CHAPTER XXIV MAJOR MONTAGUE HAS A VISITOR

On the morning after the visit of Mr. Ashbel Norton, old Judge Danvers was opening his mail. He had spent a good part of the previous evening with Dr. Manning, and the remainder with a pair of the best “detectives” in the city. There was evidently something heavy weighing upon his mind, for he tore open his letters, one by one, and seemed to glance over them almost mechanically.

That is, he did so until, as he looked listlessly into one of them, he gave a sudden start and almost sprang to his feet.

That was a good deal for such a man, but his next movement was to ring his table-bell, and send out in all haste for a carriage, exclaiming:

“I’ll go to see him at once!”

Half an hour later, Major Montague had company of the most respectable sort in the reception-room of his compulsory boarding-house.

[Pg 289]The great iron-barred doors of the sombre building had opened almost obsequiously, to admit Judge Danvers, and the Major himself had been surprised at so prompt a response to his venturesome letter. Perhaps he failed to see that nothing could better have suited the Judge, if he cared to find him at all, than to find him under just those very circumstances.

“You can get me out of this, easily enough,” he said, after a brief conversation.

“Of course,” calmly responded the lawyer, “but I don’t see very clearly why I should meddle with it. I’m on the other side, you know.”

“What other side?” asked the Major.

“Why, Mr. Vernon’s,” replied the Judge. “So long as you’re locked up here I’m sure you won’t bother him.”

“Very true,” said the Major with a leer that was meant to be very knowing; “but as long as I’m here I’ll keep my mouth shut as to some things he’d like very much to know.”

“A year will settle that now,” replied the Judge, “if I don’t find it out sooner. Meantime, he’s doing very well.”

“He might lose a good deal in a year,” suggested[Pg 290] the Major. “I’m really Bar’s friend, and I wouldn’t like to see him do that.”

“Then tell me what you know!”

“Not till I’m out of this,” exclaimed the Major, with great energy, “and not till I see those papers. There’s things that nobody else can explain.”

“Well,” replied the Judge, thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go to work about you. Take two or three days, you know. And even then I’ll fix it so you’ll walk right back here again if you break your word.”

Major Montague must have felt even surer about the lawyer’s power in the premises than he did himself, so abjectly and earnestly did he labor to assure the Judge of the honesty of his intentions.

A few days in prison will sometimes have a wonderfully quieting and sobering effect, and the Major was just the sort of man to yield to such an agency.

Judge Danvers left the prison feeling as if he had somehow stumbled upon a very promising piece of work, but he had a good deal more before him that day, and he meant to be out of the city on the evening train.

[Pg 291]As for Major Montague, after the lawyer’s departure and his return to his own very narrow quarters, he sunk upon his cot bed with a remarkably sulky expression of countenance.

“I haven’t told him anything,” he muttered; “but he’s bound to know. I reckon I can always keep some kind of a hold on Barnaby, but there ain’t any ready money to be made out of the Judge. Never mind; I’ll see my way to something before I get through with ’em all. See if I don’t.”

Bar Vernon’s affairs were in good hands, beyond a doubt, and no man of Major Montague’s calibre was likely to “get up much earlier in the morning” than Bar’s self-appointed counsel.

Nevertheless, Bar had a good deal of a surprise in store for him.

The days had now followed one another until the regular time for “opening the Academy” was close at hand, and nearly all things were in readiness.

“Bar,” said Brayton, that night, after another tug at the Greek, “you and I can fix the rope on the bell to-morrow evening, can’t we, without calling in anybody else?”

[Pg 292]“Val and I can do it in ten minutes without troubling you at all,” replied Bar. “If you’ll give us the key in the morning we’ll attend to it right after breakfast.”

There was nothing dull about George Brayton, but he seemed to fall into Bar’s proposition as easily as Gershom Todderley had fallen into the mill-pond.

He must have had a good deal on his mind, indeed.

“Anyhow,” said Val, as they were getting ready for bed, “we must take Zeb Fuller along. It’s only fair after what he did the other night.”

“All right,” said Bar. “School begins next day after, and we must have Zeb pull with us or we’ll lose half the fun of the term.”

There was no difficulty in the morning in securing Zeb’s company.

The only trouble was in avoiding the additional presence of half the boys in the village.

The first consequence was that Zebedee had a good look at Bar Vernon’s invention, for which he had been aching, and the second was, that the rope was rigged over the big wheel for ordinary[Pg 293] “ringing” purposes, without any special disturbance of the extraordinary “tolling gear.”

The latter had to be unhitched, indeed, but was left all ready for use at any time when a high west wind should conspire with other favoring circumstances.

“I can hardly understand, even now,” remarked Zeb, as they were coming out of the Academy, “how it was that Brayton failed to discover that thing at the time, or else to hunt it out afterwards. Depend upon it, boys, there’s something the matter with George.”

He scarcely had the words out of his mouth before their path was crossed by the very hasty feet of Effie Dryer, though where she could be going was not so clear as Zeb thought it ought to be even to him.

One brief glance and a nod was all the notice she gave them, but in so doing she turned her face full upon them for a moment, and Zeb immediately turned to his friends with:

“Do you see that, boys? Euphemia’s been crying. That stepmother of hers! Or can it be old Sol himself has been cutting up? It’s a very distressing case.”

[Pg 294]“Why so?” asked Bar.

“Why?” said Zeb. “Well, because that young woman has no proper knowledge of the art of crying. The only thing she understands well is laughing. I declare, if old Sol and his wife are going to put that kind of work upon Euphemia!”

And Zebedee looked as if it might indeed turn out badly for Solomon in such a case.

The rest of the day was so full of preparations for “school-opening” that there was really no chance for anything else, and the Ogleport boys were pretty generally on their good behavior.

Even Puff Evans was left to hammer away at his new boat, all day, without the sign of a temptation to leave it and go fishing.

In the afternoon, however, when the stage from the north came lumbering in, Bar Vernon and Val Manning had better been at home.

George Brayton was, and he had no one to help him in with his mother and Sibyl. He seemed perfectly well satisfied about it, however, and spent all the rest of the time with them till the supper bell rang.

[Pg 295]Then, indeed, for the first time in his life, Bar Vernon found out what a genuinely bashful boy he could be.

Of course he was glad to see Sibyl and her mother. So was Val Manning. But then Val seemed so altogether at ease and unconcerned about it, and did not once blush or stammer, while poor Bar did both.

In fact, he felt altogether unsafe about his neck-tie, his shirt-collar, and the way his hair was brushed. He’d have given half his money on hand for a good look in his glass up-stairs.

He was very sure, nevertheless, that there was not a prettier girl in all the world than Sibyl Brayton.

He and Val did their best to amuse the newcomers during the evening, and it was very good of Effie Dryer to come in and help them, only Sibyl deemed her brother unnecessarily long in seeing the Doctor’s daughter home, at the end of it all.

“The worst of it is,” said Bar to Val, when they were in their own room, “we are to have lots of ladies and other visitors at the chapel to-morrow.”

[Pg 296]“Yes,” replied Val, “but it doesn’t amount to anything. They never ask a fellow anything they aren’t sure he knows. It’s just for all the world like an examination-day.”

“But that’s awful, ain’t it?” asked Bar.

“Yes,” replied Val, “it’s an awful fraud, unless one of the teachers has a grudge against you. Then it’s a fraud, too, only there’s good fun in it, ’specially if they’re at work on Zeb Fuller.”

The next day was destined to be an interesting one for Bar Vernon, however, for other reasons than the arrival of Sibyl Brayton and her mother.

The increasing numbers of the people of all sorts, scholars included, compelled a transfer of the “exercises” to the “great hall” on the second floor of the Academy building.

Bar rather liked that at first, but the stage from the South arrived before the bell had done ringing, and the next thing he knew there was an addition to the “distinguished guests,” as Mrs. Dryer would have described the highly respectable people on the “platform,” that not only deeply impressed “old Sol” himself, but sent all the blood in Bar’s body to his head.

[Pg 297]How he and the rest got through with the “opening” business he could scarcely have told, but he knew there was something unusual coming for him or Val, when he saw Judge Danvers waiting for them.

“Very promising young gentlemen, your ward and the son of Dr. Manning,” he heard Dr. Dryer say, as they were edging their way through the crowd. “My assistant, Mr. Brayton, has them under his especial charge.”

They were very near now; but somebody else was nearer, and had caught the meaning of the principal’s last remark.

“Judge,” said Zebedee Fuller, gravely, as he held out his hand, “I’m proud to meet you, but are you responsible for sending Bar Vernon to Ogleport?”

For once in his life Judge Danvers found himself “on the witness-stand,” and all he could say on the spur of the moment was:

“Perhaps so. Why?”

“Because it’s a very restricted sphere of usefulness for such a man.”

And Zebedee marched solemnly on as if unconscious that the eyes of Doctor and Mrs.[Pg 298] Dryer, as well as half the Board of Trustees, were following him with anything but a charitable look.

“That,” said Effie to Sibyl, “is the genius of Ogleport.”

Twenty minutes later, Judge Danvers and Bar were alone in the room of the latter at Mrs. Wood’s.

The Judge did not seem disposed to explain very fully the cause of his coming, but shortly came to it in this form:

“You brought that black valise with you?”

“Of course I did!” said Bar.

“Hardly safe here. It ought to be under lock and key.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Bar, “but I’ve no place to put it.”

“Will you trust it to me?”

“Certainly, and very glad to do so,” replied Bar. “It’s only a trouble to me. I can’t even open it, and sometimes I lie awake at nights, wondering what there may be in it.”

“I’ve been almost up to that point myself,” said the Judge. “I want to say one thing more. I will keep your promise for you as to opening it,[Pg 299] unless I can get you formally released from it. How is that?”

“I’ve nothing to say,” replied Bar. “I never did break my word, and I never mean to. That’s all I care for.”

“You’re pretty safe then,” said the Judge. “But tell me, who is this Mr. Brayton?”

Bar gave him all the information in his power, but Judge Danver’s face seemed to grow more and more cloudily thoughtful all the while.

“Nice people, all of them, no doubt,” he said, at last; “but they may or may not be good friends of yours. I won’t say any more just now, only this: If you get a telegram from me to come to the city, tell nobody but Val where you are going, or why, and just come right along. Have you money enough?”

“Plenty!” said Bar.

“Then I must be off. Take care of yourself, my boy, and give my compliments to that Zebedee Fuller. There’s the making of a man in him.”

Judge Danvers probably meant “The making of a lawyer,” for that was his highest ideal of man—and perhaps he was not far wrong, considering[Pg 300] the kind of lawyer he had made of himself. And so Bar was left to apologize as best he might to all inquirers for the sudden appearance and disappearance of his “distinguished counsel.”