Moon-Face and Other Stories | Page 5

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,