menu_book Chapter 29

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. I learned by 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. 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 buttermilk. And as for the King, he just gazed and gazed down sorrowful on them newcomers, like it

gave him the stomachache 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 gathered round 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 round to the crowd and says about like this. It is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for, and I'll acknowledge, candid and frank,

that I ain't very well fixed to meet it and answer it, for my brother in 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 Wilkes'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 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 ain't learned 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 those 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 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 came along and listened to all the old gentlemen 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 Wilkes, when'd you come to this town? The day before the funeral, friend, says the King. What time of day? In the evening, about an hour or two before sundown.

How'd you come? I came 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 weren't up 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, Heinz?

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'm 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, Heinz, come along the rest of you.

We'll take these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other people 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 of 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 Wilkes 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? He 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 of this miserable business. But alas, the money ain't there. You can send and see if you want to. Where is it then?

Well, when my niece gave it to me to keep for her, I took it and hid it inside of the strak-tick of my bed, not wishing to bank it for the few days we'd be here, and considering the bed a safe place, we not bein' used to niggers and supposin' them honest like servants in England. The niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went downstairs.

And when I sold them I hadn't missed the money yet, so they got clean away with it. My servant here can tell you about it, gentlemen. The doctor in 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 and 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 ever 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 hisn, and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads could a seen that the old gentleman was spinning

truth and to other one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king, he gave 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 in 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 brothers, and then we'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 gave 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. 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 Wilkes, and here's these two 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 there'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, then we can, 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 noticed before anyway. Well, well, well, I thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it's gone to grass partly.

But anyway, one thing is proved, these two ain't neither of them Wilkes's, and he wagged his head towards the king and the duke. Well, what do you think? That mule-headed old fool wouldn't give in then. Indeed he wouldn't.

Said it weren'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 right along till he was actually beginning to believe what he was saying himself.

But pretty soon the new gentleman broke in and says, I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay out my, helped to lay out the late Peter Wilkes 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, Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast. Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or heed a squash 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 squash, to get fetched with such a solid one as that without any notice, because how was he going to know what was tattooed 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 would break loose and get away. Anyway, he's sat there, and pretty soon he begun to smile and says, Mmmph, it's a very tough question, ain't it? Yes, sir, I can tell you what's tattooed on his breast.

It's just a small thin blue arrow, that's what it is, and if you don't look close, 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 Wilkes' 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 bylin' of them's frauds. Let's duck them, let's drown them, let's ride them 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. Now 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 weren't no getting away, you know.

They gripped us all and marched us right along, straight for the graveyard, which was a mile and a 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 let out and save me and blow on our deadbeats.

Well, we swarmed along the river road, just carrying on like wildcats, and to make it more scary, the sky was darkening up and the lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and the most dangerous some I ever was in, and I was kind or stunned.

Everything was going so different from what I had allowed for, instead 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 tattoo 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 That big husky had me by the wrist, Hines, and a body might as well try to give Goliath the slip. He dragged me right along and was so excited that 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 swished along and the lightning came brisker and brisker and the thunder boomed. But them people never took no notice of it, they were 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 began to unscrew the lid, and then such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to scourge in and get a sight, you never see. And in the dark that way it was awful.

Hinds, 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 spluice of white glare and somebody sings out. Why the living jingo there's a bag of gold on his breast.

Hinds let out a whoop like everybody else and dropped my wrist and gave a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit out and shinied for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell. I had the road all to myself and I fairly flew, least ways I had it all to myself except the solid dark and the now again glares 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 weren'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 began 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 weren't fastened with nothing but a rope. The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out in the middle of the river, but I

didn't lose no time. And when I struck the raft at last I was so fagged I could have 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. 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-drowned Arab 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 to sliding down the river and it did seem so good to be free again and 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 allaying 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, it was all I could do to keep

from crying. End of chapter 29