The Manager of the B. & A.: A NovelKester, Vaughan
General
The Manager of the B. & A.: A Novel
Kester, Vaughan
American fiction; Railroad stories
RYDER'S murder furnished Antioch with a sensation the like of which
it had not known in many a day. It was one long, breathless shudder,
ramified with contingent horrors.
Dippy Ellsworth remembered that when he drove up in his cart on the
night of the tragedy to light the street lamp which stood on the corner
by the _Herald_ office his horse had balked and refused to go near the
curb. It was generally conceded that the sagacious brute smelled blood.
Dippy himself said he would not sell that horse for a thousand dollars,
and it was admitted on all sides that such an animal possessed a value
hard to reckon in mere dollars and cents.
Three men recalled that they had passed the _Herald_ office and noticed
that the door stood open. Within twenty-four hours they were hearing
groans, and within a week, cries for help, but they were not encouraged.
Of course the real hero was Bob Bennett, Ryder's assistant, who had
discovered the body when he went back to the office at half-past eight
to close the forms. His account of the finding of Ryder dead on the
floor was an exceedingly grizzly narrative, delightfully conducive of
the shivers. He had been the quietest of youths, but two weeks after the
murder he left for Chicago. He said there might be those who could stand
it, but Antioch was too slow for him.
Not less remarkable was Ryder's posthumous fame. Men who had never known
him in life now spoke of him with trembling voices and every outward
evidence of the sincerest sorrow. It was as if they had sustained a
personal loss, for his championship of the strike had given him a great
popularity, and his murder, growing out of this championship, as all
preferred to believe, made his death seem a species of martyrdom.
Indeed, the mere fact that he had been murdered would have been
sufficient to make him popular at any time. He had supplied Antioch
with a glorious sensation. It was something to talk over and discuss and
shudder at, and the town was grateful and happy, with the deep, calm joy
of a perfect emotion.
It determined to give him a funeral which should be creditable alike
to the cause for which he had died and to the manner of his death. So
widespread was the feeling that none should be denied a share in this
universal expression of respect and grief that Jeffy found it easy to
borrow five pairs of trousers, four coats, and a white vest to wear to
the funeral; but, in spite of these unusual preparations, he was unable
to be present.
Meanwhile Dan had been arrested, examined, and set at liberty again,
in the face of the prevailing sentiment that he should be held. No one
doubted--he himself least of all--that Roger Oakley had killed Ryder.
Bob Bennett recalled their meeting as he left the office to go home
for supper on the night of the murder, and a red-and-yellow bandanna
handkerchief was found under the table which Dan identified as having
belonged to his father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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