe scene dumbfounded from his place on the table. This was too much.
"Yes," said Bill, "I've give me word as a mahn," and he marched away,while the Widow fled sobbing to her room.
That was the end of Kenna, so far as Jim was concerned. And, somehow,that last sentence, "I've give me word as a mahn," kept ringing in Jim'sears; it helped to offset the brutalizing effect of many otherepisodes--that Fighting Bill should scoff at bonds and force, but bebound and helpless by the little sound that issued from his own lips.
Bill's after life was brief. He was condemned to a year in jail fordeadly assault and served the term and came again to Petersburg. Therein a bar-room he encountered Hall, the pal of Whisky Mason. A savageword from Bill provoked the sneer, "You jail bird." Kenna sprang toavenge the insult. Hall escaped behind the bar. Bill still pursued. ThenHall drew a pistol and shot him dead; and, as the Courts held later,shot justly, for a man may defend his life.
It was a large funeral that buried Bill, and it was openly and widelysaid that nine out of ten were there merely to make sure that he wasdead and buried. The Widow Hartigan was chief mourner in the firstcarriage. She and Jim led the line, and when he was laid away, she had astone erected with the words, "A true friend and a man without fear." Sopassed Kenna; but Jim bore the traces of his influence long anddeeply--yes, all his life. Masterful, physical, prone to fight and toconsider might as right, yet Jim's judgment of him was ever tempered bythe one thought, the binding force of his "wurd as a mahn."
The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open Country Page 6