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Shackford; his features underwent a swift transformation, and as he grasped the rail in front of him with both hands a malicious cunning writhed and squirmed in every wrinkle of his face. "Sir!" he shrieked, "it was a trap! Slocum would have taken it! If I had been ass enough to make any such offer, he would have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? You're a pair of rascals!"
"Then, sir, the Association don't object to a reasonable number of apprentices." "How many is that?" "As many as you want, I expect, sir," said Stevens, shuffling his feet. "Very well, Stevens. Go round to the front gate and Mr. Shackford will let you in."
At times Richard was moved almost to pity him. Every day Mr. Shackford seemed to grow shabbier and more spectral. He was a grotesque figure now, in his napless hat and broken-down stock. The metal button-holes on his ancient waistcoat had worn their way through the satin coverings, leaving here and there a sparse fringe around the edges, and somehow suggesting little bald heads.
Taggett was the first to speak. "I've a disagreeable mission here," he said slowly, with his hand remaining on the latch of the door, which he had closed on entering. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Shackford." "Stop a moment!" said Richard, with a glow in his eyes. "I have something to say." "I advise you not to make any statement." "I understand my position perfectly, Mr.
Slocum, who had not provided himself with an explanation, and was puzzled to improvise one. "I discharged him, that is to say, I let him go. I forgot to mention it. He didn't take to the trade." "But he showed a good fist for a beginner," said Stevens. "He was head and shoulders the best of the new lot. Shall I put Stebbins in his place?" "You needn't do anything until Mr. Shackford gets back."
Richard had killed Lemuel Shackford, in self-defense, may be, or perhaps accidentally; but he had killed him! As Mr. Slocum passed from page to page, following the dark thread of narrative that darkened at each remove, he lapsed into that illogical frame of mind when one looks half expectantly for some providential interposition to avert the calamity against which human means are impotent.
But it was intolerable not to have a theory; it was that or none, for conjecture turned to no one in the village. To be sure, Mr. Shackford had been in litigation with several of the corporations, and had had legal quarrels with more than one of his neighbors; but Mr. Shackford had never been victorious in any of these contests, and the incentive of revenge was wanting to explain the crime.
"And that is all you can say about it?" inquired Richard, with a fallen countenance. Janet reflected. She reflected a long while this time. "No, Mr. Shackford: an hour or so afterwards, when I went up to do the chamber-work, I saw that the wind had blow the paper off of the table. I picked up the note and put it back; but the wind blew it off again." "What then?"
His shoulders sagged down and a stupefied expression settled upon his face, but his brain was in a tumult. His own identity was become a matter of doubt to him. Was he the same Richard Shackford who had found life so sweet when he awoke that morning?
Of her poets, novelists, short story writers, and essayists, the names of Katharine Lee Bates, Estelle M. Hurll, Abbie Carter Goodloe, Margarita Spalding Gerry, Florence Wilkinson Evans, Florence Converse, Martha Hale Shackford, Annie Kimball Tuell, Jeannette Marks, are familiar to the readers of the Atlantic, the Century, Scribner's and other magazines; and the more technical publications of Gertrude Schopperle, Laura A. Hibbard, Eleanor A. McC. Gamble, Lucy J. Freeman, Eloise Robinson, and Flora Isabel McKinnon, have won the suffrages of scholars.
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