CHAPTER XXVI
AN AUGUST NIGHT ADVENTURE
Captain Pollock had gone into town to mail a report to his chief, and he rode homeward through the starry August night in a tranquil frame of mind. It made not the slightest difference to Frank Pollock, U.S.A., that the powers were dilatory in beginning work on the new post; and an elaborate correspondence with headquarters which might, under ordinary circumstances, have proved vexatious, did not trouble him in the least. He was hardly likely to be transferred under the existing circumstances, and if there was anything that pleased him just now it was the privilege of remaining unmolested at his farm-house headquarters. For it was the easiest matter in the world to ride over to the Dameron farm, where Zelda was always very kind to him and where Olive Merriam called him openly an assassin and charged him with responsibility for all the evils of the military establishment, about which, to be sure, she knew very little.
As he neared the farm-house he saw that its lights were not yet extinguished, but showed cozily through the trees.
“I wish I had a little nerve,” he reflected. “If I had I should not linger outside the wicket.” He let his horse walk by the gate as the lights teased his eyes, glowing plainly for a moment and then disappearing; and he hummed to himself:
“‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see;
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.’”
“‘These wakeful eyes’—Frank Pollock, whose are they, I pray?” he reflected. “Songs are foolish things. I never saw one yet that really expressed my feeling. I wonder if Mr. Jack Balcomb is there with his sublime nerve. I shall have to punch his head at the earliest opportunity, bad luck to him! Or perhaps it is my young friend, Mr. Leighton, Bachelor of Laws, who is lingering there in the bower of beauty. If it be so, then may he remain forever a bachelor of laws and of all things visible and invisible. Get up, Ajax.”
The horse sprang to a gallop. Pollock had passed the line of fence that marked the boundaries of the Dameron house and turned and glanced back. As he settled again into the saddle something rustled oddly in the corn-field at his right. It was dim starlight and there was no wind stirring; yet directly at his right hand something was moving the corn.
“Mr. Dameron doesn’t take care of his fences. I’d better get that cow out for him.”
Pollock swung himself from the saddle and the horse stood perfectly quiet, while his master jumped the ditch at the side of the road and peered over the fence.
A voice rose suddenly, quite near at hand:
“‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves;
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’”
It was the low voice of a man singing to himself,—a quavering, senile voice.
Pollock climbed upon the stake-and-rider fence and watched and listened. Some one was walking through the corn with irregular step, chanting in a strained, high voice.
The charred stump of an old tree rose almost as high as the corn and presently, as Pollock watched and listened, the figure of the singer reached and clambered upon it. Pollock sprang down among the corn and crept closer. There was something weird and fascinating in the chant that continued to rise from the solitary figure on the stump. The outline of a man was now quite clearly defined,—an unquiet figure, that moved its arms fantastically, and once or twice, as the refrain ceased, it laughed in a harsh way.
Pollock had drawn quite near between the tall ranks of corn.
“‘We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’ Ha, ha, ha! Rejoicing; yes, it shall be with rejoicing!”
There was no mistaking the figure or the voice now. Dameron’s sharp features were plainly distinguishable. He was without his hat; he sat stiffly on the tree-stump, with his shoulders erect and his legs barely touching the ground. Suddenly he raised his long arms toward the heavens as though in supplication:
“Make it grow; make the corn grow, O merciful heavens! Then I shall be rich. I shall be very rich. And Zelda, she shall be rich, too. O corn, O beautiful corn!”
His shoulders drooped and he seemed about to collapse. Then he straightened himself with sudden energy.
“Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves;
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
He leaped from the stump and sprang out into the corn, darting so near to Pollock that the young man barely slipped away from him.
“No! No! I say there is too much corn! Too much, I say! Millions and millions of bushels in the world! There is too much; too much! I shall lose my money, my daughter’s money, if there is any more! I must trample it down; trample it down!”
He began threshing about, waving his arms wildly and breaking down the stalks. Then he started with a quick step, as though he were marching, through a narrow aisle between two rows, chanting meanwhile in a voice so low that Pollock barely heard him:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.”
Pollock followed him, hardly knowing what to do. It was inconceivable that Ezra Dameron was drunk, but at any rate something was wrong, and Pollock felt a certain responsibility for him.
“Poor girl; that poor girl!” the young man muttered.
The strange noise ahead of him ceased abruptly, and Pollock drew nearer until he saw that the old man knelt and clasped several stalks of corn in his arms. His voice rose tremulously and was hardly audible; he was praying, but the only words that Pollock heard were “the corn, the corn,” constantly repeated.
Then Ezra Dameron’s voice rose with unwonted strength as he repeated in a shrill pipe:
“There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.”
The old man collapsed, pitched forward and lay very still; the stalks of corn released from his arms sprang back to their places with a lingering rustle and whisper.
Pollock drew nearer until he stood by the prostrate figure of the old man, who lay on his face, with his arms flung out.
“Mr. Dameron! Mr. Dameron!”
There was no response, and Pollock pushed aside the corn-stalks and bent down.
“Are you ill? Are you hurt?”
Dameron lay quiet on the ground, which was hard from the August drought. Pollock felt of his hands and found them warm. He brought the limp figure to a sitting posture and repeated again the old man’s name.
“The corn; the corn!” came in a guttural whisper, and Dameron found command of himself and tried to rise.
“Wait a moment; you are ill; you must rest a bit,” said Pollock.
Dameron turned his head from side to side and put one tremulous hand to his throat with a helpless gesture.
“The corn; the corn! Who are you? Say, who are you?” And he caught hold of Pollock’s coat lapels and tried to lift himself by them.
“It’s Pollock. Don’t be alarmed. You are ill. I will help you back to the house.”
“Thank you; thank you. But I need no help. I was walking; just walking. I am quite well.”
He seemed to regain his strength suddenly and stood up, leaning heavily upon Pollock.
“Yes, you are Captain Pollock. I remember you very well, sir,—very well, sir. I’m quite surprised to see you.”
“I was afraid you were ill,” said Pollock, standing back, while Dameron shook himself and beat the dirt from his clothing.
“You seem to be all right. I thought you were sick. I heard you from the road as I was passing.”
“You heard me? Yes. I was looking at the field. I am very fond of walking at night. It’s quieting to the nerves. Yes. My physician recommended it. I suppose, at your age, and in your profession, you are not troubled with nerves. You are very fortunate. I must go back to the house. They will be alarmed if I am gone too long.”
He started off briskly toward the road down a long lane of corn, Pollock following him, surprised at his quick recovery.
“The night is fine,” said the old man, tramping over the clods and brushing swiftly through the corn-stalks. “The August nights are beautiful in these parts. This is the season of the shooting stars. Ah,—there is one now,”—and he pointed to the glittering vault where a meteor shot silently athwart the heavens, leaving a faint, soft light behind.
“That was a fine one,” said Pollock.
“Verily, it was, sir.” The old man continued, standing with head uplifted following the track of the star, and he repeated with unction: “‘O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him forever.’ That,” he added, “is in the Apocrypha, as you doubtless remember.”
Then he turned and hurried on, Pollock following and with difficulty keeping at his heels.
When they reached the fence Dameron climbed it spryly and dropped down on the other side near Pollock’s horse.
“You will allow me to walk to the house with you; you must be very tired,” said Pollock, mystified by the old man’s strange behavior.
“No; oh, no! I am very well. You are quite mistaken in thinking me ill. I frequently walk abroad at night. I was merely looking at the corn. I’m away all day so that I have little time for inspecting the farm.”
“Your corn-field is very handsome. I pass it frequently,” said Pollock, still mystified.
“Yes; the soil is rich. Now, you must go on your way. I’m sorry to have troubled you, but I’m feeling very well. Never better in my life.”
But Pollock continued at his side. It was only a few rods to the wagon gate and he persisted until they reached it.
Two figures were coming down the driveway and paused inside the gate. Zelda had missed her father when they prepared to close the house for the night, and she and Olive had gone out to look for him.
“Is that you, father?”
“Yes, my daughter. The night is glorious, isn’t it?”
Then taking Pollock by the arm he whispered: “Pray say nothing about our meeting. I will explain that. You meant kindly enough, but you were mistaken.”
Pollock spoke to the young women cheerily and waited for Dameron to make some sign.
“I was walking up the road,” the old man explained, “and Mr. Pollock came by and stopped to talk to me. We were commenting on the superb beauty of the heavens. And did you see that meteor a moment ago? It was the finest of the season.”
“No; we didn’t see it,” said Zelda. “We have been in the house all the evening.”
“Yes; you girls leave it to practical fellows like Mr. Pollock and me to go star-gazing,” said her father, jauntily.
Zelda had opened the gate. Pollock declined her invitation to come up to the house.
“It must be quite late,” he said. “And I have a horse down the road somewhere. Good night. Good night, Mr. Dameron.”
He went slowly back to where his horse was cropping the grass at the roadside.
“If I’d been drinking I’d be sure I had ’em,” he reflected half-aloud. “But I haven’t been. The old man seemed to be as sober as a judge when I picked him up. And he was certainly unusually polite after we started back through the corn. I hope he won’t have another attack and murder those girls in their beds. He’s a deep one. He carried off that situation at the gate like an actor. Of course, I shan’t mention his performance in the corn-field,—not much, my brother!”
Pollock swung himself into the saddle and turned his horse for a moment toward the Dameron house. He lifted his hat sweepingly and bowed low in the saddle.
“Good night, ladies!” Then he swung his horse homeward and went forward at a gallop, singing as he rode under the stars:
“‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see;
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.’”
He was a little fellow,—and there was much of the heart of a boy in him.