Moosemeadows

Front matter

A Complete Novel

By THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS

Author of "Green Timber Thoroughbreds," "The Lure of Piper's Glen," etc.

Chapter I

I

THE ice having gone out of the great St. Johns River and its tributaries during the third week in April, at an early hour of a morning of the second week of May, after a long journey, I boarded a train for Wicklow Creek, which is in the backwoods of New Brunswick. There was but one passenger coach on that train. We dropped passengers here and there all morning; and by noon there were only two of us left. The other was a big, reddish fellow in mackinaw coat and high boots, with steel calks on the sole of each boot, a light of derisive humor in his blue eyes and a bottle in a side pocket of his coat. About noon, the car began to sway from side to side and pitch by the head, more like a ship at sea than a train on a track. The cause of this lay in the roadbed which, bad at its best, had suffered recently from springtime thaws and washouts. The man with steel-shod feet lurched from his seat and staggered along the aisle, biting the pattern of a big foot into the floor at every step, lurched and sank into the better half of my seat; and the bottle in his pocket smote me heavily on the hip. He turned his head and stared me straight in the face. He smiled suddenly; and so I smiled.

"The closer we set, the less we'll joggle," he said. "We'll be all right, I guess, if the whole shebang don't roll off into the river. If she does that, it won't be for the first time."

"Let us hope for the best," I said.

"Sure! Hopin's cheap. What d'ye say to a drink?"

"But I'm told that one has to be careful nowadays."

"That's right, too—but this here's honest liquor. I know. It's what the label says, sure's my name's Stack Glashner."

On pronouncing the name he glanced sharply at me as if expecting I would recognize it, but though my family had lived for generations in that part of the world, I myself was a complete stranger to it.

But, though I made no sign, the big woodsman still seemed to think the name needed some defense, for he went on, "We ain't as bad as folks make out—not now. But in my pa's time, an* before that, we was sure a tough bunch; folks around French River an' Wicklow Creek still got the habit of blamin' 'most everything bad that happens onto us Glashners. That's the way with folks in this country. Back here in the woods nothin' sticks like a bad name. We got a bad name sure enough, us Glashners. Did you ever hear anything ag'in us?"

"No," I replied. "I may have heard the name long ago, but that's all. I don't remember anything about it."

"Where were you about here before?"

"Downriver, at Kingspoint. I was born there, but I haven't been back for twenty years."

"Well, the worst thing any Glashner ever done, if you ask me, was when Sally Glashner"—he tapped his forehead significantly with a finger—"married that old hellion, Henry Deblore."

This very decidedly made me prick up my ears, because at that very moment I was on my way to visit my very distant cousin, Tom Deblore, who lived at Moosemeadows Park. His letter of invitation had caught me at a loose end in London after demobilization and had come out of a clear sky. It was in my pocket at that very moment and read like this:

I had been surprised at getting this letter at all, and began to deeply regret not having made greater efforts toward the investigation of the Deblores of Moosemeadows in the days of my youth. I wondered at myself for not having suspected their kinship to my mother. However, being young, footloose and curious, I had let a flip of a coin decide, and here I was hearing a chance acquaintance describe one of the Deblores in no very flattering terms. I wondered if Henry were a kin to Tom. For so many years I had been a wanderer, then had come the war to cut the few remaining family ties, that I had heard very little mention of people in my native province for a great many seasons. The Deblores were a faint memory, anyway, and I was wholly in the dark as to the present family. Old Tom's letter asking me to come to him at Moosemeadows had only caught me in England by the merest chance. In accepting it I had a sneaking hope I might run into some excitement in the New Brunswick backwoods. I dimly remembered the country as a place of big trees, deep shadows and haunting mystery.

Meanwhile, apparently not noting my amazed expression, my loquacious companion went right on, giving me some surprising information about the household, I was then heading to join.

"Henry Deblore had only one vartue," he declared, "an' that was courage. He feared nothin'—an' everybody feared him. It's a wonder he wasn't shot dead on his weddin' day. It's a wonder he wasn't shot dead fifty times before that day. I've heared an uncle of mine, a man who wasn't what ye'd call nervous nor particular, tell how he'd had his sights lined fair on Henry Deblore many's the time, all unbeknownst to Henry an' nobody lookin', an' was scart to press the trigger. Fear of Henry froze his finger. One day I was out after moose, back on the edge of the medders, an' I come face to face with him. I wasn't on his land, nor it wasn't close season for moose, an' I was as big as I am now—but I jumped into the underbrush an' run like the devil himself was after me.

"You mean he was bad?" I inquired cautiously.

"Bad! I reckon he was the worst of the Deblores of Moosemedders, from all I've heared; an' that's about the same as namin' him for the worst man in the world. He was smart, too, or he couldn't of got away with it. An' they were bad before him, them Deblores, rotten bad! How they escaped hangin' is more'n I can figger out, if all the stories be true; an' I don't believe any one of 'em was ever in jail more'n three or four times."

"What do you mean by bad, exactly?" I asked, considerably startled. At any event it began to look as if my visit to Moosemeadows might indeed provide some of the excitement I craved. So I listened with more interest than this chance acquaintance was aware of to his rambling talk. Also, about this time, strange as it seemed, I began to like the fellow.

"There's plenty of things you'd call bad that I wouldn't," he went on. "I am tough, but Henry Deblore was a devil, and everyone round here knew it. And he was slick as he was bad."

"He is dead now, I suppose?" I commented, feeling my way, but not wishing to commit myself.

"I reckon so. But he didn't die at Moosemedders. He'd ought to be dead if he ain't. He got into an argument one night down in the village, in Pete Higgly's store, an' throwed a knife into Pete; an' that's the last was ever seen of him in these parts. He was chased home; but when the crowd got to the old house they had to bust open a door—and he was gone. That was ten or eleven years ago. He ain't been seen nor heared of in these parts since."

"Did Pete Higgly die?" I asked.

"No, but it was a near thing. The crowd hunted all through the house for Hen's money, knowin' he had plenty hid away, and for the old silver and such-like, but they didn't find neither. So they took the livestock—a few cows an' a bunch of steers an' a flock of sheep an' three good horses. But it wasn't more'n a week afterwards when Tom Deblore come home. Yes, sir, Tom—he was Hank's brother—come home to Moosemedders an' made the folks who'd cleaned out the barns an' was figurin' on buyin' in the place at public auction—I forgit how they was goin' to set about it—look like a bunch of rubes."

Chapter 2

II

TELL me about this Thomas Deblore," I said, with pardonable curiosity, considering all this information and the letter in my pocket from him.

"Sure; but we'll have another snort first. Tom had been away so long, an' unheared of so long—so the folks thought—that they reckoned he was dead. Well, he wasn't. He come home with a letter from Henry wrote only a few days before somewheres in Maine, an' a lawyer from downriver. That wasn't more'n a week after Henry had flew the coop. He made the folks who'd carried off the livestock—him an' the lawyer—look like a bunch of fools. They had to take the hosses an' horned cattle an' sheep back to Moosemedders. Tom had the papers, some in his pocket an' others produced from a secret hidin' place in the old house, provin' him his pa's heir. Hen had cheated 'im out of it all them years; but the two of them had been writin' to each other all the time, off an' on. Tom had been a sailor mostly, in foreign parts; an' he'd lived in Brazil quite a spell, folks say—but he ain't a talker, an' all they tell about him is mostly what they guess. He's younger'n Hen—but old enough, at that. But for his nose an' shape, you'd never take 'im for one of that stinkin', dangerous breed. But he's got the beak an' the shape. The folks looked for trouble from him, like they'd had from Henry, an' from all the Deblores for generations, but they didn't get it. Nor they ain't had it since. Once they put the livestock back in the stables an' pens, everything was lovely. He's a decent, peaceful old man, this Tom Deblore, as far as anybody knows hereabouts. He keeps to himself, with old Sol Bear to help with the farmin' an' old Amy Bear to cook."

I felt vastly relieved by his commendations of Thomas.

"Who are Sol and Amy Bear?" I asked.

"Injuns," he replied.

HERE'S Wicklow Crick," said my new friend, Stack Glashner, hoisting himself out of the seat as the train lurched to a standstill. "I git off here. Pleased to of met you."

"It's where I kick off, too," I said.

We detrained, with our dunnage, onto an unsheltered platform. Glashner eyed me inquiringly.

"To be quite frank with you, I'm for Moosemeadows Park," I said.

"What's old Tom been an' done?" he asked anxiously.

"Not a thing that I know of, except invite me to live with him."

"The hell you say!"

"Is it as bad as all that?"

"Be you kin to that—that family?"

"Yes—but it was long before Henry's day. One part of my blood out of thirty-two parts is Deblore—and there was nothing wrong with it when it started my way."

The big bushwhacker looked relieved. "I guess that's so," he said. "I hope yer name ain't Deblore."

"No, indeed," I said. "It is Gidwicke Swayton."

"I reckon you know yer own business better'n I do," he said reflectively. "Queer notion, it seems to me, comin' here." He pushed back his cap and scratched the red top of his head. "I got to cross the river, but there's no special hurry. I don't mind goin' upstream with you, if you don't. The road would be bad—full of honey-pots—but we could git a canoe right here in the village. It's quite a spell up to the old house—twenty-two mile, I calculate—an' heavy water. We could stop the night at Mis' Burt's an' set out bright an' early in the mornin'. What d'ye say?"

"But can you spare the time?"

"Sure I can! I got plenty of time, this time of year. Hey thar, Hercules Fortier! Come here a minute."

A mackinaw-clad driver left his two-horse sled and approached us.

"Will you sled this here dunnage up to Mis' Burt's for half a dollar?" asked Glashner.

"Seexty cents," said Mr. Fortier.

"That's all right! An' you got a good canoe, Hercules?"

"You bet!"

"I want it tomorrow. How much?"

"How long you want 'im?"

"Three days."

"T'ree dollar."

"That's all right, you old robber. Pitch her good an' tight tonight, for we're startin' at sun-up."

We went to Mrs. Burt's boarding-house, where we were given a huge supper of ham and eggs, hot biscuits, apple pie, doughnuts and coffee. We both filled our pipes from my pouch; and then Glashner asked me suddenly, "Was you a major or a colonel?"

"Neither," I answered, surprised. "I was a captain—twice. Infantry and eighteen-pounders. Why?"

"Well, I was a sergeant myself, six times—but always with the infantry. I was good at soldierin'. In the line I'd do anything I was told to, an' then some; but out of the line I wasn't so good. What they pinned onto my arm in the line, they always had to unpin when we come out."

"I've seen others like that," I said. "That's what puzzled me about you. You slouch—but your eyes give the lie to your shoulders."

Glashner nodded and gazed at the flame of the lamp. "Men sure got together at the front," he said. "It won't hurt you none, Captain, to know where you can find another old soldier—if you hitch up with that Deblore outfit. It ain't Tom, it's the name—and the idee. Folks'll be ag'in you. That's a fact—worse nor if you was a Glashner. There's always been good an' bad Glashners—none what you'd call real respectable, an' none ever suspected of worse'n stealin' sheep or maybe knifin' a man in a fight. But for generations of Deblores there ain't been a good one but Tom. There's more old soldiers hereabouts. There's Jacques Jeanbard at Guards Settlement. He's the nearest to you, I guess."

"Do you mean that the people will be unfriendly with me?"

"They might be. They'll put you down for a Deblore, Captain; an' you'll be about as popular as a skunk in Sunday-school."

"Is that so!" I exclaimed, with considerable heat. "The last Deblore to have anything to do with my breeding founded that settlement you spoke of. I've looked up his record; and it's good, to say the least of it. The ancestors of these people you talk about would have died like flies but for his generosity."

"That's right, but the folks hereabouts is natural-born knockers an' don't go any farther back in history than suits their own idees. All they want to remember is the Deblores who was bad, who've scart 'em an' ridden 'em an' robbed an' murdered 'em an' treated 'em like dirt for three generations. An' what riles 'em most is the fact that, for all their wastin' and wickedness, the Deblores ain't let go of one single acre of the original five thousand an' one hundred an' twenty."

"How much?"

"Eight square miles of land. Eight times six hundred an' forty acres, good an' bad. That's old Tom Deblore's farm—two mile on the crick an' four mile deep—five thousand an' one hundred an' twenty acres. It sure does rile 'em to think as how folks as bad an' disrespectable as them Deblores still has the right to chase em off eight square miles of country."

WE SET out in Hercules Fortier's canoe after an early breakfast, with my dunnage amidships. Glashner took the stern with such a matter-of-course air that I stepped into the bow without a word of protest. The banks were steep and the water was high, so poling was out of the question; we had to claw our way up that strong dark current with our paddles. It was hard work. For a few miles we kept close to the left bank, out of the full sweep of the water; and farther on, where the stream changed its curve, we crossed and skirted the right bank. Sometimes we paused and rested for a little while, clinging to overhanging boughs or the tops of partially submerged alders. Glashner took full advantage of every eddy and bit of backwater. By noon we had passed a few clearings and two isolated houses and reached the lowest farm of Guards Settlement. We went ashore, made a fire, boiled a kettle borrowed from Mrs. Burt and lunched. We were not disturbed by man or beast. Of human life we saw nothing but a blue feather of smoke from a chimney half a mile away; and of wild life, only a few crows flying and cawing and a mink swimming across from shore to shore. After lunch, I took the stern of the canoe; and I stuck to it all afternoon. I showed Glashner that I had not been river-born for nothing. We passed black woods, gray clearings, a gray house now and then. We saw a few moored dugouts, a man plowing, and three small boys fishing from a moored scow—and that was all of human life.

We passed the mouth of Deadhorn Brook before sundown. We made nineteen miles that day; and I felt as if I had pulled myself and Stack and the canoe fifty miles up steep stairs by my arms and shoulders and the back of my neck. We slept out that night on fir boughs, with a long fire at our feet. We breakfasted before the sun was clear of the black spruce-tops. Two hours later, Stack ran the canoe ashore against a deep-worn path which crawled up to and over the top of the bank between tangled willows and alders. Beside the path was moored an old dugout canoe of formidable proportions, and among the bushes beside it lay a bark canoe, patched, time-bleached and seamed with resin and tar.

"Here you are," said Stack. "Here's Moosemedders Park."

We unloaded; and then, to my astonishment, Stack Glashner stepped back into the canoe. "So long, an' good luck," he said.

"But you're coming up to the house!" I exclaimed. "And how much do I owe you?"

"Not this time, I guess," he replied, smiling. "An' you don't owe me a cent."

The canoe slid out of the tops of submerged bushes and swung to the current. "An' don't forget what I told you about the old soldiers," he called back over his shoulder. "Jacques Jeanbard's the nearest, an' there're three of us at Injun Ledge."

He faced his front and dipped his broad paddle, and I stood speechless on the steep path between the crowding brush, with my dunnage about my feet.

Chapter 3

III

A WIND had come up from the west to meet the sun; and now it and the level sunshine washed over the dark forests and somber clearings and struck a white glimmer off racing brown waters. The air was chilly, but the sky was blue and silver. Crows flapped up, cawing, into the windy sunshine. The air had a tang of buds, wet driftwood, rotted leaves and rising sap. White-throats sang from the gilded spires of tall spruces. But I felt lonely and deserted. I shivered, feeling in my bones that I had done an unwise thing in accepting the invitation of Thomas Deblore. The adoption of a defensive and explanatory attitude toward my personal and family connections was a new and unpleasant experience for me. That I had associated myself with a name that was not only hated by the rough and ignorant people of this countryside, but was heartily despised by them, was a nasty lump for my pride to swallow.

"I'll show them!" I said; and, leaving my dunnage where it lay, I ascended the steep, path between the alders and willows and cedars.

Immediately upon topping the bank I obtained a full front view of the house and farmstead of Moosemeadows Park sprawled about three hundred yards distant, beyond an extensive clearing, with its back set against high multi-tinted woods. The house faced the stream, with the forest and the morning looking over its shoulders. It was simply designed, and the effect was dignified and satisfactory to the eye. The main section was between fifty and sixty feet long, and two and a half stories high, with four small gables in the slope of the roof. There were two parallel wings, one with a pitched roof, the other a lean-to. The main house had two big square chimneys, the pitched-roofed wing one. The walls of the main house were of gray stone, the walls of the wings were of weathered gray shingles, as were all the roofs; and the shingles showed irregular patches of various tints which told of repairs of several dates. Wooden shutters that had once been green sagged at the windows, some open, others closed like ancient eyelids across tired eyes. Smoke went up from the chimney of the northeastern wing. Gray barns with red doors, sheds squatting slightly awry, a partially demolished stack of straw and a great pile of round timber clustered within fences of gray cedar rails to the southwest ward and slightly in rear of the house. I glimpsed red and white cattle and gray sheep in the yards. The big clearing itself, which must have contained fully sixty acres, showed areas of reviving green, patches of rusty buckwheat stubble and bleached oat stubble and expanses of newly-turned brown furrows, but not a sign of human life.

I advanced along the rough track which led from the stream to the farmstead, looking out anxiously for some simple sign or subtle portend that might indicate the nature of my reception, I doubted the wisdom of my invasion of Moosemeadows, and longed to hear or see something that would dispel my doubts. I had not gone a quarter of the distance before I was sighted by three dogs who issued from an open door of one of the stables. Two of them came toward me at full speed and the third advanced at a dignified walk. The larger of the running dogs was black, the smaller black and white. The first ran silently, the second barked furiously, the third stalked forward without sound.

Here was a sign, evidently. I did not like the silence and unswerving speed of the big black dog. As evidently as the little fellow's duty was to broadcast warning, his was to do something else. His duty, I suspected, called for qualities of tooth and jaw rather than of voice; and I had an unpleasant suspicion that the great tawny beast stalking stiff-legged in the rear usually arrived in time to finish anything that was started. It is against both my nature and my experience to be afraid of dogs; so I continued to advance on my course, without altering my pace. But a chill of misgiving crept under my ribs, and I regretted the absence of a stout cudgel in my strong right hand. The black dog sprang, launching straight and without hesitation from the full run. I side-stepped, and he missed me clean. Before he could turn, a shrill whistle sounded from the direction of the house. He cocked an ear, cocked an eye at me and trotted off, his hackles flat and his air indifferent. The little black-and-white ceased his ferocious barking. The big tawny fellow turned and stalked barnward without changing his pace. I resumed my advance upon the house. I saw a man approaching from the farmstead. He was short, but he walked with long steps. His shoulders were wide and square. He was as erect as a sergeant-major, and his chest stuck out. The black dog met him, turned and followed him.

"You must be cousin Gidwicke," he said.

"I am Gidwicke Swayton," I answered, trying to look cordial and delighted and all that sort of thing.

His mouth and lower face were hidden by white hair—mustaches, beard and whiskers. He had a beak of a nose and protruding blue eyes. He thrust out a hand.

"Welcome to Moosemeadows Park!" he exclaimed.

We shook hands, smiling, eye to eye. He had steady eyes. His smile was suggested by a slight movement of mustaches and whiskers.

"I've been on the lookout for you for some time," he continued. "Where is your baggage?"

I told him; and we turned and walked back toward the bank of the creek. With his long legs, short body, pouter chest and beak of a nose, he suggested a fighting-cock. The suggestion was striking, despite the benevolent whiskers. He halted halfway down the bank and laid a hand on my arm and stared up at me.

"You look good-natured," he said. "Well, I fear your good nature will be sorely tried for a little while. Not for long. I'll think up some way of getting rid of him. It is most unfortunate! The fellow came about a week ago—walked right in with his bag, without so much as 'if you please'—and is very much at home. We'll have to make the best of him—until we strike on some plan of getting rid of him. We'll think of some way."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"Old Ruben Glashner, father of the late Mrs. Henry—and as witless as she was, and a presumptuous and vulgar old ignoramus into the bargain. He will be poison to a man of your tastes and breeding. Even I find him exceedingly trying."

"I have met all sorts and conditions."

"It is very considerate of you to say so."

He eyed my dunnage, then glanced up and down stream.

"Where is your canoe?" he asked. "And did you come alone?"

I told him about Stack Glashner. He plucked at his whiskers as he listened, and nodded and wagged his head.

"Stack's the best of them—but that's not saying a great deal," he said. "Stack's honest, I believe—and not devoid of courage—but they are a low breed. This old fellow Ruben has not a single admirable quality, and is less than half-witted into the bargain."

I regarded him thoughtfully, wondering if he knew of the scorn and hate in which apparently his own family was held. He evidently read something of my thought.

"We are not popular with our neighbors, as you may have gathered from Stack Glashner," he said. "Quite natural. Envy and malice. Their own astounding ignorance is at fault." The expression in his full eyes altered slightly, took on a look of doubt and inquiry. "I'll venture to say that you never heard anything of a disparaging nature concerning the Deblores before you met young Glashner," he added.

I was silent. I shifted my glance to the flooded creek and beyond it to the dark woods rising against the blue.

"Well?" he queried, with a touch of impatience.

Still I was silent, staring at three crows flapping low over the crowded spires of the forest.

"You were always taught by your mother to be proud of your connection with the family of Deblore," he said.

"I can only dimly remember having heard the Deblores spoken of at all," I replied. "You see, I was very small. To be quite frank with you, I hadn't the ghost of a suspicion that I was connected with the family in any way until I received your letter."

He lowered his eyes and humped his shoulders slightly and stared at the ground and plucked at his whiskers. I felt sorry for him; and I hoped he would leave it at that. He cleared his throat, as if about to speak—but nothing came of it. He sighed, still gazing at the ground. I produced my cigarette case, opened it and held it under his nose. He started as if he had been poked in the ribs, shot a quick glance at me, then helped himself to a cigarette with fumbling fingers.

"Thank you, thank you," he murmured. "I most always—usually—smoke a pipe. Used to smoke cigars, before I came home. Very good ones for a penny, in Brazil. But there is no doubt of the relationship."

"None whatever," I said. "I looked it up."

He brightened a little at that.

"We must tote this stuff up to the house ourselves," he said. "Sol is plowing back on the ridge. It's no more than a lad's load, anyhow."

He stooped and swung the largest piece to his shoulder with ease.

The big black dog and the small black-and-white, who had been looking me over and sniffing my legs for several minutes, were now on friendly terms with me. Tom remarked it as he went up the path with our loads. It seemed to please him.

Chapter 4

IV

THOMAS DEBLORE led me straight to the big front door, though the foot-worn path went off to the left and around a corner. From close up, the big house looked even older and more unkempt than it had from a distance. Thomas lowered his burden to the first of the three steps of stone which led up to the big door.

"It hasn't been kept up the way it should be," he said. "It's been neglected for years. Help's scarce." He glanced to his right and left. "This was all lawn, in the old days."

At that moment the door opened, disclosing to view a grotesque person. He stood on the threshold, with the dusk of the old hall behind him, staring at me with one hostile and inquisitive eye. The other eye was tight shut and sunken. He was of medium height, or better, very thin and sharply stooped from the hips. He looked ninety years old, at least; and all his remaining fire appeared to be concentrated in his left eye.

"Who you got thar?" he asked. "Whar'd 'e come from?"