Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries | Page 9

your God depends on is a thing called fear; and I do not have it."
Abner looked at him hard, but he did not answer. He turned, instead, to me.
"Martin," he said, "you must go to sleep, lad." And he wrapped me in his greatcoat and put me to bed on the sofa-behind him in the corner. I was snug and warm there and I could have slept like Saul, but I was curious to know what Abner came for and I peeped out through a buttonhole of the greatcoat.
Abner sat for a long time, his elbows on his knees, his hands together and his eyes looking into the fire. The hunchback watched him, his big, hairy hands moving on the padded arms of his chair and his sharp eyes twinkling like specks of glass. Finally Abner spoke-I judged he believed me now asleep.
"And so, Gaul," he said, "you think God is a scarecrow?"
"I do," said Gaul.
"And you have taken what you liked?"
"I have," said Gaul.
"Well," said Abner, "I have come to ask you to return what you have taken-and something besides, for usury."
He got a folded paper out of his pocket and handed it across the hearth to Gaul.
The hunchback took it, leaned back in his chair, unfolded it at his leisure and at his leisure read it through.
"A deed in fee," he said, "for all these lands...to my brother's children. The legal terms are right: 'Doth grant, with covenants of general warranty.'...It is well drawn, Abner; but I am not pleased to 'grant.'"
"Gaul," said Abner, "there are certain reasons that may move you."
The hunchback smiled.
"They must be very excellent to move a man to alienate his lands."
"Excellent they are," said Abner. "I shall mention the best one first."
"Do," said Gaul, and his grotesque face was merry.
"It is this," said Abner: "You have no heirs. Your brother's son is now a man; he should marry a wife and rear up children to possess these lands. And, as he is thus called upon to do what you cannot do, Gaul, he should have the things you have, to use."
"That's a very pretty reason, Abner," said the hunchback, "and it does you honor; but I know a better."
"What is it, Gaul?" said Abner.
The hunchback grinned. "Let us say, my pleasure!"
Then he struck his bootleg with his great black stick.
"And now," he cried, "who's back of this tomfoolery?"
"I am," said Abner.
The hunchback's heavy brows shot down. He was not disturbed, but he knew that Abner moved on no fool's errand.
"Abner," he said, "you have some reason for this thing. What is it?"
"I have several reasons for it," replied Abner, "and I gave you the best one first."
"Then the rest are not worth the words to say them in," cried Gaul.
"You are mistaken there," replied Abner; "I said that I would give you the best reason, not the strongest...Think of the reason I have given. We do not have our possessions in fee in this world, Gaul, but upon lease and for a certain term of service. And when we make default in that service the lease abates and a new man can take the title."
Gaul did not understand and he was wary.
"I carry out my brother's will," he said.
"But the dead," replied Abner, "cannot retain dominion over things. There can be no tenure beyond a life estate. These lands and chattels are for the uses of men as they arrive. The needs of the living overrule the devises of the dead."
Gaul was watching Abner closely. He knew that this was some digression, but he met it with equanimity. He put his big, hairy fingers together and spoke with a judicial air.
"Your argument," he said, "is without a leg to stand on. It is the dead who govern. Look you, man, how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! And the titles to our lands-have not the dead devised them?...If a surveyor runs a line he begins at some corner that the dead set up; and if one goes to law upon a question the judge looks backward through his books until he finds out how the dead have settled it-and he follows that. And all the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead; and the orators and all those who preach and lecture-are not their mouths filled with words that the dead have spoken? Why, man, our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!"
He got on his feet and looked at Abner. "What my brother has written in his will I will obey," he said. "Have you seen that paper, Abner?"
"I have not," said Abner, "but I have