CHAPTER 29
They was fetching a very nice looking old
gentleman along, and a nice looking younger one, with his right arm
in a sling. And my souls, how the people yelled, and laughed, and
kept it up. But I didn’t see no joke about it, and I judged it
would strain the duke and the king some to see any. I reckoned
they’d turn pale. But no, nary a pale did they turn.ek The
duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went a
goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that’s googling
out butter-milk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed down
sorrowful on them newcomers like it give him the stomach ache in
his very heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in
the world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the principal people
gethered around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That
old gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death.
Pretty soon he begun to speak, and I see, straight off, he
pronounced like an Englishman, not the king’s way, though
the king’s was pretty good, for an imitation. I can’t give
the old gent’s words, nor I can’t imitate him; but he turned around
to the crowd, and says, about like this:
“This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking
for; and I’ll acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain’t very well
fixed to meet it and answer it; for my brother and me has had
misfortunes, he’s broke his arm, and our baggage got put off at a
town above here, last night in the night by a mistake. I am Peter
Wilks’s brother Harvey, and this is his brother William, which
can’t hear nor speak—and can’t even make signs to amount to much,
now’t he’s only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say
we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can prove
it. But, up till then, I won’t say nothing more, but go to the
hotel and wait.”
So him and the new dummy started off; and the king
he laughs, and blethers out:
“Broke his arm—very likely ain’t
it?—and very convenient, too, for a fraud that’s got to make signs,
and hain’t learnt how. Lost their baggage! That’s mighty
good!—and mighty ingenious—under the circumstances! ”
So he laughed again; and so did everybody else,
except three or four, or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that
doctor; another one was a sharp looking gentleman, with a
carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind made out of carpet-stuff, that
had just come off of the steamboat and was talking to him in a low
voice, and glancing towards the king now and then and nodding their
heads—it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville;
and another one was a big rough husky that come along and listened
to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the king now.
And when the king got done, this husky up and says:
“Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when’d
you come to this town?”
“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the
king.
“But what time o’ day?”
“In the evenin‘—’bout an hour er two before
sundown.”
“How’d you come?”
“I come down on the Susan Powell, from
Cincinnati.”
“Well, then, how’d you come to be up at the Pint in
the mornin—in a canoe?”
“I warn’t up at the Pint in the mornin‘.”
“It’s a lie.”
Several of them jumped for him and begged him not
to talk that way to an old man and a preacher.
“Preacher be hanged, he’s a fraud and a liar. He
was up at the Pint that mornin‘. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I
was up there, and he was up there. I see him there. He come
in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy.”
The doctor he up and says: “Would you know the boy
again if you was to see him, Hines?”
“I reckon I would, but I don’t know. Why, yonder he
is, now. I know him perfectly easy.”
It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:
“Neighbors, I don’t know whether the new couple is
frauds or not; but if these two ain’t frauds, I am an idiot,
that’s all. I think it’s our duty to see that they don’t get away
from here till we’ve looked into this thing. Come along, Hines;
come along, the rest of you. We’ll take these fellows to the tavern
and affront them with t‘other couple, and I reckon we’ll find out
something before we get through.”
It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the
king’s friends; so we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor
he led me along by the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he
never let go my hand.
We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up
some candles, and fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor
says:
“I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but
I think they’re frauds, and they may have complices that we
don’t know nothing about. If they have, won’t the complices get
away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It ain’t unlikely. If
these men ain’t frauds, they won’t object to sending for that money
and letting us keep it till they prove they’re all right—ain’t that
so?”
Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our
gang in a pretty tight place, right at the outstart. But the king
he only looked sorrowful, and says:
“Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain’t
got no disposition to throw anything in the way of a fair, open,
out-and-out investigation o’ this misable business; but alas, the
money ain’t there; you k’n send and see, if you want to.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her,
I took and hid it inside o’ the straw tick o’ my bed, not wishin’
to bank it for the few days we’d be here, and considerin’ the bed a
safe place, we not bein’ used to niggers, and suppos‘n’ ’em honest,
like servants in England. The niggers stole it the very next
mornin’ after I had went down stairs; and when I sold ‘em, I hadn’t
missed the money yit, so they got clean away with it. My servant
here k’n tell you ’bout it, gentlemen.”
The doctor and several said “Shucks!” and I see
nobody didn’t altogether believe him. One man asked me if I see the
niggers steal it. I said no, but I see them sneaking out of the
room and hustling away, and I never thought nothing, only I
reckoned they was afraid they had waked up my master and was trying
to get away before he made trouble with them. That was all they
asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and says:
“Are you English too?”
I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and
said, “Stuff!”
Well, then they sailed in on the general
investigation, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out,
and nobody never said a word about supper, nor ever seemed to think
about it—and so they kept it up, and kept it up; and it was
the worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They made the king tell his
yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his’n; and anybody but a
lot of prejudiced chuckleheadsel
would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and
t‘other one lies. And by-and-by they had me up to tell what I
knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the corner of
his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. I begun
to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the
English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn’t get pretty fur till the
doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says:
“Set down, my boy, I wouldn’t strain myself, if I
was you. I reckon you ain’t used to lying, it don’t seem to come
handy; what you want is practice. You do it pretty awkward.”
I didn’t care nothing for the compliment, but I was
glad to be let off, anyway.
The doctor he started to say something, and turns
and says:
“If you’d been in town at first, Levi Bell——”
The king broke in and reached out his hand, and
says:
“Why, is this my poor dead brother’s old friend
that he’s wrote so often about?”
The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer
smiled and looked pleased, and they talked right along a while, and
then got to one side and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks
up and says:
“That’ll fix it. I’ll take the order and send it,
along with your brother‘s, and then they’ll know it’s all
right.”
So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he
set down and twisted his head to one side, and chawed his tongue,
and scrawled off something; and then they give the pen to the
duke—and then for the first time, the duke looked sick. But he took
the pen and wrote. So then the lawyer turns to the new old
gentleman and says:
“You and your brother please write a line or two
and sign your names.”34
The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn’t read
it. The lawyer looked powerful astonished, and says:
“Well, it beats me”—and snaked a lot of old
letters out of his pocket, and examined them, and then examined the
old man’s writing, and then them again; and then says: “These old
letters is from Harvey Wilks; and here’s these two’s
handwritings, and anybody can see they didn’t write them”
(the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell you, to see
how the lawyer had took them in), “and here’s this old
gentleman’s handwriting, and anybody can tell, easy enough,
he didn’t write them—fact is, the scratches he makes ain’t
properly writing, at all. Now here’s some letters
from——”
The new old gentleman says:
“If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my
hand but my brother there—so he copies for me. It’s his hand
you’ve got there, not mine.”
“Well!” says the lawyer, “this is a
state of things. I’ve got some of William’s letters too; so if
you’ll get him to write a line or so we can com——”
“He can’t write with his left hand,” says
the old gentleman. “If he could use his right hand, you would see
that he wrote his own letters and mine too. Look at both,
please—they’re by the same hand.”
The lawyer done it, and says:
“I believe it’s so—and if it ain’t so, there’s a
heap stronger resemblance than I’d noticed before, anyway. Well,
well, well! I thought we was right on the track of a slution, but
it’s gone to grass, partly. But anyway, one thing is
proved—these two ain’t either of ‘em Wilkses”—and he wagged
his head towards the king and the duke.
Well, what do you think?—that muleheaded old fool
wouldn’t give in then! Indeed he wouldn’t. Said it warn’t no fair
test. Said his brother William was the cussedest joker in the
world, and hadn’t tried to write—he see William was
going to play one of his jokes the minute he put the pen to paper.
And so he warmed up and went warbling and warbling right along,
till he was actuly beginning to believe what he was saying,
himself—but pretty soon the new old gentleman broke in, and
says:
“I’ve thought of something. Is there anybody here
that helped to lay out my br—helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks
for burying?”
“Yes,” says somebody, “me and Ab Turner done it.
We’re both here.”
Then the old man turns towards the king, and
says:
“Peraps this gentleman can tell me what was tatooed
on his breast?”
Blamed if the king didn’t have to brace up mighty
quick, or he’d a squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has
cut under, it took him so sudden—and mind you, it was a thing that
was calculated to make most anybody sqush to get fetched
such a solid one as that without any notice—because how was
he going to know what was tatooed on the man? He whitened a
little; he couldn’t help it; and it was mighty still in there, and
everybody bending a little forwards and gazing at him. Says I to
myself, Now he’ll throw up the sponge—there ain’t no more
use. Well, did he? A body can’t hardly believe it, but he didn’t. I
reckon he thought he’d keep the thing up till he tired them people
out, so they’d thin out, and him and the duke could break loose and
get away. Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile,
and says:
“Mf! It’s a very tough question,
ain’t it! Yes, sir, I k’n tell you what’s tatooed on
his breast. It’s jest a small, thin, blue arrow—that’s what it is;
and if you don’t look clost, you can’t see it. Now what do
you say—hey?”
Well, I never see anything like that old
blister for clean out-and-out cheek.
The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner
and his pard, and his eye lights up like he judged he’d got the
king this time, and says:
“There—you’ve heard what he said! Was there any
such mark on Peter Wilks’s breast?”
Both of them spoke up and says:
“We didn’t see no such mark.”
“Good!” says the old gentleman. “Now, what you
did see on his breast was a small dim P, and a B(which is an
initial he dropped when he was young), and a W, with dashes between
them, so: P—B—W”—and he marked them that way on a piece of paper.
“Come—ain’t that what you saw?”
Both of them spoke up again, and says:
“No, we didn’t. We never seen any marks at
all.”
Well, everybody was in a state of mind, now; and
they sings out:
“The whole bilin’ of’m ’s frauds! Le’s duck
‘em! le’s drown ’em! le’s ride ‘em on a rail!” and everybody was
whooping at once, and there was a rattling pow-wow. But the lawyer
he jumps on the table and yells, and says:
“Gentlemen—gentlemen! Hear me just a
word—just a single word—if you PLEASE! There’s one way
yet—let’s go and dig up the corpse and look.”
That took them.
“Hooray!” they all shouted, and was starting right
off; but the lawyer and the doctor sung out:
“Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and
the boy, and fetch them along, too!”
‘We’ll do it!“ they all shouted: ”and if we don’t
find them marks we’ll lynch the whole gang!“
I was scared, now, I tell you. But there
warn’t no getting away, you know. They gripped us all, and marched
us right along, straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and
half down the river, and the whole town at our heels, for we made
noise enough, and it was only nine in the evening.
As we went by our house I wished I hadn’t sent Mary
Jane out of town; because now if I could tip her the wink, she’d
light out and save me, and blow on our dead-beats.
Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just
carrying on like wild- cats; and to make it more scary, the sky was
darking up, and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and
the wind to shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most awful
trouble and most dangersome I ever was in; and I was kinder
stunned; everything was going so different from what I had allowed
for; stead of being fixed so I could take my own time, if I wanted
to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me
and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the
world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tatoo-marks. If
they didn’t find them—
I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet,
somehow, I couldn’t think about nothing else. It got darker and
darker, and it was a beautiful time to give the crowd the slip; but
that big husky had me by the wrist—Hines—and a body might as well
try to give Goliar the slip. He dragged me right along, he was so
excited; and I had to run to keep up.
When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard
and washed over it like an overflow. And when they got to the
grave, they found they had about a hundred times as many shovels as
they wanted, but nobody hadn’t thought to fetch a lantern. But they
sailed into digging, anyway, by the flicker of the lightning, and
sent a man to the nearest house a half a mile off, to borrow
one.
So they dug and dug, like everything; and it got
awful dark, and the rain started, and the wind swished and swushed
along, and the lightning come brisker and brisker, and the thunder
boomed; but them people never took no notice of it, they was so
full of this business; and one minute you could see everything and
every face in that big crowd, and the shovelfuls of dirt sailing up
out of the grave, and the next second the dark wiped it all out,
and you couldn’t see nothing at all.
At last they got out the coffin, and begun to
unscrew the lid, and then such another crowding, and shouldering,
and shoving as there was, to scrouge in and get a sight, you never
see; and in the dark, that way, it was awful. Hines he hurt my
wrist dreadful, pulling and tugging so, and I reckon he clean
forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and panting.
All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect
sluice of white glare, and somebody sings out:
“By the living jingo, here’s the bag of gold on his
breast!”
Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and
dropped my wrist and give a big surge to bust his way in and get a
look, and the way I lit out and shinned for the road in the dark,
there ain’t nobody can tell.
I had the road all to myself, and I fairly
flew—leastways I had it all to myself except the solid dark, and
the now-and-then glares,em and
the buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the
splitting of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it
along!
When I struck the town, I see there warn’t nobody
out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but humped
it straight through the main one; and when I begun to get towards
our house I aimed my eye and set it. No light there; the house all
dark—which made me feel sorry and disappointed, I didn’t know why.
But at last, just as I was sailing by, flash comes the light
in Mary Jane’s window! and my heart swelled up sudden, like to
bust; and the same second the house and all was behind me in the
dark, and wasn’t ever going to be before me no more in this world.
She was the best girl I ever see, and had the most
sand.
The minute I was far enough above the town to see I
could make the towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow;
and the first time the lightning showed me one that wasn’t chained,
I snatched it and shoved. It was a canoe, and warn’t fastened with
nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big distance off,
away out there in the middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no
time; and when I struck the raft at last, I was so faggeden I
would a just laid down to blow and gasp if I could afforded it. But
I didn’t. As I sprung aboard I sung out:
“Out with you Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to
goodness, we’re shut of them!”
Jim lit out, and was a coming for me with both arms
spread, he was so full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the
lightning, my heart shot up in my mouth, and I went overboard
backwards; for I forgot he was old King Lear and a drownded A-rab
all in one, and it most scared the livers and lights out of me. But
Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and bless me, and so on,
he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the king and the duke,
but I says:
“Not now—have it for breakfast, have it for
breakfast! Cut loose and let her slide!”
So, in two seconds, away we went, a sliding down
the river, and it did seem so good to be free again and all by
ourselves on the big river and nobody to bother us. I had to skip
around a bit, and jump up and crack my heels a few times, I
couldn’t help it; but about the third crack, I noticed a sound that
I knowed mighty well—and held my breath and listened and waited—and
sure enough, when the next flash busted out over the water, here
they come!—and just a laying to their oars and making their skiff
hum! It was the king and the duke.
So I wilted right down onto the planks, then, and
give up; and it was all I could do to keep from crying.