The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg Read online

  II.

  Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their wiveswent about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, andcongratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to thedictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to livein dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant citizens andtheir wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody ran tothe bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and envious crowdsbegan to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring towns; and thatafternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere toverify the sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew, andmake dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's house, andthe bank, and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and thepublic square, and the town-hall where the test would be applied and themoney delivered; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and Pinkertonthe banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and thepostmaster--and even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing, good-natured,no-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, stray-dogs'friend, typical "Sam Lawson" of the town. The little mean, smirking,oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed his sleek palmstogether pleasantly, and enlarged upon the town's fine old reputation forhonesty and upon this wonderful endorsement of it, and hoped and believedthat the example would now spread far and wide over the American world,and be epoch-making in the matter of moral regeneration. And so on, andso on.

  By the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild intoxicationof pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent delight--a sort ofdeep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore a look of peaceful,holy happiness.

  Then a change came. It was a gradual change; so gradual that itsbeginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except byJack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of it,too, no matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks aboutpeople not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago; and nexthe claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness; next,that it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said that everybody wasbecome so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that he could rob themeanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocketand not disturb his reverie.

  At this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped atbedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteenprincipal households:

  "Ah, what _could_ have been the remark that Goodson made?"

  And straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man's wife:

  "Oh, _don't_! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put itaway from you, for God's sake!"

  But that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and gotthe same retort. But weaker.

  And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with anguish,and absently. This time--and the following night--the wives fidgetedfeebly, and tried to say something. But didn't.

  And the night after that they found their tongues andresponded--longingly:

  "Oh, if we _could_ only guess!"

  Halliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable anddisparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town,individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in thevillage: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Noteven a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box aroundon a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers andaimed the thing and said "Ready!--now look pleasant, please," but noteven this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into anysoftening.

  So three weeks passed--one week was left. It was Saturday evening aftersupper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle andshopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate. Richards andhis old wife sat apart in their little parlour--miserable and thinking.This was become their evening habit now: the life-long habit which hadpreceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving orpaying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago--twoor three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited--thewhole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guessout that remark.

  The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at thesuperscription and the post-mark--unfamiliar, both--and tossed the letteron the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless dullmiseries where he had left them off. Two or three hours later his wifegot wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night--customnow--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a deadinterest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over. Richards,sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chinbetween his knees, heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang toher side, but she cried out:

  "Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter--read it!"

  He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from adistant State, and it said:

  "I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the only person living who does know. It was GOODSON. I knew him well, many years ago. I passed through your village that very night, and was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talk--most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favourably: among these latter yourself. I say 'favourably'--nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person in the town--not one; but that you--I THINK he said you--am almost sure--had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson's debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark 'YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.'

  "HOWARD L. STEPHENSON."

  "Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, _oh_, sograteful,--kiss me, dear, it's for ever since we kissed--and we needed itso--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, andnobody's slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy."

  It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the setteecaressing each other; it was the old days come again--days that had begunwith their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger broughtthe deadly money. By-and-by the wife said:

  "Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poorGoodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine andbeautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it." Then, with atouch of reproach, "But you ought to have told _me_, Edward, you ought tohave told your wife, you know."

  "Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--"

  "Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I alwaysloved you, and now I'm proud of you. Everybody believes there was onlyone good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out thatyou--Edward, why don't you tell me?"

  "Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can't!"

  "You _can't_? _Why_ can't you?"

  "You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn't."

  The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:

  "Made--you--promise? Edward, what do you tell me
that for?"

  "Mary, do you think I would lie?"

  She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand withinhis and said:

  "No . . . no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings--God spareus that! In all your life you have never uttered a lie. But now--nowthat the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us,we--we--" She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, "Lead usnot into temptation. . . I think you made the promise, Edward. Let itrest so. Let us keep away from that ground. Now--that is all gone by;let us he happy again; it is no time for clouds."

  Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind keptwandering--trying to remember what the service was that he had doneGoodson.

  The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy,