A strange sort of hunger was teasing his stomach. Reason told him that he should not again eat cream and honey. But, stronger than reason, appetite drove him to it. He went to the dairy and once more prepared the fabulous dish.
He cleaned up all traces of the feast and went and lay down on the grass near the pump stand. The air suddenly felt sultry. A feeling of deep melancholy swept over him. He buried his face in his arms and gave himself up to fretting for his mother.
After a while he was sick. He took a long drink of the ice-cold spring water and lay down again. The sun was sunk and clear moonlight made the shadows strange, the small sounds startling. As the day had seemed to belong to him, so he now seemed to belong to the night. He felt weak and afraid. An owl came from the woods and began to walk up and down the path, turning its wide stare at him as though in hatred. Then a whippoorwill called and another answered. To and fro they tossed the haunting words, louder and nearer and faster, till in their haste they stuttered them.
Shaw could bear it no longer. He fled through the dark house, feeling himself pursued. Hands reached out to catch him in ghostly embrace. Each creak of the stairs shot through him like a scream. Without undressing he threw himself on to the bed and pulled the covers over his head.
After a while he heard the horses stamping below. One in the stable uttered a loud whinny of welcome—Roger Gower’s voice was raised in orders. For the first time it sounded comforting to Shaw. He sighed in relief as he heard the girls giggling and whispering in their rooms.
He slept so hard the next morning that Beatrice had to drag him out of bed and stand him on his feet before he would wake. He stood half blubbering, scowling at her.
“Sakes alive,” she exclaimed, “you’ve not undressed! You’ve slept in your clothes! I’ll tell Ma—see if I don’t!”
But she did not tell. Esther came to the bottom of the stairs and called:—
“Beaty, come down here! You’ll never guess what’s happened at the Pages’.”
Beaty almost fell downstairs in her eagerness to hear gossip. The Pages were the unfriendly neighbors on whose farm Jack Searle worked. Shaw was instantly wide awake. He hurried down the stairs after Beaty.
At first he could not make out what the excitement was about. Not because there was a clamor of talk. The Gowers never talked loudly or interrupted one another. It was their taciturnity that made it hard to unearth the seed of the disturbance. Luke stood in the midst of the womenfolk. It was he who had brought the news. Shaw could tell that by Luke’s superior smile.
“Well—I declare!” ejaculated Jane Gower.
“Who’d ha’ thought it?” said Letitia.
“I would,” said Luke.
“Have you seen anything?” asked Esther.
“You bet I have! More than I’d tell you.”
“I want to know what you’re talking about,” from Beaty.
“Go on, Luke, do tell!” begged Esther.
“Oh, I’ve seen things! A feller can’t tell his sister everything.”
Beaty doubled up with laughter.
“You silly girl,” said her mother indulgently. “What’re you giggling at? You don’t even know what’s happened.”
“I say it serves old Page right,” said Esther. “Look at the way he acted over that boundary!”
“I wonder how her mother’s taking it.” A smile flickered across Jane Gower’s face.
“Terrible,” said Luke. “They’re all taking it terrible.”
“Who told you?” asked Letitia.
“The youngest boy. He came over to ask if any of us had seen the feller. Did you see him yesterday, Shaw?”
Shaw was suddenly cold. “Who?” he whispered. “See who?”
“Jack Searle. The Pages’ hired man.”
Shaw shook his head.
“What’s he done?” asked Beaty, through her laughter.
“Run off with Laura Page,” answered Luke.
At first Shaw could not take it in. This was the first time he had heard of an elopement in real life. He had read of them in books, but had looked on them as impossible to ordinary people.
“Are they going to get married?” he asked.
“We’ll hope so,” answered his grandmother grimly.
The thought of two people living together without marrying was too much for Beaty. She turned crimson and was almost suffocated by her laughter.
The thick-set figure of Roger Gower darkened the doorway. He was twisting his beard in his fingers, a sign of irritation with him.
“Are you going to fool about here all the morning?” he said to Luke.
The young man sulkily went out through the kitchen. The girls, with their father’s large blue eyes on them, began their morning work, but keeping near enough to each other for talk.
“How’s your earache?” Roger fixed his eyes on Shaw.
“My earache? Why—I dunno—I forget.”
Roger Gower stumped to the chest of drawers and opened the top one. He fumbled about in it with his short fingers. Then he turned and faced his wife.
“The seventy-five dollars,” he said, “that I got for the Jersey and her calf. It’s gone . . . it was here . . . under the bankbook, and it’s gone. . . .”
CHAPTER IV
THE loss of the money staggered the Gowers. It put the elopement of Laura Page completely out of their heads till, hours later, Esther suddenly connected the two events. Everyone had been saying that the thief was a tramp who had been prowling about and discovered that there was no one at home.
“What about Shaw?” Letitia had asked. “He was here.”
“What use is he?” said Mark. “He’d sit gaping while a gang of thieves robbed the house.”
“Where were you all day, Shaw?”
“Were you deaf and blind?”
“Hadn’t you the gumption to know when a tramp came round?”
The questions came slowly, in the thick, country enunciation. The faces that were turned on him showed scarcely any expression.
“It was my ear,” he said, while his heart beat heavily and a terrible suspicion troubled his mind.
“Well, you’d two ears, hadn’t you?” said Luke.
“I guess I slept some of the time.”
“What if it was that hired man! That Jack Searle!” said Esther. She was the shrewd one. Her opinions were treated with respect.
Luke clapped his thigh. “Esther’s hit the nail on the head! It’s our money the pair have eloped on!”
There was dead silence while this idea was absorbed. Then Beaty began to laugh immoderately. Between outbursts she got out the words—“And they called her their ewe lamb!”
Everyone knew what she meant. The Pages had had six sons, then had come Laura, the youngest, the most precious, a spoilt child, everyone said.
“Run off with a hired man! And she always so stuck-up!”
“And on money stolen from us!”
“Well, I guess those Pages will never hold up their heads again.”
The Gowers were swayed between dismay at the loss