"I must speak to Christopher--I must!" gasped the boy, breathing hard."I am going away tomorrow, and this is my last chance.""Well, he's in the stable, I believe," replied Cynthia coolly.
"If you want him, you must go there to look for him, and be sure not to make a noise when you pass the house." Then, as he darted away, her eyes followed him with a weary aversion.
Will passed the kitchen and the woodpile and, turning into a little path that led from the well, came to the open door of the rudely built stable.A dim light fell in a square across the threshold, and looking inside he saw that a lantern was hanging from a nail above the nearest stall and that within the circle of its illumination Christopher was busily currying the old gray mare.
At the boy's entrance he paused for an instant, glanced carelessly over the side of the stall, and then went on with his work.
"Playing night-owl, eh?" he remarked indifferently."There's no rubbing-down for you to do, I reckon.""There's a darn sight worse," returned the boy, throwing out the oath with a conscious swagger as he braced himself against the ladder that ran up to the loft.
His tone arrested Christopher's hand, and, lifting his head, the young man stood attentively regarding him, one arm lying upon the broad back of the old mare.
"Why, what's up now?" he questioned with a smile.Some fine chaff, which he had brought down from the loft, still clung to his hair and clothes and darkened his upper lip like a mustache.
"Grandpa's found it out and he's hopping," said the boy."Ialways told you he would be, you know, and now it's come.If he ever catches me with you again he swears he'll give it to me like hell.He pressed tightly against the ladder and wagged his head defiantly."But he needn't think he can bully me like that--not if I know it!""Well, he mustn't catch you again," returned Christopher, not troubling to soften his scorn of such cheap heroics; "we must manage better next time.Did you think to remind him, by the way, that I once took the trouble to save your life?""That's a fact, I didn't think of it.What would he have said, Iwonder?"
Christopher raised his eyebrows."Knocked your front teeth out, perhaps.He's like that, isn't he?""Oh, he's awfully fond of me, you know," protested the boy; "but it's his meddling ways that I can't stand.What business is it of his who my friends are? He hasn't got to take up with 'em, has he? Why, what he hates is for me to want to be with anybody but himself or Aunt Saidie.He'd like to keep me dangling all day to his coat tails, but it's not fair, and I won't have it.I'll show him whether I'm to be kept a kid forever or not!""There's spirit for you!" drawled Christopher with a laugh, as he applied the currycomb to the mare's flank.
"You just wait till you hear the worst," returned the other, with evident pride in the thunderbolt about to be delivered."He swears he's going to send me to school tomorrow at sunrise.""You don't say so?" ejaculated Christopher.
"Oh, but he'll do it, too--the only way to get around him is to fall ill, and I can't work that tomorrow.I played the trick last week and he saw through it.I've got to go, that's certain; but I'm going to make him sorry enough before he's done.Why couldn't he let me keep on studying with Mr.Morrison, as the doctor said I ought to? What's the use of this blamed old Latin and Greek, anyway? Nobody about here knows them, and why should I set myself up for a precious numbskull of a scholar? I'd rather be a crack shot like you any day! I tell you one thing," he finished, sucking in his breath in a way that had annoyed Christopher from the first, "I've half a mind to run away or fall ill after I get there!"Christopher turned suddenly, slapped the mare on the flank, and came out of the stall, the currycomb still in his hand.His shirt sleeves were rolled above his elbows, and the muscles of his arms stood out like cords under the sunburned skin, which showed a paler bronze from the wrists up.He was flushed from leaning over, and his clothes smelled strongly of the stable.
"If you do, come to me, " he said lightly, "and I'll hide you in the barn till the storm blows over.It wouldn't last long, Ireckon."
"Bless you, no; when he's scared I can do anything with him.Why, he was as soft as mush after the horses ran away with me, though he'd threatened to thrash me if I touched the reins.Oh, I say it's a shame we never had that 'possum hunt!"Christopher turned down his shirt sleeves and brushed the chaff from his face.
"What do you say about to-night?" he inquired, with something like a sneer."We couldn't go far, of course, and we'd have to borrow Tom Spade's hounds--mine are tired out--but we might have a short run about midnight, get a 'possum or so, and be in our beds before daybreak.Shall we try it?"The boy wavered, struggling between his desire for the chase and his fear of Fletcher.
"Of course, if you're afraid--" added Christopher slowly.
"I'm not afraid," broke out Will angrily."I'm not afraid and you know it.You be at the store by eleven, and I'll get out of the window and join you.Grandpa will never know, and if he does--well, I'll settle him!""Then be quick about it," was Christopher's retort, and as the boy ran out into the darkness he followed him to the door and stood gazing moodily down upon the yellow circle that his lantern cast on the bare ground.A massive fatigue oppressed him, and his hands and feet had become like leaden weights.There was a heaviness, too, about his head, and his eyeballs burned as if he had looked too long at a bright light.At the moment he felt like a man who, being bound upon a wheel, is whirled so rapidly around that he is dazed by the continuous revolutions.What did it all mean, anyway--the boy, Fletcher, himself, and the revenge which he now saw so clearly before him? Was it a great divine judgment or a great human cruelty?
Question as he would, the wheel still turned, and he knew that for good or evil he was bound upon it until the end.
