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Page 61
"He said that my father was not dead; that I was the daughter of
a thief; that what I believed about my father was all made up to
save the family name; that the truth was my father robbed him,
stole his best horse and left the country when I was a baby. He
said I was a burden on him, a pensioner, a drone; and to go and
seek my father."
And suddenly she broke into a flood of tears. Her face pressed
against my father's shoulder. He took her up in his big arms and
got into his saddle.
"My child," he said, "let us take Hambleton Dillworth at his
word."
And he turned the horse into the lane toward the ancient house.
The girl in my father's arms made no resistance. There was this
dominating quality in the man that one trusted to him and
followed behind him. She lay in his arms, the tears wetting her
white face and the long lashes.
The moon came up, a great golden moon, shouldered over the rim of
the world by the backs of the crooked elves. The horse and the
two persons made a black, distorted shadow that jerked along as
though it were a thing evil and persistent. Far off in the
thickets of the hills an owl cried, eerie and weird like a
creature in some bitter sorrow. The lane was deep with dust. The
horse traveled with no sound, and the distorted black shadow
followed, now blotted out by the heavy tree tops, and now only
partly to be seen, but always there.
My father got down at the door and carried the girl up the steps
and between the plaster pillars into the house. There was a hall
paneled in white wood and with mahogany doors. He opened one of
these doors and went in. The room he entered had been splendid
in some ancient time. It was big; the pieces in it were
exquisite; great mirrors and old portraits were on the wall.
A man sitting behind a table got up when my father entered. Four
tallow candles, in ancient silver sticks, were on the table, and
some sheets with figured accounts.
The man who got up was like some strange old child. He wore a
number of little capes to hide his humped back, and his body, one
thought, under his clothes was strapped together. He got on his
feet nimbly like a spider, and they heard the click of a pistol
lock as he whipped the weapon out of an open drawer, as though it
were a habit thus always to keep a weapon at his hand to make him
equal in stature with other men. Then he saw who it was and the
double-barreled pistol slipped out of sight. He was startled and
apprehensive, but he was not in fear.
He stood motionless behind the table, his head up, his eyes hard,
his thin mouth closed like a trap and his long, dead black hair
hanging on each side of his lank face over the huge, malformed
ears. The man stood thus, unmoving, silent, with his twisted
ironical smile, while my father put the girl into a chair and
stood up behind it.
"Dillworth," said my father, "what do you mean by turning this
child out of the house?"
The man looked steadily at the two persons before him.
"Pendleton," he said, and he spoke precisely, "I do not recognize
the right of you, or any other man, to call my acts into account;
however" - and he made a curious gesture with his extended hands
"not at your command, but at my pleasure, I will tell you.
"This young woman had some estate from her mother at that lady's
death. As her guardian I invested it by permission of the
court's decree." He paused. "When the Maxwell lands were sold
before the courthouse I bid them in for my ward. The judge
confirmed this use of the guardian funds. It was done upon
advice of counsel and within the letter of the law. Now it
appears that Maxwell had only a life interest in these lands;
Maxwell is dead, and one who has purchased the interest of his
heirs sues in the courts for this estate.
"This new claimant will recover; since one who buys at a judicial
sale, I find, buys under the doctrine of caveat emptor - that is
to say, at his peril. He takes his chance upon the title. The
court does not insure it. If it is defective he loses both the
money and the lands. And so," he added, "my ward will have no
income to support her, and I decline to assume that burden."
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