第38章

Still, what I mean is that the judge never spoke harshly to Zena, except perhaps under extreme provocation; and I am quite sure that he never, never had to Neil.But then what father ever would want to speak angrily to such a boy as Neil Pepperleigh? The judge took no credit himself for that; the finest grown boy in the whole county and so broad and big that they took him into the Missinaba Horse when he was only seventeen.And clever,--so clever that he didn't need to study; so clever that he used to come out at the foot of the class in mathematics at the Mariposa high school through sheer surplus of brain power.I've heard the judge explain it a dozen times.Why, Neil was so clever that he used to be able to play billiards at the Mariposa House all evening when the other boys had to stay at home and study.

Such a powerful looking fellow, too! Everybody in Mariposa remembers how Neil Pepperleigh smashed in the face of Peter McGinnis, the Liberal organizer, at the big election--you recall it--when the old Macdonald Government went out.Judge Pepperleigh had to try him for it the next morning--his own son.They say there never was such a scene even in the Mariposa court.There was, I believe, something like it on a smaller scale in Roman history, but it wasn't half as dramatic.I remember Judge Pepperleigh leaning forward to pass the sentence,--for a judge is bound, you know, by his oath,--and how grave he looked and yet so proud and happy, like a man doing his duty and sustained by it, and he said:

"My boy, you are innocent.You smashed in Peter McGinnis's face, but you did it without criminal intent.You put a face on him, by Jehoshaphat! that he won't lose for six months, but you did it without evil purpose or malign design.My boy, look up! Give me your hand! You leave this court without a stain upon your name."They said it was one of the most moving scenes ever enacted in the Mariposa Court.

But the strangest thing is that if the judge had known what every one else in Mariposa knew, it would have broken his heart.If he could have seen Neil with the drunken flush on his face in the billiard room of the Mariposa House,--if he had known, as every one else did, that Neil was crazed with drink the night he struck the Liberal organizer when the old Macdonald Government went out,--if he could have known that even on that last day Neil was drunk when he rode with the Missinaba Horse to the station to join the Third Contingent for the war, and all the street of the little town was one great roar of people--But the judge never knew, and now he never will.For if you could find it in the meanness of your soul to tell him, it would serve no purpose now except to break his heart, and there would rise up to rebuke you the pictured vision of an untended grave somewhere in the great silences of South Africa.

Did I say above, or seem to imply, that the judge sometimes spoke harshly to his wife? Or did you gather for a minute that her lot was one to lament over or feel sorry for? If so, it just shows that you know nothing about such things, and that marriage, at least as it exists in Mariposa, is a sealed book to you.You are as ignorant as Miss Spiffkins, the biology teacher at the high school, who always says how sorry she is for Mrs.Pepperleigh.You get that impression simply because the judge howled like an Algonquin Indian when he saw the sprinkler running on the lawn.But are you sure you know the other side of it? Are you quite sure when you talk like Miss Spiffkins does about the rights of it, that you are taking all things into account? You might have thought differently perhaps of the Pepperleighs, anyway, if you had been there that evening when the judge came home to his wife with one hand pressed to his temple and in the other the cablegram that said that Neil had been killed in action in South Africa.That night they sat together with her hand in his, just as they had sat together thirty years ago when he was a law student in the city.

Go and tell Miss Spiffkins that! Hydrangeas,--canaries,--temper,--blazes! What does Miss Spiffkins know about it all?

But in any case, if you tried to tell Judge Pepperleigh about Neil now he wouldn't believe it.He'd laugh it to scorn.That is Neil's picture, in uniform, hanging in the dining-room beside the Fathers of Confederation.That military-looking man in the picture beside him is General Kitchener, whom you may perhaps have heard of, for he was very highly spoken of in Neil's letters.All round the room, in fact, and still more in the judge's library upstairs, you will see pictures of South Africa and the departure of the Canadians (there are none of the return), and of Mounted Infantry and of Unmounted Cavalry and a lot of things that only soldiers and the fathers of soldiers know about.

So you can realize that for a fellow who isn't military, and who wears nothing nearer to a uniform than a daffodil tennis blazer, the judge's house is a devil of a house to come to.

I think you remember young Mr.Pupkin, do you not? I have referred to him several times already as the junior teller in the Exchange Bank.

But if you know Mariposa at all you have often seen him.You have noticed him, I am sure, going for the bank mail in the morning in an office suit effect of clinging grey with a gold necktie pin shaped like a riding whip.You have seen him often enough going down to the lake front after supper, in tennis things, smoking a cigarette and with a paddle and a crimson canoe cushion under his arm.You have seen him entering Dean Drone's church in a top hat and a long frock coat nearly to his feet.You have seen him, perhaps, playing poker in Peter Glover's room over the hardware store and trying to look as if he didn't hold three aces,--in fact, giving absolutely no sign of it beyond the wild flush in his face and the fact that his hair stands on end.