Kitabı oku: «Every Man for Himself», sayfa 10

IX – THE REVOLUTION AT SATAN’S TRAP

Jehoshaphat Rudd of Satan’s Trap was shy – able-bodied, to be sure, if a gigantic frame means anything, and mature, if a family of nine is competent evidence, but still as shy as a child. Moreover, he had the sad habit of anxiety: whence tense eyelids, an absent, poignant gaze, a perpetual pucker between the brows. His face was brown and big, framed in tawny, soft hair and beard, and spread with a delicate web of wrinkles, spun by the weather – a round countenance, simple, kindly, apathetic. The wind had inflamed the whites of his eyes and turned the rims blood red; but the wells in the midst were deep and clear and cool. Reserve, courageous and methodical diligence at the fishing, a quick, tremulous concern upon salutation – by these signs the folk of his harbor had long ago been persuaded that he was a fool; and a fool he was, according to the convention of the Newfoundland outports: a shy, dull fellow, whose interests were confined to his punt, his gear, the grounds off the Tombstone, and the bellies of his young ones. He had no part with the disputatious of Satan’s Trap: no voice, for example, in the rancorous discussions of the purposes and ways of the Lord God Almighty, believing the purposes to be wise and kind, and the ways the Lord’s own business. He was shy, anxious, and preoccupied; wherefore he was called a fool, and made no answer: for doubtless he was a fool. And what did it matter? He would fare neither better nor worse.

Nor would Jehoshaphat wag a tongue with the public-spirited men of Satan’s Trap: the times and the customs had no interest, no significance, for him; he was troubled with his own concerns. Old John Wull, the trader, with whom (and no other) the folk might barter their fish, personified all the abuses, as a matter of course. But —

“I ’low I’m too busy t’ think,” Jehoshaphat would reply, uneasily. “I’m too busy. I – I – why, I got t’ tend my fish!”

This was the quality of his folly.

It chanced one summer dawn, however, when the sky was flushed with tender light, and the shadows were trooping westward, and the sea was placid, that the punts of Timothy Yule and Jehoshaphat Rudd went side by side to the Tombstone grounds. It was dim and very still upon the water, and solemn, too, in that indifferent vastness between the gloom and the rosy, swelling light. Satan’s Trap lay behind in the shelter and shadow of great hills laid waste – a lean, impoverished, listless home of men.

“You dunderhead!” Timothy Yule assured Jehoshaphat. “He’ve been robbin’ you.”

“Maybe,” said Jehoshaphat, listlessly. “I been givin’ the back kitchen a coat o’ lime, an’ I isn’t had no time t’ give t’ thinkin’.”

“An’ he’ve been robbin’ this harbor for forty year.”

“Dear man!” Jehoshaphat exclaimed, in dull surprise. “Have he told you that?”

“Told me!” cried Timothy. “No,” he added, with bitter restraint; “he’ve not.”

Jehoshaphat was puzzled. “Then,” said he, “how come you t’ know?”

“Why, they says so.”

Jehoshaphat’s reply was gently spoken, a compassionate rebuke. “An I was you, Timothy,” said he, “I wouldn’t be harsh in judgment. ’Tisn’t quite Christian.”

“My God!” ejaculated the disgusted Timothy.

After that they pulled in silence for a time. Jehoshaphat’s face was averted, and Timothy was aware of having, in a moment of impatience, not only committed a strategic indiscretion, but of having betrayed his innermost habit of profanity. The light grew and widened and yellowed; the cottages of Satan’s Trap took definite outline, the hills their ancient form, the sea its familiar aspect. Sea and sky and distant rock were wide awake and companionably smiling. The earth was blue and green and yellow, a glittering place.

“Look you! Jehoshaphat,” Timothy demanded; “is you in debt?”

“I is.”

“An’ is you ever been out o’ debt?”

“I isn’t.”

“How come you t’ know?”

“Why,” Jehoshaphat explained, “Mister Wull told me so. An’ whatever,” he qualified, “father was in debt when he died, an’ Mister Wull told me I ought t’ pay. Father was my father,” Jehoshaphat argued, “an’ I ’lowed I would pay. For,” he concluded, “’twas right.”

“Is he ever give you an account?”

“Well, no – no, he haven’t. But it wouldn’t do no good, for I’ve no learnin’, an’ can’t read.”

“No,” Timothy burst out, “an’ he isn’t give nobody no accounts.”

“Well,” Jehoshaphat apologized, “he’ve a good deal on his mind, lookin’ out for the wants of us folk. He’ve a wonderful lot o’ brain labor. He’ve all them letters t’ write t’ St. John’s, an’ he’ve got a power of ’rithmetic t’ do, an’ he’ve got the writin’ in them big books t’ trouble un, an’ – ”

Timothy sneered.

“Ah, well,” sighed Jehoshaphat, “an I was you, Timothy, I wouldn’t be harsh in judgment.”

Timothy laughed uproariously.

“Not harsh,” Jehoshaphat repeated, quietly – “not in judgment.”

“Damn un!” Timothy cursed between his teeth. “The greedy squid, the devil-fish’s spawn, with his garden an’ his sheep an’ his cow! You got a cow, Jehoshaphat? You got turnips an’ carrots? You got ol’ Bill Lutt t’ gather soil, an’ plant, an’ dig, an’ weed, while you smokes plug-cut in the sunshine? Where’s your garden, Jehoshaphat? Where’s your onions? The green lumpfish! An’ where do he get his onions, an’ where do he get his soup, an’ where do he get his cheese an’ raisins? ’Tis out o’ you an’ me an’ all the other poor folk o’ Satan’s Trap. ’Tis from the fish, an’ he never cast a line. ’Tis from the fish that we takes from the grounds while he squats like a lobster in the red house an’ in the shop. An’ he gives less for the fish ’n he gets, an’ he gets more for the goods an’ grub ’n he gives. The thief, the robber, the whale’s pup! Is you able, Jehoshaphat, t’ have the doctor from Sniffle’s Arm for your woman! Is you able t’ feed your kids with cow’s milk an’ baby-food?”

Jehoshaphat mildly protested that he had not known the necessity.

“An’ what,” Timothy proceeded, “is you ever got from the grounds but rheumatiz an’ salt-water sores?”

“I got enough t’ eat,” said Jehoshaphat.

Timothy was scornful.

“Well,” Jehoshaphat argued, in defence of himself, “the world have been goin’ for’ard a wonderful long time at Satan’s Trap, an’ nobody else haven’t got no more’n just enough.”

“Enough!” Timothy fumed. “’Tis kind o’ the Satan’s Trap trader t’ give you that! I’ll tell un,” he exploded; “I’ll give un a piece o’ my mind afore I dies.”

“Don’t!” Jehoshaphat pleaded.

Timothy snorted his indignation.

“I wouldn’t be rash,” said Jehoshaphat. “Maybe,” he warned, “he’d not take your fish no more. An’ maybe he’d close the shop an’ go away.”

“Jus’ you wait,” said Timothy.

“Don’t you do it, lad!” Jehoshaphat begged. “’Twould make such a wonderful fuss in the world!”

“An’ would you think o’ that?”

“I isn’t got time t’ think,” Jehoshaphat complained. “I’m busy. I ’low I got my fish t’ cotch an’ cure. I isn’t got time. I – I – I’m too busy.”

They were on the grounds. The day had broken, a blue, serene day, knowing no disquietude. They cast their grapnels overside, and they fished until the shadows had fled around the world and were hurrying out of the east. And they reeled their lines, and stowed the fish, and patiently pulled toward the harbor tickler, talking not at all of the Satan’s Trap trader, but only of certain agreeable expectations which the young Timothy had been informed he might entertain with reasonable certainty.

“I ’low,” said Jehoshaphat, when they were within the harbor, “I understand. I got the hang of it,” he repeated, with a little smile, “now.”

“Of what?” Timothy wondered.

“Well,” Jehoshaphat explained, “’tis your first.”

This was a sufficient explanation of Timothy’s discontent. Jehoshaphat remembered that he, too, had been troubled, fifteen years ago, when the first of the nine had brought the future to his attention. He was more at ease when this enlightenment came.

Old John Wull was a gray, lean little widower, with a bald head, bowed legs, a wide, straight, thin-lipped mouth, and shaven, ashy cheeks. His eyes were young enough, blue and strong and quick, often peering masterfully through the bushy brows, which he could let drop like a curtain. In contrast with the rugged hills and illimitable sea and stout men of Satan’s Trap, his body was withered and contemptibly diminutive. His premises occupied a point of shore within the harbor – a wharf, a storehouse, a shop, a red dwelling, broad drying-flakes, and a group of out-buildings, all of which were self-sufficient and proud, and looked askance at the cottages that lined the harbor shore and strayed upon the hills beyond.

It was his business to supply the needs of the folk in exchange for the fish they took from the sea – the barest need, the whole of the catch. Upon this he insisted, because he conscientiously believed, in his own way, that upon the fruits of toil commercial enterprise should feed to satiety, and cast the peelings and cores into the back yard for the folk to nose like swine.

Thus he was accustomed to allow the fifty illiterate, credulous families of Satan’s Trap sufficient to keep them warm and to quiet their stomachs, but no more; for, he complained: “Isn’t they got enough on their backs?” and, “Isn’t they got enough t’ eat?” and, “Lord!” said he, “they’ll be wantin’ figs an’ joolry next.”

There were times when he trembled for the fortune he had gathered in this way – in years when there were no fish, and he must feed the men and women and human litters of the Trap for nothing at all, through which he was courageous, if niggardly. When the folk complained against him, he wondered, with a righteous wag of the head, what would become of them if he should vanish with his property and leave them to fend for themselves. Sometimes he reminded them of this possibility; and then they got afraid, and thought of their young ones, and begged him to forget their complaint. His only disquietude was the fear of hell: whereby he was led to pay the wage of a succession of parsons, if they preached comforting doctrine and blue-pencilled the needle’s eye from the Testament; but not otherwise. By some wayward, compelling sense of moral obligation, he paid the school-teacher, invariably, generously, so that the little folk of Satan’s Trap might learn to read and write in the winter months. ’Rithmetic he condemned, but tolerated, as being some part of that unholy, imperative thing called l’arnin’; but he had no feeling against readin’ and writin’.

There was no other trader within thirty miles.

“They’ll trade with me,” John Wull would say to himself, and be comforted, “or they’ll starve.”

It was literally true.

In that winter certain gigantic forces, with which old John Wull had nothing whatever to do, were inscrutably passionate. They went their way, in some vast, appalling quarrel, indifferent to the consequences. John Wull’s soul, money, philosophy, the hopes of Satan’s Trap, the various agonies of the young, were insignificant. Currents and winds and frost had no knowledge of them. It was a late season: the days were gray and bitter, the air was frosty, the snow lay crisp and deep in the valleys, the harbor water was frozen. Long after the time for blue winds and yellow hills the world was still sullen and white. Easterly gales, blowing long and strong, swept the far outer sea of drift-ice – drove it in upon the land, pans and bergs, and heaped it against the cliffs. There was no safe exit from Satan’s Trap. The folk were shut in by ice and an impassable wilderness. This was not by the power or contriving of John Wull: the old man had nothing to do with it; but he compelled the season, impiously, it may be, into conspiracy with him. By-and-by, in the cottages, the store of food, which had seemed sufficient when the first snow flew, was exhausted. The flour-barrels of Satan’s Trap were empty. Full barrels were in the storehouse of John Wull, but in no other place. So it chanced that one day, in a swirling fall of snow, Jehoshaphat Rudd came across the harbor with a dog and a sled.

John Wull, from the little office at the back of the shop, where it was warm and still, watched the fisherman breast the white wind.

“Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, when he stood in the office, “I ’low I’ll be havin’ another barrel o’ flour.”

Wull frowned.

“Ay,” Jehoshaphat repeated, perplexed; “another barrel.”

Wull pursed his lips.

“O’ flour,” said Jehoshaphat, staring.

The trader drummed on the desk and gazed out of the window. He seemed to forget that Jehoshaphat Rudd stood waiting. Jehoshaphat felt awkward and out of place; he smoothed his tawny beard, cracked his fingers, scratched his head, shifted from one foot to the other. Some wonder troubled him, then some strange alarm. He had never before realized that the lives of his young were in the keeping of this man.

“Flour,” he ventured, weakly – “one barrel.”

Wull turned. “It’s gone up,” said he.

“Have it, now!” Jehoshaphat exclaimed. “I ’lowed last fall, when I paid eight,” he proceeded, “that she’d clumb as high as she could get ’ithout fallin’. But she’ve gone up, says you? Dear man!”

“Sky high,” said the trader.

“Dear man!”

The stove was serene and of good conscience. It labored joyously in response to the clean-souled wind. For a moment, while the trader watched the snow through his bushy brows and Jehoshaphat Rudd hopelessly scratched his head, its hearty, honest roar was the only voice lifted in the little office at the back of John Wull’s shop.

“An’ why?” Jehoshaphat timidly asked.

“Scarcity.”

“Oh,” said Jehoshaphat, as though he understood. He paused. “Isn’t you got as much as you had?” he inquired.

The trader nodded.

“Isn’t you got enough in the storehouse t’ last till the mail-boat runs?”

“Plenty, thank God!”

“Scarcity,” Jehoshaphat mused. “Mm-m-m! Oh, I sees,” he added, vacantly. “Well, Mister Wull,” he sighed, “I ’low I’ll take one of Early Rose an’ pay the rise.”

Wull whistled absently.

“Early Rose,” Jehoshaphat repeated, with a quick, keen glance of alarm.

The trader frowned.

“Rose,” Jehoshaphat muttered. He licked his lips. “Of Early,” he reiterated, in a gasp, “Rose.”

“All right, Jehoshaphat.”

Down came the big key from the nail. Jehoshaphat’s round face beamed. The trader slapped his ledger shut, moved toward the door, but stopped dead, and gazed out of the window, while his brows fell over his eyes, and he fingered the big key.

“Gone up t’ eighteen,” said he, without turning.

Jehoshaphat stared aghast.

“Wonderful high for flour,” the trader continued, in apologetic explanation; “but flour’s wonderful scarce.”

“Tisn’t right!” Jehoshaphat declared. “Eighteen dollars a barrel for Early Rose? ’Tisn’t right!”

The key was restored to the nail.

“I can’t pay it, Mister Wull. No, no, man, I can’t do it. Eighteen! Mercy o’ God! ’Tisn’t right! ’Tis too much for Early Rose.”

The trader wheeled.

“An’ I won’t pay it,” said Jehoshaphat.

“You don’t have to,” was the placid reply.

Jehoshaphat started. Alarm – a sudden vision of his children – quieted his indignation. “But, Mister Wull, sir,” he pleaded, “I got t’ have it. I – why – I just got t’ have it!”

The trader was unmoved.

“Eighteen!” cried Jehoshaphat, flushing. “Mercy o’ God! I says ’tisn’t right.”

“Tis the price.”

“’Tisn’t right!”

Wull’s eyes were how flashing. His lips were drawn thin over his teeth. His brows had fallen again. From the ambush they made he glared at Jehoshaphat.

“I say,” said he, in a passionless voice, “that the price o’ flour at Satan’s Trap is this day eighteen.”

Jehoshaphat was in woful perplexity.

“Eighteen,” snapped Wull. “Hear me?”

They looked into each other’s eyes. Outside the storm raged, a clean, frank passion; for nature is a fair and honest foe. In the little office at the back of John Wull’s shop the withered body of the trader shook with vicious anger. Jehoshaphat’s round, brown, simple face was gloriously flushed; his head was thrown back, his shoulders were squared, his eyes were sure and fearless.

“’Tis robbery!” he burst out.

Wull’s wrath exploded. “You bay-noddy!” he began; “you pig of a punt-fisherman; you penniless, ragged fool; you man without a copper; you sore-handed idiot! What you whinin’ about? What right you got t’ yelp in my office?”

Of habit Jehoshaphat quailed.

“If you don’t want my flour,” roared Wull, fetching the counter a thwack with his white fist, “leave it be! ’Tis mine, isn’t it? I paid for it. I got it. There’s a law in this land, you pauper, that says so. There’s a law. Hear me? There’s a law, Mine, mine!” he cried, in a frenzy, lifting his lean arms. “What I got is mine. I’ll eat it,” he fumed, “or I’ll feed my pigs with it, or I’ll spill it for the fishes. They isn’t no law t’ make me sell t’ you. An’ you’ll pay what I’m askin’, or you’ll starve.”

“You wouldn’t do that, sir,” Jehoshaphat gently protested. “Oh no —no! Ah, now, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t throw it t’ the fishes, would you? Not flour! ’Twould be a sinful waste.”

“Tis my right.”

“Ay,’ Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat argued, with a little smile, “’tis yours, I’ll admit; but we been sort o’ dependin’ on you t’ lay in enough t’ get us through the winter.”

WUll’s response was instant and angry. “Get you out o’ my shop,” said he, “an’ come back with a civil tongue!”

“I’ll go, Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, quietly, picking at a thread in his faded cap. “I’ll go. Ay, I’ll go. But – I got t’ have the flour. I – I – just got to. But I won’t pay,” he concluded, “no eighteen dollars a barrel.”

The trader laughed.

“For,” said Jehoshaphat, “’tisn’t right.”

Jehoshaphat went home without the flour, complaining of the injustice.

Jehoshaphat Rudd would have no laughter in the house, no weeping, no questions, no noise of play. For two days he sat brooding by the kitchen fire. His past of toil and unfailing recompense, the tranquil routine of life, was strangely like a dream, far off, half forgot. As a reality it had vanished. Hitherto there had been no future; there was now no past, no ground for expectation. He must, at least, take time to think, have courage to judge, the will to retaliate. It was more important, more needful, to sit in thought, with idle hands, than to mend the rent in his herring seine. He was mystified and deeply troubled.

Sometimes by day Jehoshaphat strode to the window and looked out over the harbor ice to the point of shore where stood the storehouse and shop and red dwelling of old John Wull. By night he drew close to the fire, and there sat with his face in his hands; nor would he go to bed, nor would he speak, nor would he move.

In the night of the third day the children awoke and cried for food. Jehoshaphat rose from his chair, and stood shaking, with breath suspended, hands clinched, eyes wide. He heard their mother rise and go crooning from cot to cot. Presently the noise was hushed: sobs turned to whimpers, and whimpers to plaintive whispers, and these complaints to silence. The house was still; but Jehoshaphat seemed all the while to hear the children crying in the little rooms above, He began to pace the floor, back and forth, back and forth, now slow, now in a fury, now with listless tread. And because his children had cried for food in the night the heart of Jehoshaphat Rudd was changed. From the passion of those hours, at dawn, he emerged serene, and went to bed.

At noon of that day Jehoshaphat Rudd was in the little office at the back of the shop. John Wull was alone, perched on a high stool at the desk, a pen in hand, a huge book open before him.

“I’m come, sir,” said Jehoshaphat, “for the barrel o’ flour.”

The trader gave him no attention.

“I’m come, sir,” Jehoshaphat repeated, his voice rising a little, “for the flour.”

The trader dipped his pen in ink.

“I says, sir,” said Jehoshaphat, laying a hand with some passion upon the counter, “that I’m come for that there barrel o’ flour.”

“An’ I s’pose,” the trader softly inquired, eying the page of his ledger more closely, “that you thinks you’ll get it, eh?”

“Ay, sir.”

Wull dipped his pen and scratched away.

“Mister Wull!”

The trader turned a leaf.

“Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat cried, angrily, “I wants flour. Is you gone deaf overnight?”

Impertinent question and tone of voice made old John Wull wheel on the stool. In the forty years he had traded at Satan’s Trap he had never before met with impertinence that was not timidly offered. He bent a scowling face upon Jehoshaphat. “An’ you thinks,” said he, “that you’ll get it?”

“I does.”

“Oh, you does, does you?”

Jehoshaphat nodded.

“It all depends,” said Wull. “You’re wonderful deep in debt, Jehoshaphat.” The trader had now command of himself. “I been lookin’ up your account,” he went on, softly. “You’re so wonderful far behind, Jehoshaphat, on account o’ high livin’ an’ Christmas presents, that I been thinkin’ I might do the business a injury by givin’ you more credit. I can’t think o’ myself, Jehoshaphat, in this matter. ’Tis a business matter; an’ I got t’ think o’ the business. You sees, Jehoshaphat, eighteen dollars more credit – ”

“Eight,” Jehoshaphat corrected.

“Eighteen,” the trader insisted.

Jehoshaphat said nothing, nor did his face express feeling. He was looking stolidly at the big key of the storehouse.

“The flour depends,” Wull proceeded, after a thoughtful pause, through which he had regarded the gigantic Jehoshaphat with startled curiosity, “on what I thinks the business will stand in the way o’ givin’ more credit t’ you.”

“No, sir,” said Jehoshaphat.

Wull put down his pen, slipped from the high stool, and came close to Jehoshaphat. He was mechanical and slow in these movements, as though all at once perplexed, given some new view, which disclosed many and strange possibilities. For a moment he leaned against the counter, legs crossed, staring at the floor, with his long, scrawny right hand smoothing his cheek and chin. It was quiet in the office, and warm, and well-disposed, and sunlight came in at the window.

Soon the trader stirred, as though awakening. “You was sayin’ eight, wasn’t you?” he asked, without looking up.

“Eight, sir.”

The trader pondered this. “An’ how,” he inquired, at last, “was you makin’ that out?”

“Tis a fair price.”

Wull smoothed his cheek and chin. “Ah!” he murmured. He mused, staring at the floor, his restless fingers beating a tattoo on his teeth. He had turned woebegone and very pale. “Jehoshaphat,” he asked, turning upon the man, “would you mind tellin’ me just how you’re ’lowin’ t’ get my flour against my will?”

Jehoshaphat looked away.

“I’d like t’ know,” said Wull, “if you wouldn’t mind tellin’ me.”

“No,” Jehoshaphat answered. “No, Mister Wull – I wouldn’t mind tellin’.”

“Then,” Wull demanded, “how?”

“Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat explained, “I’m a bigger man than you.”

It was very quiet in the office. The wind had gone down in the night, the wood in the stove was burned to glowing coals. It was very, very still in old John Wull’s office at the back of the shop, and old John Wull turned away, and went absently to the desk, where he fingered the leaves of his ledger, and dipped his pen in ink, but did not write. There was a broad window over the desk, looking out upon the harbor; through this, blankly, he watched the children at play on the ice, but did not see them. By-and-by, when he had closed the book and put the desk in order, he came back to the counter, leaned against it, crossed his legs, began to smooth his chin, while he mused, staring at the square of sunlight on the floor. Jehoshaphat could not look at him. The old man’s face was so gray and drawn, so empty of pride and power, his hand so thin and unsteady, his eyes so dull, so deep in troubled shadows, that Jehoshaphat’s heart ached. He wished that the world had gone on in peace, that the evil practices of the great were still hid from his knowledge, that there had been no vision, no call to revolution; he rebelled against the obligation upon him, though it had come to him as a thing that was holy. He regretted his power, had shame, indeed, because of the ease with which the mighty could be put down. He felt that he must be generous, tender, that he must not misuse his strength.

The patch of yellow light had perceptibly moved before the trader spoke. “Jehoshaphat,” he asked, “you know much about law?”

“Well, no, Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat answered, with simple candor; “not too much.”

“The law will put you in jail for this.”

Constables and jails were like superstitious terrors to Jehoshaphat. He had never set eyes on the brass buttons and stone walls of the law.

“Oh no —no!” he protested. “He wouldn’t! Not in jail!”

“The law,” Wull warned, with grim delight, “will put you in jail.”

“He couldn’t!” Jehoshaphat complained. “As I takes it, the law sees fair play atween men. That’s what he was made for. I ’low he ought t’ put you in jail for raisin’ the price o’ flour t’ eighteen; but not me – not for what I’m bound t’ do, Mister Wull, law or no law, as God lives! ’Twouldn’t be right, sir, if he put me in jail for that.”

“The law will.”

“But,” Jehoshaphat still persisted, doggedly, “’twouldn’t be right!’

The trader fell into a muse.

“I’m come,” Jehoshaphat reminded him, “for the flour.”

“You can’t have it.”

“Oh, dear!” Jehoshaphat sighed. “My, my! Pshaw! I ’low, then, us’ll just have t’ take it.”

Jehoshaphat went to the door of the shop. It was cold and gloomy in the shop. He opened the door. The public of Satan’s Trap, in the persons of ten men of the place, fathers of families (with the exception of Timothy Yule, who had qualified upon his expectations), trooped over the greasy floor, their breath cloudy in the frosty air, and crowded into the little office, in the wake of Jehoshaphat Rudd. They had the gravity of mien, the set faces, the compassionate eyes, the merciless purpose, of a jury. The shuffling subsided. It was once more quiet in the little office. Timothy Yule’s hatred got the better of his sense of propriety: he laughed, but the laugh expired suddenly, for Jehoshaphat Rudd’s hand fell with unmistakable meaning upon his shoulder.

John Wull faced them.

“I ’low, Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, diffidently, “that we wants the storehouse key.”

The trader put the key in his pocket.

“The key,” Jehoshaphat objected; “we wants that there key.”

“By the Almighty!” old John Wull snarled, “you’ll all go t’ jail for this, if they’s a law in Newfoundland.”

The threat was ignored.

“Don’t hurt un, lads,” Jehoshaphat cautioned; “for he’s so wonderful tender. He’ve not been bred the way we was. He’s wonderful old an’ lean an’ brittle,” he added, gently; “so I ’low we’d best be careful.”

John Wull’s resistance was merely technical.

“Now, Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, when the big key was in his hand and the body of the trader had been tenderly deposited in his chair by the stove, “don’t you go an’ fret. We isn’t the thieves that break in an’ steal nor the moths that go an’ corrupt. We isn’t robbers, an’ we isn’t mean men. We’re the public,” he explained, impressively, “o’ Satan’s Trap. We got together, Mister Wull,” he continued, feeling some delight in the oratory which had been thrust upon him, “an’ we ’lowed that flour was worth about eight; but we’ll pay nine, for we got thinkin’ that if flour goes up an’ down, accordin’ t’ the will o’ God, it ought t’ go up now, if ever, the will o’ God bein’ a mystery, anyhow. We don’t want you t’ close up the shop an’ go away, after this, Mister Wull; for we got t’ have you, or some one like you, t’ do what you been doin’, so as we can have minds free o’ care for the fishin’. If they was anybody at Satan’s Trap that could read an’ write like you, an’ knowed about money an’ prices – if they was anybody like that at Satan’s Trap, willin’ t’ do woman’s work, which I doubts, we wouldn’t care whether you went or stayed; but they isn’t, an’ we can’t do ’ithout you. So don’t you fret,” Jehoshaphat concluded. “You set right there by the fire in this little office o’ yours. Tom Lower’ll put more billets on the fire for you, an’ you’ll be wonderful comfortable till we gets through. I’ll see that account is kep’ by Tim Yule of all we takes. You can put it on the books just when you likes. No hurry, Mister Wull – no hurry. The prices will be them that held in the fall o’ the year, ’cept flour, which is gone up t’ nine by the barrel. An’, ah, now, Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat pleaded, “don’t you have no hard feelin’. ’Twouldn’t be right; We’re the public; so please don’t you go an’ have no hard feelin’.”

The trader would say nothing.

“Now, lads,” said Jehoshaphat, “us’ll go.” In the storehouse there were two interruptions to the transaction of business in an orderly fashion. Tom Lower, who was a lazy fellow and wasteful, as Jehoshaphat knew, demanded thirty pounds of pork, and Jehoshaphat knocked him down. Timothy Yule, the anarchist, proposed to sack the place, and him Jehoshaphat knocked down twice. There was no further difficulty.

“Now, Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, as he laid the key and the account on the trader’s desk, “the public o’ Satan’s Trap is wonderful sorry; but the thing had t’ be done.”

The trader would not look up.

“It makes such a wonderful fuss in the world,” Jehoshaphat complained, “that the crew hadn’t no love for the job. But it – it – it jus’ had t’ be done.”

Old John Wull scowled.

For a long time, if days may be long, Jehoshaphat Rudd lived in the fear of constables and jails, which were the law, to be commanded by the wealth of old John Wull; and for the self-same period – the days being longer because of the impatience of hate – old John Wull lived in expectation of his revenge. Jehoshaphat Rudd lowed he’d stand by, anyhow, an’ go t’ jail, if ’twas needful t’ maintain the rights o’ man. Ay, he’d go t’ jail, an’ be whipped an’ starved, as the imagination promised, but he’d be jiggered if he’d “’pologize.” Old John Wull kept grim watch upon the winds; for upon the way the wind blew depended the movement of the ice, and the clearing of the sea, and the first voyage of the mail-boat. He was glad that he had been robbed; so glad that he rubbed his lean, transparent hands until the flush of life appeared to surprise him; so glad that he chuckled until his housekeeper feared his false teeth would by some dreadful mischance vanish within him. Jail? ay, he’d put Jehoshaphat Rudd in jail; but he would forgive the others, that they might continue to fish and to consume food. In jail, ecod! t’ be fed on bread an’ water, t’ be locked up, t’ wear stripes, t’ make brooms, t’ lie there so long that the last little Rudd would find its own father a stranger when ’twas all over with. ’Twould be fair warning t’ the malcontent o’ the folk; they would bide quiet hereafter. All the people would toil and trade; they would complain no more. John Wull was glad that the imprudence of Jehoshaphat Rudd had provided him with power to restore the ancient peace to Satan’s Trap.