Elder Conklin by Frank Harris (free e reader txt) 📕

throw fer high in Garotte—sometimes,” he went on, turning as if to explain to Hitchcock, but with insult in his voice, and then, “After you, Jedge!”

Rablay passed through the crowd into the next room. There, on a table, was a small heap covered with a cloak. Silently the men pressed round, leaving Crocker between the two adversaries in the full light of the swinging lamp.

“Now, Jedge,” said Crocker, with a motion towards the table.

“No!” returned the Judge, with white, fixed face, “he won; let him draw first. I only want a square deal.”

A low hum of surprise went round the room. Garotte was more than satisfied with its champion. Crocker looked at Hitchcock, and said:

“It’s your draw, then.” The words were careless, but the tone and face spoke clearly enough.

A quick glance round the room and Hitchcock saw that he was trapped. These men would show him no mercy. At once the wild beast in him appeared. He stepped to the table, put his hand under the cloak, drew out a revolver, dropped it, pointing towards Rablay’s face, and pulled the trigger. A sharp click. That revolver, at any rate, was unloaded. Quick as thought Crocker stepped between Hitchcock and the table. Then he said:

“It’s your turn now, Jedge!”

As he spoke a sound, half of relief and half of content came from the throats of the onlookers. The Judge did not move. He had not quivered when the revolver was levelled within a foot of his head; he did not appear to have seen it. With set eyes and pale face, and the jagged wound on his forehead whence the blood still trickled, he had waited, and now he did not seem to hear. Again Crocker spoke:

“Come, Jedge, it’s your turn.”

The sharp, loud words seemed to break the spell which had paralyzed the man. He moved to the table, and slowly drew the revolver from under the cloak. His hesitation was too much for the crowd.

“Throw it through him, Jedge! Now’s your chance. Wade in, Jedge!”

The desperate ferocity of the curt phrases seemed to move him. He raised the revolver. Then came in tones of triumph:

“I’ll bet high on the Jedge!”

He dropped the revolver on the floor, and fled from the room.

The first feeling of the crowd of men was utter astonishment, but in a moment or two this gave place to half-contemptuous sympathy. What expression this sentiment would have found it is impossible to say, for just then Bill Hitchcock observed with a sneer:

“As he’s run, I may as well walk;” and he stepped towards the bar-room.

Instantly Crocker threw himself in front of him with his face on fire.

“Walk—will ye?” he burst out, the long-repressed rage flaming up— “walk! when you’ve jumped the best man in Garotte—walk! No, by God, you’ll crawl, d’ye hear? crawl—right out of this camp, right now!” and he dropped his revolver on Hitchcock’s breast.

Then came a wild chorus of shouts.

“That’s right! That’s the talk! Crawl, will ye! Down on yer hands and knees. Crawl, damn ye! Crawl!” and a score of revolvers covered the stranger.

For a moment he stood defiant, looking his assailants in the eyes. His face seemed to have grown thinner, and his moustache twitched with the snarling movement of a brute at bay. Then he was tripped up and thrown forwards amid a storm of, “Crawl, damn ye—crawl!” And so Hitchcock crawled, on hands and knees, out of Doolan’s.

Lawyer Rablay, too, was never afterwards seen in Garotte. Men said his nerves had “give out.”

JULY, 1892.

 

*

 

GULMORE, THE BOSS

The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive. Though it was not yet seven o’clock two negro girls were clearing away the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress, an angular, sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice, and nervously abrupt movements. Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book. In an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth was reading a newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was muscular, and the coarse dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health. There was both obstinacy and combativeness in his face with its cocked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw, but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far from ill-natured. As he laid the paper on his knees and looked up, he drew the eye. His size and strength seemed to be the physical equivalents of an extraordinary power of character and will. When Mrs. Gulmore followed the servants out of the room the girl rose from her chair and went towards the door. She was stopped by her father’s voice:

“Ida, I want a talk with you. You’ll be able to go to your books afterwards; I won’t keep you long.” She sat down again and laid her book on the table, while Mr. Gulmore continued:

“The election’s next Monday week, and I’ve no time to lose.” A moment’s silence, and he let his question fall casually:

“You know this—Professor Roberts—don’t you? He was at the University when you were there—eh?” The girl flushed slightly as she assented.

“They say he’s smart, an’ he ken talk. I heard him the other night; but I’d like to know what you think. Your judgment’s generally worth havin’.”

Forced to reply without time for reflection, Miss Gulmore said as little as possible with a great show of frankness:

“Oh, yes; he’s smart, and knows Greek and Latin and German, and a great many things. The senior students used to say he knew more than all the other professors put together, and he—he thinks so too, I imagine,” and she laughed intentionally, for, on hearing her own strained laughter, she blushed, and then stood up out of a nervous desire to conceal her embarrassment. But her father was looking away from her at the glowing end of his cigar; and, as she resumed her seat, he went on:

“I’m glad you seem to take no stock in him, Ida, for he’s makin’ himself unpleasant. I’ll have to give him a lesson, I reckon, not in Greek or Latin or them things—I never had nothin’ taught me beyond the ‘Fourth Reader,’ in old Vermont, and I’ve forgotten some of what I learned then —but in election work an’ business I guess I ken give Professor Roberts points, fifty in a hundred, every time. Did you know he’s always around with Lawyer Hutchin’s?”

“Is he? That’s because of May—May Hutchings. Oh, she deserves him;” the girl spoke with sarcastic bitterness, “she gave herself trouble enough to get him. It was just sickening the way she acted, blushing every time he spoke to her, and looking up at him as if he were everything. Some people have no pride in them.”

Her father listened impassively, and, after a pause, began his explanation:

“Wall, Ida, anyway he means to help Hutchin’s in this city election. ‘Tain’t the first time Hutchin’s has run for mayor on the Democratic ticket and come out at the little end of the horn, and I propose to whip him again. But this Professor’s runnin’ him on a new track, and I want some points about him. It’s like this. At the Democratic meetin’ the other night, the Professor spoke, and spoke well. What he said was popcorn; but it took with the Mugwumps—them that think themselves too highfalutin’ to work with either party, jest as if organization was no good, an’ a mob was as strong as an army. Wall, he talked for an hour about purity an’ patriotism, and when he had warmed ‘em up he went bald-headed for me. He told ‘em—you ken read it all in the ‘Tribune’—that this town was run by a ring, an’ not run honestly; contracts were given only to members of the Republican party; all appointments were made by the ring, and never accordin’ to ability—as if sich a ring could last ten years. He ended up by saying, though he was a Republican, as his father is, he intended to vote Democratic—he’s domiciled here—as a protest against the impure and corrupt Boss-system which was disgracin’ American political life. ‘Twas baby talk. But it’s like this. The buildin’ of the branch line South has brought a lot of Irish here— they’re all Democrats—and there’s quite a number of Mugwumps, an’ if this Professor goes about workin’ them all up—what with the flannel-mouths and the rest—it might be a close finish. I’m sure to win, but if I could get some information about him, it would help me. His father’s all right. We’ve got him down to a fine point. Prentiss, the man I made editor of the ‘Herald,’ knows him well; ken tell us why he left Kaintucky to come West. But I want to know somethin’ about the Professor, jest to teach him to mind his own business, and leave other folk to attend to theirs. Ken you help me? Is he popular with the students and professors?”

She thought intently, while the colour rose in her cheeks; she was eager to help.

“With the students, yes. There’s nothing to be done there. The professors—I don’t think they like him much; he is too clever. When he came into the class-room and talked Latin to Johnson, the Professor of Latin, and Johnson could only stammer out a word or two, I guess he didn’t make a friend;” and the girl laughed at the recollection.

“I don’t know anything else that could be brought against him. They say he is an Atheist. Would that be any use? He gave a lecture on ‘Culture as a Creed’ about three months ago which made some folk mad. The other professors are Christians, and, of course, all the preachers took it up. He compared Buddha with Christ, and said—oh, I remember!—that Shakespeare was the Old Testament of the English-speaking peoples. That caused some talk; they all believe in the Bible. He said, too, that ‘Shakespeare was inspired in a far higher sense than St. Paul, who was thin and hard, a logic-loving bigot.’ And President Campbell—he’s a Presbyterian—preached the Sunday afterwards upon St. Paul as the great missionary of Protestantism. I don’t think the professors like him, but I don’t know that they can do anything, for all the students, the senior ones, at least, are with him,” and the girl paused, and tried to find out from her father’s face whether what she had said was likely to be of service.

“Wall! I don’t go much on them things myself, but I guess somethin’ ken be done. I’ll see Prentiss about it: send him to interview this President Campbell, and wake him up to a sense of his duty. This is a Christian country, I reckon,” the grey eyes twinkled, “and those who teach the young should teach them Christian principles, or else—get out. I guess it ken be worked. The University’s a State institution. You don’t mind if he’s fired out, do you?” And the searching eyes probed her with a glance.

“Oh! I don’t mind,” she said quickly, in a would-be careless tone, rising and going towards him, “it has nothing to do with me. He belongs to May Hutchings—let her help him, if she can. I think you’re quite right to give him a lesson—he needs one badly. What right has he to come and attack you?” She had passed to her father’s side, and was leaning against his shoulder. Those grey eyes saw more than she cared to reveal; they made her uncomfortable.

“Then I understand it’s like this. You want him to get a real lesson? Is that it? You ken