John Claverhouse was a
moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and
forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and
the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference,
flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball
upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had
become an offense to my eyes, and I believed the earth to be
encumbered with his presence. Perhaps my mother may have been
superstitious of the moon and looked upon it over the wrong
shoulder at the wrong time.
Be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had
done me what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far
from it. The evil was of a deeper, subtler sort; so elusive, so
intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysis in words. We all
experience such things at some period in our lives. For the first
time we see a certain individual, one who the very instant before
we did not dream existed; and yet, at the first moment of meeting,
we say: "I do not like that man." Why do we not like him? Ah, we do
not know why; we know only that we do not. We have taken a dislike,
that is all. And so I with John Claverhouse.
What right had such a man to be happy? Yet he was an optimist.
He was always gleeful and laughing. All things were always all
right, curse him! Ah I how it grated on my soul that he should be
so happy! Other men could laugh, and it did not bother me. I even
used to laugh myself--before I met John Claverhouse.
But his laugh! It irritated me, maddened me, as nothing else
under the sun could irritate or madden me. It haunted me, gripped
hold of me, and would not let me go. It was a huge, Gargantuan
laugh. Waking or sleeping it was always with me, whirring and
jarring across my heart-strings like an enormous rasp. At break of
day it came whooping across the fields to spoil my pleasant morning
revery. Under the aching noonday glare, when the green things
drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the forest, and all
nature drowsed, his great "Ha! ha!" and "Ho! ho!" rose up to the
sky and challenged the sun. And at black midnight, from the lonely
cross-roads where he turned from town into his own place, came his
plaguey cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep and make me writhe
and clench my nails into my palms.
I went forth privily in the night-time, and turned his cattle
into his fields, and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he
drove them out again. "It is nothing," he said; "the poor, dumb
beasties are not to be blamed for straying into fatter
pastures."
He had a dog he called "Mars," a big, splendid brute, part
deer-hound and part blood-hound, and resembling both. Mars was a
great delight to him, and they were always together. But I bided my
time, and one day, when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away
and settled for him with strychnine and beefsteak. It made
positively no impression on John Claverhouse. His laugh was as
hearty and frequent as ever, and his face as much like the full
moon as it always had been.
Then I set fire to his haystacks and his barn. But the next
morning, being Sunday, he went forth blithe and cheerful.
"Where are you going?" I asked him, as he went by the
cross-roads.
"Trout," he said, and his face beamed like a full moon. "I just
dote on trout."
Was there ever such an impossible man! His whole harvest had
gone up in his haystacks and barn. It was uninsured, I knew. And
yet, in the face of famine and the rigorous winter, he went out
gayly in quest of a mess of trout, forsooth, because he "doted" on
them! Had gloom but rested, no matter how lightly, on his brow, or
had his bovine countenance grown long and serious and less like the
moon, or had he removed that smile but once from off his face, I am
sure I could have forgiven him for existing. But no, he grew only
more cheerful under misfortune.
I insulted him. He looked at me in slow and smiling
surprise.
"I fight you? Why?" he asked slowly. And then he laughed. "You
are so funny! Ho! ho! You'll be the death of me! He! he! he! Oh!
Ho! ho! ho!"
What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas,
how I hated him! Then there was that name--Claverhouse! What a
name! Wasn't it absurd? Claverhouse! Merciful heaven, WHY
Claverhouse? Again and again I asked myself that question. I should
not have minded Smith, or Brown, or Jones--but CLAVERHOUSE! I leave
it to you. Repeat it to yourself--Claverhouse. Just listen to the
ridiculous sound of it--Claverhouse! Should a man live with such a
name? I ask of you. "No," you say. And "No" said I.
But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn
destroyed, I knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd,
close-mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage
transferred to him. I did not appear but through this agent I
forced the foreclosure, and but few days (no more, believe me, than
the law allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove his goods
and chattels from the premises. Then I strolled down to see how he
took it, for he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met
me with his saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and
spreading in his face till it was as a full-risen moon.
"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "The funniest tike, that youngster of
mine! Did you ever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down
playing by the edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in
and splashed him. 'O papa!' he cried; 'a great big puddle flewed up
and hit me.'"
He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal
glee.
"I don't see any laugh in it," I said shortly, and I know my
face went sour.
He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable
light, glowing and spreading, as I have described it, till his face
shone soft and warm, like the summer moon, and then the laugh--"Ha!
ha! That's funny! You don't see it, eh? He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He
doesn't see it! Why, look here. You know a puddle--"
But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could
stand it no longer. The thing must end right there, I thought,
curse him! The earth should be quit of him. And as I went over the
hill, I could hear his monstrous laugh reverberating against the
sky.
Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved
to kill John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion
that I should not look back upon it and feel ashamed. I hate
bungling, and I hate brutality. To me there is something repugnant
in merely striking a man with one's naked fist--faugh! it is
sickening! So, to shoot, or stab, or club John Claverhouse (oh,
that name!) did not appeal to me. And not only was I impelled to do
it neatly and artistically, but also in such manner that not the
slightest possible suspicion could be directed against me.
To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound
incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a
water spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole
attention to her training. Had any one spied upon me, they would
have remarked that this training consisted entirely of one
thing--RETRIEVING. I taught the dog, which I called "Bellona," to
fetch sticks I threw into the water, and not only to fetch, but to
fetch at once, without mouthing or playing with them. The point was
that she was to stop for nothing, but to deliver the stick in all
haste. I made a practice of running away and leaving her to chase
me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught me. She was a
bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness that I was
soon content.
After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona
to John Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a
little weakness of his, and of a little private sinning of which he
was regularly and inveterately guilty.
"No," he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand.
"No, you don't mean it." And his mouth opened wide and he grinned
all over his damnable moon-face.
"I--I kind of thought, somehow, you didn't like me," he
explained. "Wasn't it funny for me to make such a mistake?" And at
the thought he held his sides with laughter.
"What is her name?" he managed to ask between paroxysms.
"Bellona," I said.
"He! he!" he tittered. "What a funny name."
I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped
out between them, "She was the wife of Mars, you know."
Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until
he exploded with: "That was my other dog. Well, I guess she's a
widow now. Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!" he whooped after me, and I
turned and fled swiftly over the hill.
The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, "You
go away Monday, don't you?"
He nodded his head and grinned.
"Then you won't have another chance to get a mess of those trout
you just 'dote' on."
But he did not notice the sneer. "Oh, I don't know," he
chuckled. "I'm going up to-morrow to try pretty hard."
Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house
hugging myself with rapture.
Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack,
and Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and
cut out by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to
the top of the mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed
the crest along for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in
the hills, where the little river raced down out of a gorge and
stopped for breath in a large and placid rock-bound pool. That was
the spot! I sat down on the croup of the mountain, where I could
see all that occurred, and lighted my pipe.
Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up
the bed of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were
in high feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper
chest-notes. Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and
sack, and drew from his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat
candle. But I knew it to be a stick of "giant"; for such was his
method of catching trout. He dynamited them. He attached the fuse
by wrapping the "giant" tightly in a piece of cotton. Then he
ignited the fuse and tossed the explosive into the pool.
Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have
shrieked aloud for joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without
avail. He pelted her with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on
till she got the stick of "giant" in her mouth, when she whirled
about and headed for shore. Then, for the first time, he realized
his danger, and started to run. As foreseen and planned by me, she
made the bank and took out after him. Oh, I tell you, it was great!
As I have said, the pool lay in a sort of amphitheatre. Above and
below, the stream could be crossed on stepping-stones. And around
and around, up and down and across the stones, raced Claverhouse
and Bellona. I could never have believed that such an ungainly man
could run so fast. But run he did, Bellona hot-footed after him,
and gaining. And then, just as she caught up, he in full stride,
and she leaping with nose at his knee, there was a sudden flash, a
burst of smoke, a terrific detonation, and where man and dog had
been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big hole
in the ground.
"Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing." That was
the verdict of the coroner's jury; and that is why I pride myself
on the neat and artistic way in which I finished off John
Claverhouse. There was no bungling, no brutality; nothing of which
to be ashamed in the whole transaction, as I am sure you will
agree. No more does his infernal laugh go echoing among the hills,
and no more does his fat moon-face rise up to vex me. My days are
peaceful now, and my night's sleep deep.
