Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries Read online

  “And why not, Abner?” replied the man. “Is there any place in this scheme of nature for His intervention? Why, sir, the intelligence of man that your Scriptures so despise can easily put His little plan of rewards and punishments out of joint. Not the good, Abner, but the intelligent, possess the earth. The man who sees on all sides of his plan, and hedges it about with wise precaution, brings it to success. Every day the foresight of men outwits your God.”

  My uncle lifted his chin above his wet stock. He looked at the window with the night banked behind it, and then down at the refined and elegant gentleman in the chair beside the table, and then at the strapped-up portmanteau in the corner. His great jaw moved out under the massive chin. From his face, from his manner, he seemed about to approach some business of vital import. Then, suddenly, from the room beyond there came a great boom of curses, a cry that the dice had fallen against a platter, a blow and a gust of obscenities and oaths.

  My uncle extended his arm toward the room.

  “Your gentleman’s vice,” he said; “eh, Mr. Byrd!”

  The man put out a jeweled hand and snuffed the candles. “The vice, Abner, but not the gentlemen.” Mr. Byrd flicked a bit of soot from his immaculate sleeve. Then he made a careless gesture.

  “These beasts,” he said, “are the scum of New Orleans. They would bring any practice into disrepute. One cannot illustrate a theory by such creatures. Gaming, Abner, is the diversion of a gentleman; it depends on chance, even as all trading does. The Bishop of London has been unable to point out wherein it is immoral.”

  “Then,” said Abner, “the Bishop does little credit to his intelligence.”

  “It has been discussed in the coffee-houses of New Orleans,” replied Mr. Byrd, “and no worthy objection found.”

  “I think I can give you one,” replied my uncle.

  “And what is your objection, Abner?” asked the man. “It has this objection, if no other,” replied my uncle, “it encourages a hope of reward without labor, and it is this hope, Byrd, that fills the jail house with weak men, and sets strong ones to dangerous ventures.”

  He looked down at the man before him, and again his iron jaw moved.

  “Byrd,” he said, “under the wisdom of God, labor alone can save the world. It is everywhere before all benefits that we would enjoy. Every man must till the earth before he can eat of its fruits. He must fell the forest and let in the sun before his grain will ripen. He must spin and weave. And in his trading he must labor to carry his surplus stuff to foreign people, and to bring back what he needs from their abundance. Labor is the great condition of reward. And your gentleman’s vice, Byrd, would annul it and overturn the world.”

  But the man was not listening to Abner’s words. He was on his feet and again before the window. He had his jaw gathered into his hand. The man swore softly.

  “What disturbs you, Byrd?” said my uncle.

  He stood unmoving before the fire, his hands to the flame. The man turned quickly.

  “It is the night, Abner—wind and driving rain. The devil has it!”

  “The weather, Byrd,” replied my uncle, “happens in your philosophy by chance, so be content with what it brings you, for this chance regards, as you tell me, no man’s plans; neither the wise man nor the fool hath any favor of it.”

  “Nor the just nor the unjust, Abner.”

  My uncle looked down at the floor. He locked his great bronze fingers behind his massive back.

  “And so you believe, Byrd,” he said. “Well, I take issue with you. I think this thing you call ‘chance’ is the Providence of God, and I think it favors the just.”

  “Abner,” cried the man, now turning from the window, “if you believe that, you believe it without proof.”

  “Why, no,” replied my uncle; “I have got the proof on this very night.”

  He paused a moment; then he went on.

  “I was riding with the Virginia wagons,” he said, “on the journey here. It was my plan to come on slowly with them, arriving on the morrow. But these rains fell; the road on this side of the Hills was heavy; and I determined to leave the wagons and ride in tonight.

  “Now, call this what you like—this unforeseen condition of the road, this change of plan. Call it ‘chance,’ Byrd!”

  Again he paused and his big jaw tightened.

  “But it is no chance, sir, nor any accidental happening that Madison of Virginia, Simon Carroll of Maryland and my brother Rufus are upright men, honorable in their dealings and fair before the world.

  “Now, sir, if this chance, this chance of my coming on tonight before the Virginia wagons, this accidental happening, favored Madison, Simon Carroll and my brother Rufus as though with a direct and obvious intent, as though with a clear and preconceived design, you will allow it to me as a proof, or, at least, Mr. Evlyn Byrd, as a bit of evidence, as a sort of indisputable sign, that honorable men, men who deal fairly with their fellows, have some favor of these inscrutable events.”

  The man was listening now with a careful attention. He came away from the window and stood beside the table, his clenched fingers resting on the board. “What do you drive at, Abner?” he asked.

  My uncle lifted his chin above the big wet stock.

  “A proof of my contention, Byrd,” he answered.

  “But your story, Abner? What happened?”

  My uncle looked down at the man.

  “There is no hurry, Byrd,” he said; “the night is but half advanced and you will not now go forward on your journey.”

  “My journey!” echoed the man. “What do you mean?”

  “Why, this,” replied my uncle: “that you would be setting out for Piccadilly, I imagine, and the dancing women, and the gentlemen who live by chance. But as you do not go now, we have ample leisure for our talk.”

  “Abner,” cried Mr. Byrd, “what is this riddle?”

  My uncle moved a little in his place before the fire.

  “I left the Virginia wagons at midday,” he went on; “night fell in the flatland; I could hardly get on; the mud was deep and the rains blew. The whole world was like the pit. It is a common belief that a horse can see on any night, however dark, but this belief is error, like that which attributes supernatural perception to the beast. My horse went into the trees and the fence; now and then there was a candle in a window, but it did not lighten the world; it served only to accentuate the darkness. It seemed impossible to go forward on a strange road, now flooded. I thought more than once to stop in at some settler’s cabin. But mark you, Byrd, I came on. Why? I cannot say. ‘Chance,’ Mr. Evlyn Byrd, if you like. I would call it otherwise. But no matter.”

  He paused a moment, and then continued:

  “I came in by the river. It was all dark like the kingdom of Satan. Then, suddenly, I saw a light and your boat tied up. This light seemed somewhere inside, and its flame puzzled me. I got down from my horse and went onto the steamboat. I found no one, but I found the light. It was a fire just gathering under way. A carpenter had been at work; he had left some shavings and bits of candle, and in this line of rubbish the fire had started.”

  The man sat down in his chair beside the two tallow candles.

  “Fire!” he said. “Yes, there was a carpenter at work in my office cabin today. He left shavings, and perhaps bits of candle, it is likely. Was it in my office cabin?”

  “Along the floor there,” replied my uncle, “beginning to flame up.”

  “Along the floor!” repeated Mr. Byrd. “Then nothing in my cabin was burned? The wall desk, Abner, with the long mahogany drawer—it was not burned?”

  He spoke with an eager interest.

  “It was not burned,” replied my uncle. “Did it contain things of value?”

  “Of great value,” returned the man.

  “You leave, then, things of value strangely unprotected,” replied my uncle. “The door was open.”

  “But not the desk, Abner. It was securely locked. I had that lock from Sheffield. No key would
turn it but my own.”

  Byrd sat for some moments unmoving, his delicate hand fingering his chin, his lips parted. Then, as with an effort, he got back his genial manner.

  “I thank you, Abner,” he said. “You have saved my boat. And it was a strange coincidence that brought you there to do it.”

  Then he flung back in his big chair with a laugh.

  “But your theory, Abner? This chance event does not support it. It is not the good or Christian that this coincidence has benefited. It is I, Abner, who am neither good nor Christian.”

  My uncle did not reply. His face remained set and reflective.

  The rain beat on the window-pane, and the drunken feast went on in the room beyond him.

  “Byrd,” he said, “how do you think that fire was set? A half-burned cigar dropped by a careless hand, or an enemy?”

  “An enemy, Abner,” replied the man. “It will be the work of these damned settlers. Did not their envoy threaten if I should come in, to the peril of their cabins? I gave them no concern then, but I was wrong in that. I should have looked out for their venom. Still, they threaten with such ease and with no hand behind it that one comes, in time, to take no notice of their words.”

  He paused and looked up at the big man above him. “What do you think, Abner? Was the fire set?”

  “One cannot tell from the burning rubbish,” replied my uncle.

  “But your opinion, Abner?” said the man. “What is your opinion?”

  “The fire was set,” replied my uncle.

  Byrd got up at that, and his clenched hand crashed on the table.

  “Then, by the kingdom of Satan, I will overturn every settler’s cabin when the boat goes out tomorrow.”

  My uncle gave no attention to the man’s violence.

  “You would do wanton injury to innocent men,” he said. “The settlers did not fire your boat.”

  “How can you know that, Abner?”

  My uncle changed. Vigor and energy and an iron will got into his body and his face.

  “Byrd,” he said, “we had an argument just now; let me recall it to your attention. You said ‘chance’ happened equally to all, and I that the Providence of God directs it. If I had failed to come on tonight, the boat would have burned. The settlers would have taken blame for it. And Madison of Virginia, Simon Carroll of Maryland and my brother Rufus, whose company at Baltimore insure your boat, would have met a loss they can ill afford.”

  His voice was hard and level like a sheet of light.

  “Not you, Byrd, who, as you tell me, are neither good nor Christian, but these men, who are, would have settled for this loss. Is it the truth—eh, Mr. Evlyn Byrd?”

  The man’s big blue eyes widened in his olive skin.

  “I should have claimed the insurance, of course, as I had the right to do,” he said coldly, for he was not in fear. “But, Abner—”

  “Precisely!” replied my uncle. “And now, Mr. Evlyn Byrd, let us go on. We had a further argument. You thought a man in his intelligence could outwit God. And, sir, you undertook to do it! With your crew drunken here, the boat deserted, the settlers to bear suspicion and your portmanteau packed up for your journey overland to Baltimore, you watched at that window to see the flames burst out.”

  The man’s blue eyes—strange, incredible eyes in that olive skin—were now hard and expressionless as glass. His lips moved, and his hand crept up toward a bulging pocket of his satin waistcoat.

  Grim, hard as iron, inevitable, my uncle went on:

  “But you failed, Byrd! God outwitted you! When I put that fire out in the rubbish, the cabin was dark, and in the dark, Byrd, there, I saw a gleam of light shining through the keyhole of your wall desk—the desk that you alone can open, that you keep so securely locked. Three bits of candle were burning in that empty drawer.”

  The man’s white hand approached the bulging pocket,

  And my uncle’s voice rang as over a plate of steel. “Outwit God!” he cried. “Why, Byrd, you had forgotten a thing that any schoolboy could have told you. You had forgotten that a bit of candle in a drawer, for lack of air, burns more slowly than a bit outside. Your pieces set to fire the rubbish were consumed, but your pieces set in that locked drawer to make sure—to outwit God, if, by chance, the others failed—were burning when I burst the lid off.”

  The man’s nimble hand, lithe like a snake, whipped a derringer out of his bulging pocket.

  But, quicker than that motion, quicker than light, quicker than the eye, my uncle was upon him. The derringer fell harmless to the floor. The bones of the man’s slender fingers snapped in an iron palm. And my uncle’s voice, big, echoing like a trumpet, rang above the storm and the drunken shouting:

  “Outwit God! Why, Mr. Evlyn Byrd, you cannot outwit me, who am the feeblest of His creatures!”

  Chapter 15

  The Concealed Path

  It was night, and the first snow of October was in the air when my uncle got down from his horse before the door. The great stone house sat on a bench of the mountains. Behind it lay the forest, and below, the pasture land of the Hills.

  After the disastrous failure of Prince Charles Edward Stuart to set up his kingdom in Scotland, more than one great Highland family had fled oversea to Virginia, and for a hundred years had maintained its customs. It was at the house of such a family that my uncle stopped.

  There was the evidence of travel hard and long on my uncle and his horse. An old man bade him enter.

  “Who is here?” said my uncle.

  The servant replied with two foreign words, meaning “The Red Eagle” in the Gaelic tongue.

  And he led my uncle through the hall into the dining-room. It was a scene laid back a hundred years in Skye that he came on. A big woman of middle age dined alone, in a long, beamed room, lighted with tallow candles. An ancient servant stood behind her chair.

  Two features of the woman were conspicuous—her bowed nose and her coarse red hair.

  She got up when she saw my uncle.

  “Abner,” she cried, “by the Blessed God I am glad to see you! Come in! Come in!”

  My uncle entered, and she put him beyond her at the table.

  “You ought to eat, Abner,” she said; “for by all the tokens, you have traveled.”

  “A long way,” replied my uncle.

  “And did the ravens of Elijah send you to me?” said the woman. “For I need you.”

  “What need?” inquired my uncle, while he attacked the rib of beef and the baked potatoes, for the dinner, although set with some formality, was plain.

  “Why, this need, Abner: For a witness whose name will stand against the world.”

  “A witness!” repeated my uncle.

  “Aye, a witness,” continued the woman. “The country holds me hard and dour, and given to impose my will. There will be a wedding in my house tonight, and I would have you see it, free of pressure. My niece, Margaret McDonald, has got her senses finally.”

  My uncle looked down at the cloth.

  “Who is the man?” he said.

  “Campbell,” she answered, “and good man enough for a stupid woman.”

  For a moment my uncle did not move. His hands, his body, the very muscles in his eyelids, were for that moment inert as plaster. Then he went on with the potato and the rib of beef.

  “Campbell is here, then?” he said.

  “He came tonight,” replied the woman, “and for once the creature has some spirit. He will have the girl tonight or never. He and my husband Allen Eliott, have driven their cattle out of the glades and on the way to Baltimore. Allen is with the cattle on the Cumberland road, and Campbell rode hard in here to take the girl or to leave her. And whether she goes or stays, he will not return. When the cattle are sold in Baltimore, he will take a ship out of the Chesapeake for Glasgow.”

  She paused and made a derisive gesture.

  “The devil, Abner, or some witch trick, has made a man of Campbell. He used to be irresolute and sullen, but tonight he has th
e spirit of the men who lifted cattle in the lowlands. He is a Campbell of Glen Lion on this night. Believe me, Abner, the wavering beastie is now as hard as oak, and has the devil’s courage. Wherefore is it that a man can change like that?”

  “A man may hesitate between two masters,” replied my uncle, “and be only weak, but when he finally makes his choice he will get what his master has to give him—the courage of heaven, if he go that way, or of hell. Madam, if he go that way.”

  “Man! Man!” she laughed. “If ‘the one who is not to be named,’ as we say, put his spirit into Campbell, he did a grand work. It is the wild old cattle—lifter of Glen Lion that he is the night!”

  “Do you think,” said my uncle, “that a McDonald of Glencoe ought to be mated with a Campbell of Glen Lion?”

  The woman’s face hardened.

  “Did Lord Stair and the Campbells of Glen Lion massacre the McDonalds of Glencoe on yesterday at sunrise, or two hundred years back? Margaret—the fool!—said that before she got my final word.”

  “Is it not in an adage,” said my uncle, “that the Highlander does not change?”

  “But the world changes, Abner,” replied the woman. “Campbell is not ‘Bonnie Charlie’; he is at middle age, a dour man and silent, but he will have a sum of money from a half of the cattle, and he can take care of this girl.”

  Then she cried out in a sharper voice:

  “And what is here in this mountain for her, will you tell me? We grow poor! The old men are to feed. Alien owes money that his half of the cattle will hardly pay. Even old MacPherson”—and she indicated the ancient man behind her chair—“has tried to tell her, in his wise-wife folderol, ‘I see you in the direst peril that overtakes a lassie, and a big shouldered man to save you.’ And it was no omen, Abner, but the vision of his common sense. Here are the lean years to dry out the fool’s youth, and surely Campbell is big shouldered enough for any prophecy. And now, Abner, will you stay and be a witness?”

  “I will be one witness,” replied my uncle slowly, “if you will send for my brother Rufus to be another.”

  The woman looked at her guest in wonder.