Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/725

Rh trust money. He tramped to the nearest town and possessed himself of papers, and soon enough found what he wanted. The man in whom he had trusted had defaulted. The money was gone. He then began to dole out the money which he had remaining. He was at his wits' end to do so without discovery, but by tramping miles first in one direction, then another, he contrived to send it in quarterly instalments, and he saw with delight that his wife had a new dress and the flowers on her bonnet bloomed anew. But the worry was upon him that the money, since he was using the principal, would soon be gone. He felt that he should invest the remainder. He tramped fifty miles one spring with the money concealed about him, and his pistols in his belt, and he invested it, and it was not long before the investment proved an utter loss. Then he knew that his wife had mortgaged the farm. Still, although the thought of it all was always with him, he seemed to live in his solitude with God, and realize himself that which he should be.

But finally the time came when by spying and listening he found out that his family could not live much longer unless something was done for them. One afternoon, slouching along in the shadows of the woods, he saw his wife and his slender daughters and eldest boy trying to plough the fields with an old horse which they had hired. That was too much for him. There was a man in the settlement who had owed him money for years. Andersen had returned to the simplest notions of right and wrong. That night he went to the great barn of the man who owed him, and got out two stout horses, and he worked all night ploughing his fields. In the morning, when the deserted wife saw what had been done, she thought it was the work of a benevolent neighbor, a widower, who had for some time been making advances to her. There had been a well-grounded report that Andersen was dead. However, Andersen's wife would not listen to the man, and although she saw with delight the work done on her fields, still she made up her mind that she would not admit any knowledge of the man who had done it. Adam worked night after night, and it was the seventh night that his second daughter discovered him. He was working quite near the house, and guiding the horses in silence, yet it was bright moonlight, and the girl, who was nervous and wakeful, looked out and saw him. He heard her shriek, and hurried with the horses out of the field.

The girl ran down to her mother, who slept on the ground-floor, and she was fairly gasping in hysterics. "Oh, mother! oh, mother!" she cried, catching her breath.

Her mother, white and gasping also, rose up in bed and looked at her.

"It is the wild man who is ploughing our fields," said the girl, choking.

"I don't believe it."

"Yes; I saw him. His beard blew out like a flag as he walked behind the horses."

"I don't believe it. You were dreaming. It was Silas Edgett."

"No, it was the wild man. I saw him."

The next night Adam did not come. He felt that it was of no use. He knew they would all be on the watch. He waited. He thought, if he waited, they might cease to watch. On the third night he stole up to the barn of the neighbor whose horses be had borrowed, and caught the gleam of a lantern from the wide-open doors. They, too, were on the watch. They had discovered that their horses had been used. He waited still three days longer, and made a third attempt. Passing his wife's house, skirting like a shadow the edge of the woods which bordered the road, he distinctly saw white gleams in the windows; he kept on to the barn, and there was still the lantern gleam. A man was actually pacing like a sentinel before the open door. He retreated. The next day he left his shack, taking with him his scanty possessions, for he had a presentiment. He was quite right. The sheriff had been sent for, and that very night his shack was visited, but the wild man had gone. After all, there was nothing very serious in the charge against him. He had merely borrowed without leave a man's horses and ploughed the fields of a poor deserted woman. The widower who was her covert admirer advised the withdrawal of the search party, without further efforts to find the man.

The next day but one, Adam returned