第48章 THE TEMPTATION(18)

"Well, I shouldn't like that," pursued Will; "and I'm glad Idon't live in such a little place.Now, the doors at the Hall are so high that I could stand on your shoulders and go in without bending my head.Let's try it some day.Grandpa wouldn't know."Christopher turned and looked at him suddenly."What would you say to going 'possum hunting one night?" he asked in a queer voice.

"Whoopee!" cried the boy, tossing his hat in the air."Will you take me?""Well, it's hard work, you know," went on the other thoughtfully.

"You'd have to get up in the middle of the night and steal out of the window without your grandfather's knowing it.""I should say so!"

"We'd tramp till morning, probably, with the hounds, and Tom Spade would come along to bring his lanterns.Then when it was over we'd wind up for drinks at his store.It's great sport, Itell you, but it takes a man to stand it.""Oh, I'm man enough by now."

"Not according to your grandfather's thinking.""What does he know about it? He's just an old fogy himself.""We'll see, we'll see.If he wants to keep you tied to nurse's strings too long, we must play him a trick.Why, when I was fourteen I could shoot with any man about here--and drink with him, too, for that matter.Nobody kept me back, you see."The boy looked up at Christopher with sparkling eyes, in which the eternal hero-worship of youth was already kindled.

"Oh, you're splendid!" he exclaimed, "and I'm going to be just like you.Grandpa shan't keep me a baby any longer, I can tell you.All this Greek, now--he's crazy about my learning it--and Ihate it.Do you know Greek?"

Christopher laughed shortly."Where does he live?" he inquired mockingly.

For a moment the boy looked at him perplexed."It's a language,"he replied gravely; "and grandpa says it comes handy in a bargain, but I won't learn it.I hate school, anyway, and he swears he's going to send me back in two weeks.I hope I'll fall ill, and then he can't.""In two weeks," repeated the other reflectively; "well, a good deal may happen, I reckon, in two weeks.""Oh, lots!" agreed the boy with enthusiasm; "you'll let me chase rabbits with you every day--won't you? and teach me to shoot? and we'll go 'possum hunting one night and not get home till morning.

It will be easy enough to fool grandpa.I'll take care of that, and if Aunt Saidie finds it out she'll never tell him--she never does tell on me.Here, let me take the gun awhile, will you?"Christopher handed him the gun, and they went on rapidly along the old road under the honey locusts that grew beyond the bend.

They were nearing the place where Christopher, as a child of twelve, had waited with his birdgun in the bushes to shoot Fletcher when he came in sight, and now as the recollection returned to him he unconsciously slackened his pace and cast his eyes about for the spot where he had stood.It was all there just as it had been that morning--the red clumps of sumach covered with gray dust, the dried underbrush piled along the fence, and the brown honeyshucks strewn in the sunny road.For the first time in his life he was glad at this instant that he had not killed Fletcher then--that his hand had been stayed that day to fall the heavier, it might be, at the appointed time.The boy still chatted eagerly, and when presently the hounds scented a rabbit in the sassafras beyond the fence, he started with a shout at the heels of the pursuing pack.Swinging himself over the brushwood, Christopher followed slowly across the waste of lifeeverlasting, tearing impatiently through the flowering net which the wild potato vine cast about his feet.

Through the brilliant October day they hunted over the ragged fields, resting at noon to eat the slices of bread and bacon which Christopher had brought in his pocket.As they lay at full length in the sunshine upon the lifeeverlasting, the young man's gaze flew like a bird across the landscape--where the gaily decorated autumn fallows broke in upon the bare tobacco fields like gaudy patches on a homely garment--to rest upon the far-off huddled chimneys of Blake Hall.For a time he looked steadily upon them; then, turning on his side, he drew his harvest hat over his eyes and began a story of his early adventures behind the hounds, speaking in half-gay, half-bitter tones.

In the mild autumn weather a faint haze overhung the landscape, changing from violet to gray as the shadows rose or fell.Around them the unploughed wasteland swept clear to the distant road, which wound like a muddy river beside the naked tobacco fields.

Lying within the slight depression of a hilltop, the two were buried deep amid the lifeeverlasting, which shed its soft dust upon them and filled their nostrils with its ghostly fragrance.

As he went on, Christopher found a savage delight in mocking the refinements of the boy's language, in tossing him coarse expressions and brutal oaths much as he tossed scraps to the hounds, in touching with vulgar scorn all the conventional ideals of the household--obedience, duty, family affection, religion even.While he sank still lower in that defiant self-respect to which he had always clung doggedly until to-day, there was a fierce satisfaction in the knowledge that as he fell he dragged Will Fletcher with him--that he had sold himself to the devil and got his price.

This unholy joy was still possessing him when at nightfall, exhausted, dirty, brier-scratched, and bearing their strings of game, they reached Tom Spade's, and Christopher demanded raw whisky in the little room behind the store.Sol Peterkin was there, astride his barrel, and as they entered he gave breath to a low whistle of astonishment.

"Why, your grandpa's been sweepin' up the county for you!" he exclaimed to Will.

"So he's found out I wasn't at the Morrisons'," said the boy a little nervously."I'd better be going home, I reckon, and get it over."Christopher drained his glass of whisky, and then, refilling it, pushed it across the table.