After Jared Birkdale had defied Leon in his own stronghold, and, instead of agreeing with Tate that Joyce had come to Isa as to a mother, had insisted upon bare, unglorified fact, he had betaken himself into oblivion. Tate was confronted with the predicament of having a helpless girl on his hands to do for--unless another man was forthcoming.
Jude rose to the occasion. He confided to Jock Filmer his desire for immediate marriage, and good-natured Jock, his system permeated by gossip, consented to send down to the Junction--since Joyce objected to the hell-fire minister at Hillcrest--and bring a harmless wayfarer of the cloth, who Murphy, the engineer of the daily branch train, had said, was summering there.
"He's a lean, blighted cuss," Murphy had explained; "what God intended for an engineer, but Nature stepped in and flambasted his constitootion, and so he took to preaching--that not demanding no bodily strength.
"He comes pottering round the engine, using the excuse of saving my soul, and I don't let on that I see through him. I give him pints about the machinery; and if I tell him he can ride in the cab with me anywhere, he'd marry a girl, or bury a tramp, if he had to go to hell to do it."
So Jock detailed Murphy to decoy the side-tracked gentleman at the Junction up to St. Angé.
The stranger was expected on the afternoon train, and Tate had the guest room of the Black Cat in readiness.
Jock had lazed about the Station since noon. The wedding preparations bored him, and the train's delay angered him.
"See here!" he exploded to Tom Smith, the agent, "ain't it stretching a point too far when that gol-durned train gives herself four hours' lee-way?"
Tom spat with dignity, and remarked casually:
"Long as she ain't likely to meet any train going down, seems to me there ain't any use to git warmer than is necessary."
"If she keeps on," drawled Jock, "she'll have a head-on collision with herself some day. Is that the dying shriek of the blasted hussy?"
"It be," he announced, and went out on the track to welcome the guest.
"She do look," he contemplatively remarked, "like she had an all-fired jag on."
The train came in sight, swaying unsteadily on its rickety tracks. Puffing, panting and hissing, it reached the platform and stopped jerkily.