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38
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THE ENEMY IN PRESENCE
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Then came and looked him in the face, An angel beautiful and bright, And then he knew it was a fiend, That miserable knight. --COLERIDGE ‘Father, dear father, what is it? What makes you look so ill, so haggard?’ cried Diane de Selinville, when summoned the next morning to meet her father in the parlour of the convent.
‘Ah, child! see here. Your brother will have us make an end of it. He has found her.’
‘Eustacie! Ah, and where?’
‘That he will not say, but see here. This is all billet tells me: “The hare who has doubled so long is traced to her form. My dogs are on her, and in a week’s time she will be ours. I request you, sir, to send me a good purse of crowns to reward my huntsmen; and in the meantime--one way or the other--that pet of my sister’s must be disposed of. Kept too long, these beasts always become savage. Either let him be presented to the royal menagerie, or there is a still surer way. ”’ ‘And that is all he says!’ exclaimed Diane.
‘All! He was always cautions. He mentions no names. And now, child, what is to be done? To give him up to the King is, at the best, life-long imprisonment, yet, if he were still here when my son returns--Alas! alas! child, I have been ruined body and soul between you! How could you make me send after and imprison him? It was a mere assassination!’ and the old man beat his head with grief and perplexity.
‘Father!’ cried Diane, tearfully, ‘I cannot see you thus. We meant it for the best. We shall yet save him.’
‘Save him! Ah, daughter, I tossed all night long thinking how to save him, so strong, so noble, so firm, so patient, so good even to the old man who has destroyed his hope--his life! Ah! I have thought till my brain whirls.’
‘Poor father! I knew you would love him,’ said Diane, tenderly. ‘Ah! we will save him yet. He shall be the best of sons to you. Look, it is only to tell him that she whom he calls his wife is already in my brother’s hands, wedded to him.’
‘Daughter,’--and he pushed back his gray hair with a weary distressed gesture,--‘I am tired of wiles; I am old; I can carry them out no longer.’
‘But this is very simple; it may already be true--at least it will soon be true. Only tell him that she is my brother’s wife. Then will his generosity awaken, then will he see that to persist in the validity of his marriage would be misery, dishonour to her, then----’ ‘Child, you know not how hard he is in his sense of right. Even for his brother’s sake he would not give way an inch, and the boy was as obstinate as he!’
‘Ah! but this comes nearer. He will be stung; his generosity will be piqued. He will see that the kindest thing he can do will be to nullify his claim, and the child----’ The Chevalier groaned, struck his brow with his fist, and muttered, ‘That will concern no one--that has been provided for. Ah! ah! children, if I lose my own soul for you, you----’ ‘Father, my sweet father, say not these cruel things. Did not the Queen’s confessor tell us that all means were lawful that brought a soul to the Church? and here are two.’
‘Two! Why, the youth’s heresy is part of his point of honour. Child, child, the two will be murdered in my very house, and the guilt will be on my soul.’
‘No, father! We will--we will save him. See, only tell him this.’
‘This--what? My brain is confused. I have thought long--long.’
‘Only this, father, dear father. You shall not be tormented any more, if only you will tell him that my brother has made Eustacie his wife, then will I do all the rest.’
Diane coaxed, soothed, and encouraged her father by her caresses, till he mounted his mule to return to the castle at dinner-time, and she promised to come early in the afternoon to follow up the stroke he was to give. She had never seen him falter before,--he had followed out his policy with a clear head and unsparing hand,--but now that Berenger’s character was better known to him, and the crisis long delayed had come so suddenly before his eyes, his whole powers seemed to reel under the alternative.
The dinner-bell clanged as he arrived at the castle, and the prisoners were marched into the hall, both intent upon making their request on Osbert’s behalf, and therefore as impatient for the conclusion of the meal, and the absence of the servants, as was their host. His hands trembled so much that Berenger was obliged to carve for him; he made the merest feint of eating; and now and then raised his hand to his head as if to bring back scattered ideas.
The last servant quitted the room, when Berenger perceived that the old man was hardly in a state to attend to his request, and yet the miserable frost-bitten state of poor Landry seemed to compel him to speak.
‘Sir,’ he began, ‘you could do me a great kindness.’
The Chevalier looked up at him with glassy eyes.
‘My son,’ he said, with an effort, ‘I also had something to say. Ah! let me think. I have had enough. Call my daughter,’ he added, feeling helplessly with his hands, so that Berenger started up in alarm, and received him in his arms just in time to prevent his sinking to the floor senseless.
‘It is a stroke,’ exclaimed Berenger. ‘Call, Phil! Send the gendarmes.’
The gendarmes might be used to the sight of death of their own causing, but they had a horror of that which came by Nature’s hand. The purple face and loud gasps of the stricken man terrified them out of their senses. _‘C’est un coup,’_ was the cry, and they went clattering off to the servants. These, all men but one old crone, came in a mass to the door, looked in, beheld their master rigid and prostrate on the floor, supported by the prisoner, and with fresh shrieks about ‘Mesdames! a priest! a doctor!’ away they rushed. The two brothers were not in much less consternation, only they retained their senses. Berenger loosened the ruff and doublet, and bade Philip practice that art of letting blood which he had learnt for his benefit. When Madame de Selinville and her aunt, with their escort, having been met half-way from Bellaise, arrived sooner than could have been expected, they found every door open from hall to entrance gateway, not a person keeping watch, and the old man lying deathlike upon cushions in the hall, Philip bandaging his arm, and Berenger rubbing his temples with wine and the hottest spices on the table. ‘He is better--he is alive,’ said Berenger, as they entered; and as both ladies would have fallen on him with shrieks and sobs, he bade them listen, assured them that the only chance of life was in immediate care, and entreated that bedding might be brought down, and strong essences fetched to apply to the nose and temples. They obeyed, and the sister infirmarer had arrived from the convent, he had opened his eyes, and, as he saw Berenger, tried to murmur something that sounded like _‘Mon fils.’ _ ‘He lives! --he speaks! --he can receive the sacraments!’ was the immediate exclamation; and as preparations began to be made, the brothers saw that their presence was no longer needed, and returned to their own tower.
‘So, sir,’ said the gendarme sergeant, as they walked down the passage, ‘you did not seize the moment for escape.’
‘I never thought of it,’ said Berenger.
‘I hope, sir, you will not be the worse for it,’ said the sergeant. ‘An honourable gentleman you have ever proved yourself to me, and I will bear testimony that you did the poor old gentleman no hurt; but nobles will have it their own way, and pay little heed to a poor soldier.’
‘What do you mean, friend?’
‘Why, you see, sir, it is unlucky that you two happened to be alone with M. le Chevalier. No one can tell what may be said when they seek an occasion against a person.’
To the brothers, however, this suggestion sounded so horrible and unnatural, that they threw it from them. They applied themselves at every moment possible to enlarging Osbert’ hole, and seeking an outlet from the dungeon; but this they had not been able to discover, and it was necessary to be constantly on their guard in visiting the vaults, lest their absence from their apartment should be detected. They believed that if Narcisse arrived at the castle, they should find in him a far less gentle jailer than the poor old man, for whose state their kindly young hearts could not but grieve.
They heard that he had recovered consciousness enough to have made a sort of confession; and Pere Bonami brought them his formal request, as a dying man, for their pardon for all the injuries he had done them; but his speech was too much affected for any specification of what these were. The first thing they heard in early morning was that, in the course of the night, he had breathed his last; and all day the bells of all the churches round were answering one another with the slow, swinging, melancholy notes of the knell.
In the early twilight, Pere Bonami brought a message that Madame de Selinville requested M. le Baron to come and speak with her, and he was accordingly conducted, with the gendarme behind him, to a small chamber opening into the hall--the same where the incantations of the Italian pedlar had been played off before Philip and Diane. The gendarme remained outside the door by which they entered the little dark room, only lighted by one little lamp.
‘Here, daughter,’ said the priest, ‘is your cousin. He can answer the question you have so much at heart;’ and with these words Pere Bonami passed beneath the black curtain that covered the entrance into the hall, admitting as he raised it for a moment a floor of pure light from the wax tapers, and allowing the cadence of the chanting of the priests to fall on the ear. At first Berenger was scarcely able to discern the pale face that looked as if tears were all dried up, and even before his eyes had clearly perceived her in the gloom, she was standing before him with clasped hands, demanding, in a hoarse, breathless whisper, ‘Had he said anything to you?’
‘Anything? No, cousin,’ said Berenger, in a kind tone. ‘He had seemed suffering and oppressed all dinner-time, and when the servants left us, he murmured a few confused words, then sank.’
‘Ah, ah, he spoke it not! Thank Heaven! Ah! it is a load gone. Then neither will I speak it,’ sighed Diane, half aloud. ‘Ah! cousin, he loved you.’
‘He often was kind to us,’ said Berenger, impelled to speak as tenderly as he could of the enemy, who had certainly tortured him, but as if he loved him.
‘He bade us save you,’ said Diane, her eyes shining with strange wild light in the gloom. ‘He laid it on my aunt and me to save you; you must let us. It must be done before my brother comes,’ she added, in hurried accents. ‘The messengers are gone; he may be here any moment. He must find you in the chapel--as--as my betrothed!’
‘And you sent for me here to tempt me--close to such a chamber as that?’ demanded Berenger, his gentleness becoming sternness, as much with his own worse self as with her.
‘Listen. Ah! it is the only way. Listen, cousin. Do you know what killed my father? It was my brother’s letter saying things must be brought to an end: either you must be given up to the King, or worse--worse. And now, without him to stand between you and my brother, you are lost. Oh! take pity on his poor soul that has left his body, and bring not you blood on his head.’
‘Nay,’ said Berenger, ‘if he repented, the after consequences to me will have no effect on him now.’
‘Have pity then on yourself--on your brother.’
‘I have,’ said Berenger. ‘He had rather die with me than see me a traitor.’
‘And least of all,’ she exclaimed, with choking grief, ‘have you compassion on me! --on me who have lost the only one who felt for me--on me who have loved you with every fibre of my heart--on me who have lived on the music of your hardest, coldest word--on me who would lay my life, my honour, in the dust for one grateful glance from you--and whom you condemn to the anguish of--your death! Aye, and for what? For the mere shadow of a little girl, who had no force to love you, or whom you know nothing--nothing! Oh! are you a crystal rock or are you a man? See, I kneel to you to save yourself and me.’
There were hot tears dropping from Berenger’s eyes as he caught Diane’s hand, and held it forcibly to prevent her thus abasing herself. Her wild words and gestures thrilled him in every pulse and wrung his heart, and it was with a stifled, agitated voice that he said-- ‘God help you and me both, Diane! To do what you ask would--would be no saving of either. Nay, if you will kneel,’ as she struggled with him, ‘let it be to Him who alone can bring us through;’ and releasing her hand, he dropped on his knees by her side, and covered his face with his hands, in an earnest supplication that the spirit of resistance which he almost felt slipping from him might be renewed. The action hushed and silenced her, and as he rose he spoke no other word, but silently drew back so much of the curtain that he could see into the hall, where the dead man still lay uncoffined upon the bed where his own hands had laid him, and the low, sweet requiem of kneeling priests floated round him. Rest, rest, and calm they breathed into one sorely tried living soul, and the perturbed heart was quelled by the sense how short the passage was to the world where captivity and longing would be ended. He beckoned to Pere Bonami to return to Diane, and then, protected by his presence from any further demonstrations, kissed her hand and left her.
He told Philip as little as possible of this interview, but his brother remarked how much time he spent over the Psalms that evening.
The next day the brothers saw from their upper winder the arrival of Narcisse, or, as he had called himself for the last three years, the Marquis de Nid-de-Merle, with many attendant gentlemen, and a band of fifty or sixty gendarmes. The court was filled with their horses, and rang with their calls for refreshment. And the captives judged it wise to remain in their upper room incase they should be called for.
They were proved to have been wise in so doing; for about an hour after their arrival there was a great clanging of steel boots, and Narcisse de Ribaumont, followed by a portly, heavily-armed gentleman, wearing a scarf of office, by two of the servants, and by two gendarmes, entered the room. It was the first time the cousins had met since _le baiser d’Eutacie_ had been hissed into Berenger’s ear. Narcisse looked older, sallower, and more worn than at that time; and Philip, seeing his enemy for the first time, contrasted him with the stately presence of Berenger, and felt as if a rat were strangling a noble steed.
Each young man punctiliously removed his hat, and Nid-de-Merle, without deigning further salutation, addressed his companion. ‘Sir, you are here on the part of the King, and to you I deliver up these prisoners, who, having been detained here on a charge of carrying on a treasonable correspondence, and protected by my father out of consideration for the family, have requited his goodness by an attempt to strangle him, which has caused his death.’
Philip actually made a leap of indignation; Berenger, better prepared, said to the officer, ‘Sir, I am happy to be placed in charged of a King’s servant, who will no doubt see justice done, and shelter us from the private malice that could alone devise so monstrous an accusation. We are ready to clear ourselves upon oath over the corpse, and all the household and our own guards can bear witness.’
‘The witnesses are here,’ said Narcisse, pointing to the servants, ill-looking men, who immediately began to depose to having found their master purple-faced and struggling in the hands of the two young men, who had been left alone with him after dinner.
Berenger felt that there was little use in self-defence. It was a fabrication the more easily to secure his cousin’s purpose of destroying him, and his best hope lay in passing into the hands of persons who were less directly interested in his ruin. He drew himself up to his full height, saying, ‘If there be justice in France, our innocence will be proved. I demand, sir, that you examine the abbess, the priest, the steward, the sergeant of gendarmes: they are impartial witnesses, and will serve the King’s justice, if justice be his purpose. Or, if this be but M. de Nid-de-Merle’s way of completing the work he left unfinished four years ago, I am ready. Only let my brother go free. He is heir to nothing here.’
‘Enough, sir. Words against the King’s justice will be reckoned against you,’ said the officer. ‘I shall do myself the honour of attending the funeral the day after to-morrow, and then I shall convey you to Tours, to answer for this deed at your leisure. Monsieur le Marquis, are the prisoners secure here, or would you have them _garde a vue_.’
‘No need for that,’ said Narcisse, lightly; ‘had there been any exit they would have found it long ago. Your good fellows outside the door keep them safe enough. M. le Baron de Ribaumont, I have the honour to wish you a good morning.’
Berenger returned his bow with one full of defiance, and the door was again locked upon the prisoners; while Philip exclaimed, ‘The cowardly villain, Berry; is it a hanging matter?’
‘Not for noble blood,’ said Berenger. ‘We are more likely to be brought to no trial, but to lie prisoners for life;’ then, as Philip grew white and shivered with a sick horror, he added bravely, ‘But they shall not have us, Philip. We know the vaults well enough to play at hide and seek with them there, and even if we find no egress we may hold out till they think us fled and leave open the doors!’
Philip’s face lighted up again, and they did their best by way of preparation, collecting wood for torches, and putting aside food at their meals. It was a very forlorn hope, but the occupation it caused was effectual in keeping up Philip’s spirits, and saving him from despondency.
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{
"id": "5274"
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39
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THE PEDLAR’S PREDICTION
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But if ne’er so close you wall him, Do the best that you may; Blind Love, if so you call him, Will find out his way. --OLD SONG ‘Too late,’ muttered Berenger to himself, as he stood by the fire in his prison-chamber. Humfrey and Philip were busy in the vaults, and he was taking his turn in waiting in the sitting-room to disarm suspicion. ‘It is too late now, and I thank God that so it is.’
‘Do you indeed, M. le Baron?’ said a low voice close beside him; and, as he turned in haste, he beheld, at the foot of the turret-stair, the youth Aime de Selinville, holding a dark lantern in his hand, and veiling its light.
‘Ha!’ and he started to his feet. ‘Whence come you?’
‘From my Lady,’ was the youth’s answer. ‘She has sent me to ask whether you persist in what you replied to her the other day. For if not, she bids me say that it is not too late.’
‘And if I do persevere?’
‘Then--ah! what do I know? Who can tell how far malice can go? And there are towers and bastilles where hope never enters. Moreover, your researches underground are known.’
‘Sir,’ said Berenger, the heart-sinking quelled by the effort of resistance, ‘Madame de Selinville has my answer--I must take the consequences. Tell her, if she truly wishes me well, the honourable way of saving us would be to let our English friends know what has befallen us.’
‘You forget, M. le Baron, even if she could proclaim the dishonour of her family, interference from a foreign power might only lead to a surer mode of removing you,’ said Aime, lowering his voice and shuddering.
‘Even so, I should thank her. Then would the bitterest pang be taken away. Those at our home would not deem us faithless recreants.’
‘Thank her!’ murmured the lad in an inward voice. ‘Very well, sir, I will carry her your decision. It is your final one. Disgrace, prison, death--rather than freedom, love, wealth!’
‘The semblance of dishonour rather than the reality!’ said Berenger, firmly.
The light-footed page disappeared, and in a few moments a very different tread came up from below, and Philip appeared.
‘What is it, Berry? Methought I heard a voice.’
‘Forgive me, brother,’ said Berenger, holding out his hand; ‘I have thrown away another offer.’
‘Tush, the thing to pardon would be having accepted one. I only wish they would leave us in peace! What was it this time?’
‘A messenger through young Selinville. Strange, to trust her secrets to that lad. But hush, here he is again, much sooner than I thought. What, sir, have you been with your lady again?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the young said, with a trembling voice, and Berenger saw that his eyes were red with weeping; ‘she bids me tell you that she yields. She will save you eve while you have and despite her! There is only one thing---’ ‘And what is that?’
‘You must encumber yourself with the poor Aime. You must let me serve you instead of her. Listen, sir, it cannot be otherwise.’ Then with a brisker, more eager voice, he continued: ‘Monsieur knows that the family burial-place is Bellaise? Well, to-morrow, at ten o’clock, all the household, all the neighbourhood, will come and sprinkle holy water on the bier. The first requiem will be sung, and then will all repair to the convent. There will be the funeral mass, the banquet, the dole. Every creature in the castle--nay, in all the neighbourhood for twenty miles round--will be at the convent, for the Abbess has given out that the alms are to be double, and the bread of wheat. Not a soul will remain here, save the two gendarmes on guard at that door, and the poor Aime, whom no one will miss, even if any person could be distinguished in their black cloaks. Madame la Comtesse has given him this key, which opens a door on the upper floor of the keep, unknown to the guards, who, for that matter, shall have a good tankard of spiced wine to console and occupy them. Then is the way clear to the castle court, which is not over looked by their window, the horses are in the stables, and we are off,--that is if M. le Baron will save a poor youth from the wrath of M. de Nid-de-Merle.’
‘You are and honest fellow!’ cried Philip, shaking him vehemently by the hand. ‘You shall go with us to England, and we will make a brave man of you.’
‘We shall owe you our lives,’ said Berenger, warmly, ‘and be ever bound to you. Tell your lady that THIS is magnanimity; that now I truly thank her as our preserver, and shall bless her all the days of the life she gives us. But my servants?’
‘Guibert is a traitor,’ said Aime; ‘he has been so ever since you were at Paris. Breathe no word to him; but he, as a Catholic, shall be invited to the funeral. Your stout Englishman should by all means be with us.’
‘My Norman also,’ added Berenger,--‘my dear foster-brother, who has languished in the dungeon for three years;’ and when the explanation had been made, Aime assented, though half-unwillingly, to the necessity, and presently quitted them to bear back their answer to his lady. Philip shook his hand violently again, patted him on the back, so as almost to take away his breath, and bade him never fear, they would be sworn brothers to him for ever; and then threw up his hat into the air, and was so near astonishing the donjon walls with a British hurrah, that Berenger had to put his hand over his mouth and strangle the shout in his very throat.
The chief of that night was spent in enlarging the hole in Osbert’s wall, so as to admit of his creeping through it; and they also prepared their small baggage for departure. Their stock of money, though some had been spent on renewing their clothes, and some in needful gratuities to the servants and gendarmes, was sufficient for present needs, and they intended to wear their ordinary dress. They were unlikely to meet any of the peasants in the neighbourhood; and, indeed, Berenger had so constantly ridden out in his black mask, that its absence, now that his scars were gone, was as complete a change as could be effected in one whose height was of unusual.
‘There begins the kneel,’ said Philip, standing at the window. ‘It’s our joy-bell, Berry! Every clang seems to me to say, “Home! home! home!”
‘For you, Phil,’ said Berenger; ‘but I must be satisfied of Eutacie’s fate first. I shall go first to Nissard--whither we were bound when we were seized--then to La Rochelle, whence you may---’ ‘No more of that,’ burst out Philip. ‘What! would you have me leave you now, after all we have gone through together? Not that you will find her. I don’t want to vex you, brother, on such a day as this, but you conjurer’s words are coming true in the other matter.’
‘How? What mean you, Phil?’
‘What’s the meaning of Aime?’ asked Philip. ‘Even I am French scholar enough for that. And who sends him?’
Meantime the court was already filling with swarms of persons of every rank and degree, but several anxious hours had passed before the procession was marshaled; and friars and monks, black, white, and gray,--priests in rich robes and tall caps,--black-cloaked gentlemen and men-at-arms,--all bearing huge wax tapers,--and peasants and beggars of every conceivable aspect,--filed out of the court, bearing with them the richly-emblazoned bier of the noble and puissant knight, the Beausire Charles Eutache de Ribaumont Nid-de-Merle, his son walking behind in a long black mantle, and all who counted kindred of friendship following two and two; then all the servants, every one who properly belonged to the castle, were counted out by the brothers from their windows, and Guibert among them.
‘Messieurs,’ a low, anxious voice sounded in the room.
‘We will only fetch Osbert.’
It was a terrible only, as precious moments slipped away before there appeared in the lower chamber Berenger and Humfrey, dragging between them a squalid wretch, with a skin like stained parchment over a skeleton, tangled hair and beard, staring bewildered eyes, and fragments of garments, all dust, dirt, and rags.
‘Leave me, leave me, dear master,’ said the object, stretching his whole person towards the fire as they let him sink down before it. ‘You would but ruin yourself.’
‘It is madness to take him,’ said Aime, impatiently.
‘I go not without him,’ said Berenger. ‘Give me the soup, Philip.’
Some soup and wine had been placed by the fire, and likewise a shirt and a suit of Humfrey’s clothes were spread before it. Aime burst out into the yard, absolutely weeping with impatience, when, unheeding all his remonstrances, his three companions applied themselves to feeding, rubbing, and warming Osbert, and assuring him that the pains in his limbs would pass away with warmth and exercise. He had been valiant of heart in his dungeon; but his sudden plunge into upper air was like rising from the grave, and brought on all the effects of his dreary captivity, of which he had hardly been sensible when he had first listened to the voice of hope.
Dazzled, crippled, helpless, it seemed almost impossible that he should share the flight, but Berenger remained resolute; and when Aime returned from his fourth frantic promenade, he was told that all was ready.
But for the strength of Berenger and Humfrey the poor fellow could never have been carried up and up, nearly to the top of the keep, then along a narrow gallery, then down again even to the castle hall, now empty, though with the candle-sticks still around where the bier had been. Aime knelt for a moment where the head had been, hiding his face; Osbert rested in a chair; and Philip looked wistfully up at his own sword hung over the chimney.
‘Resume your swords, Messieurs,’ said Aime, observing him; ‘Madame desires it; and take pistols also.’
They gladly obeyed; and when, after this short delay, they proceeded, Osbert moved somewhat less painfully, but when they arrived at the stable only four horses stood there.
‘Ah! this miserable!’ cried Aime, passionately, ‘he ruins all my arrangements.’
‘Leave me,’ again entreated Landry. ‘Once outside, I can act the beggar and cripple, and get back to Normandy.’
‘Better leave me,’ said Humfrey; ‘they cannot keep me when you are out of their clutches.’
‘Help me, Humfrey,’ said Berenger, beginning to lift his foster-brother to the saddle, but there the poor man wavered, cried out that his head swam, and he could not keep his seat, entreating almost in agony to be taken down.
‘Lean on me,’ said Berenger, putting his arms round him. ‘There! you will be able to get to the Grange du Temple, where you will be in safe shelter.’
‘Sir, sir,’ cried Aime, ready to tear his hair, ‘this is ruin! My lady meant you to make all speed to La Rochelle and there embark, and this is the contrary way!’
‘That cannot be helped,’ said Berenger; ‘it is the only safe place for my foster-brother.’
Aime, with childish petulance, muttered something about ingratitude in crossing his lady’s plans; but, as no one attended to him, he proceeded to unfasten his horse, and then exclaimed, half crying, ‘Will no one help me?’
‘Not able to saddle a horse! a pretty fellow for a cavalier!’ exclaimed Philip, assisting, however, and in a few minutes they were all issuing from a low side gate, and looking back with bounding hearts at the drooping banner on the keep of Nid-de-Merle.
Only young Aime went with bowed head and drooping look, as though pouting, and Berenger, putting Osbert’s bridle into Humfrey’s hand, stepped up to him, saying, ‘Hark you, M. de Selinville, I am sorry if we seemed to neglect you. We owe you and your lady all gratitude, but I must be the judge of my own duty, and you can only be with me if you conform.’
The young seemed to be devouring his tears, but only said, ‘I was vexed to see my lady’s plan marred, and your chance thrown away.’
‘Of that I must judge,’ said Berenger.
They were in a by-lane, perfectly solitary. The whole country was at the funeral. Through the frosty air there came an occasional hum or murmur from Berenger, or the tinkle of a cow-bell in the fields, but no human being was visible. It was certain, however, that the Rotrous, being Huguenots, and no vassals of Nid-de-Merle, would not be at the obsequies; and Berenger, walking with swift strides, supporting Osbert on his horse, continued to cheer him with promises of rest and relief there, and listened to no entreaties from Philip or Humfrey to take one of their horses. Had not Osbert borne him on his shoulders through the butchery at Paris, and endured three years of dungeon for his sake?
As for Philip, the slow pace of their ride was all insufficient for his glee. He made his horse caracole at every level space, till Berenger reminded him that they might have far to ride that night, and even then he was constantly breaking into attempts at shouting and whistling as often repressed, and springing up in his stirrups to look over the high hedges.
The Grange was so well concealed in its wooded ravine, that only when close upon the gate the party became aware that this farm-yard, usually so solitary, formed an exception to the general desertion of the country. There was a jingle and a stamp of horses in the court, which could hardly be daylight echoes of the Templars. Berenger feared that the Guisards might have descended Rotrou, and was stepping forward to reconnoiter, while young De Selinville, trembling, besought him not to run into danger, but to turn and hasten to La Rochelle. By this time, however, the party had been espied by two soldiers stationed at the gate, but not before Berenger had had time to remark that they did not wear either the gold _fleur-de-lys_ like his late guards, or the white cross of Lorraine; nor had they the strange air of gay ferocity usual with the King’s mercenaries. And almost by instincts, at a venture, he made the old Huguenot sign he had learnt form his father, and answered, ‘For God and the Religion.’
The countersign was returned. ‘Bearn and Bourbon is the word to-day, comrade,’ replied the sentinel. ‘_Eh quoi_! have you had an encounter, that you bring a wounded man?’
‘Not wounded, but nearly dead in a Guisard prison,’ said Berenger, with an unspeakable sense of relief and security, as the sentries admitted them into the large walled court, where horses were eating hay, being watered and rubbed down; soldiers snatching a hasty meal in corners; gentlemen in clanking breastplates coming in and out of the house, evidently taking orders from a young man in a gray and silver suit, whose brown eagle face, thin cheeks, arched nose, and black eyes of keenest fire, struck Berenger at once with a sense of recognition as well as of being under a glance that seemed to search out everybody and everything at once.
‘More friends!’ and the tone again recalled a flood of recollections. ‘I thank and welcome you. What! You have met the enemy--where is he?’
‘My servant is not wounded. Sire,’ said Berenger, removing his hat and bending low. ‘This is the effect of long captivity. We have but just escaped.’
‘Then we are the same case! Pardon me, sir, I have seen you before, but for once I am at fault.’
‘When I call myself De Ribaumont, your Grace will not wonder.’
‘The dead alive! If I mistake not, it was in the Inferno itself that we last met! But we have broken through the gates at last! I remember poor King Charles was delighted to hear that you lived! But where have you been a captive?’
‘At Nid-de-Merle, Sire; my kinsmen accused me of treason in order to hinder my search for my wife. We escaped even now during the funeral of the Chevalier.’
‘By favour of which we are making our way to Parthenay unsuspected, though, by my faith, we gather so like a snowball, that we could be a match for a few hundreds of Guisards. Who is with you, M. de Ribaumont?’
‘Let me present to your Majesty my English brother, Philip Thistlewood,’ said Berenger, drawing the lad forward, making due obeisance, though entirely ignorant who was the plainly-dressed, travel-soiled stranger, so evidently a born lord of men.
‘An Englishman is ever welcome,’ was his gracious reception.
‘And,’ added Berenger, ‘let me also present the young De Selinville, to whom I owe my escape. Where is he, Philip?’
He seemed to be busy with the horses, and Berenger could not catch his eye.
‘Selinville! I thought that good Huguenot house was extinct.’
‘This is a relation of the late Count de Selinville, my cousin’s husband, Sire. He arranged my evasion, and would be in danger at Nid-de-Merle. Call him, Philip.’
Before this was done, however, the King’s attention was otherwise claimed, and turning to one of his gentlemen he said, ‘Here, d’Augigne, I present to you an acquaintance made in Tartarus. See to his entertainment ere we start for Parthenay.’
Agrippa d’Aubigne, still young, but grave and serious-looking greeted M. de Ribaumont as men meet in hours when common interests make rapid friendships; and from him Berenger learnt, in a few words, that the King of Navarre’s eyes had been opened at last to the treachery of the court, and his own dishonourable bondage. During a feverish attack, one night when D’Aubigne and D’Armagnac were sitting up with him, his resolution was taken; and on the first hunting day after his recovery, he, with these two, the Baron de Rosny and about thirty more of his suite, had galloped away, and had joined the Monsieur and the Prince of Conde at Alencon. He had abjured the Catholic faith, declared that nothing except ropes should bring him back to Paris, and that he left there the mass and his wife--the first he could dispense with, the last he meant to have; and he was now on his way to Parthenay to meet his sister, whom he had sent Rosny to demand. By the time Berenger had heard this, he had succeeded in finding honest Rotrou, who was in a state of great triumph, and readily undertook to give Osbert shelter, and as soon as he should have recovered to send him to head-quarters with some young men who he knew would take the field as soon as they learnt that the King of Navarre had set up his standard. Even the inroads made into the good farmer’s stores did not abate his satisfaction in entertaining the prime hope of the Huguenot cause; but Berenger advanced as large a sum as he durst out of his purse, under pretext of the maintenance of Osbert during his stay at the Grange. He examined Rotrou upon his subsequent knowledge of Isaac Gardon and Eutacie, but nothing had been heard of them since their departure, now nearly three years back, except a dim rumour that they had been seen at the Synod of Montauban.
‘Well, my friend,’ said Philip, when about to remount, ‘this will do rather better than a headlong gallop to Rochelle with Nid-de-Merle at our heels.’
‘If M. le Baron is safe, it is well,’ said Aime shortly.
‘Is Selinville there?’ said Berenger, coming up. ‘Here, let me take you to the King of Navarre: he knew your family in Lauguedoc.’
‘No, no,’ petulantly returned the boy. ‘What am I that he should notice me? It is M. de Ribaumont whom I follow, not him or his cause.’
‘Boy,’ said Berenger, dismayed, ‘remember, I have answered for you.’
‘I am no traitor,’ proudly answered the strange boy, and Berenger was forced to be thus satisfied, though intending to watch him closely.
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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40
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THE SANDS OF OLONNE
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Is it the dew of night That on her glowing cheek Shines in the moonbeam? -- Oh, she weeps, she weeps, And the good angel that abandoned her At her hell baptism, by her tears drawn down Resumes his charge... and the hope Of pardon and salvation rose As now she understood Thy lying prophecy of truth. --SOUTHEY ‘M. de Ribaumont,’ said Henry of Navarre, as he stood before the fire after supper at Parthenay, ‘I have been thinking what commission I could give you proportioned to your rank and influence.’
‘Thanks to your Grace, that inquiry is soon answered. I am a beggar here. Even my paternal estate in Normandy is in the hands of my cousin.’
‘You have wrongs,’ said Henry, ‘and wrongs are sometimes better than possessions in a party like ours.’
Berenger seized the opening to explain his position, and mention that his only present desire was for permission, in the first place, to send a letter to England by the messenger whom the King was dispatching to Elisabeth, in tolerable security of her secret countenance; and, secondly, to ride to Nissard to examine into the story he had previously heeded so little, of the old man and his daughter rescued from the waves the day before La Sablerie was taken.
‘If Pluto relented, my dear Orpheus, surely Navarre may,’ said Henry good-humouredly; ‘only may the priest not be more adamantine than Minos. Where lies Nissard? On the Sable d’Olonne? Then you may go thither with safety while we lie here, and I shall wait for my sister, or for news of her.’
So Berenger arranged for an early start on the morrow; and young Selinville listened with a frown, and strange look in his dark eyes. ‘You go not to England?’ he said.
‘Not yet?’ said Berenger ‘This was not what my Lady expected,’ he muttered; but though Berenger silenced him by a stern look, he took the first opportunity of asking Philip if it would not be far wiser for his brother to place himself in safety in England.
‘Wiser, but less honest,’ said Philip.
‘He who has lost all here, who has incurred his grandfather’s anger,’ pursued Aime, ‘were he not wiser to make his peace with his friends in England?’
‘His friends in England would not like him the better for deserting his poor wife’s cause,’ said Philip. ‘I advise you to hold your tongue, and not meddle or make.’
Aime subsided, and Philip detected something like tears. He had still much of rude English boyhood about him, and he laughed roughly. ‘A fine fellow, to weep at a word! Hie thee back to feed my Lady’s lap-dog, ‘tis all thou art fit for.’
‘There spoke English gratitude,’ said Aime, with a toss of the head and flash of the eye.
Philip despised him the more for casting up his obligations, but had no retort to make. He had an idea of making a man of young Selinville, and his notion of the process had something of the bullying tendency of English young towards the poor-spirited or cowardly. He ordered the boy roughly, teased him for his ignorance of manly exercises, tried to cure his helplessness by increasing his difficulties, and viewed his fatigue as affectation or effeminacy. Berenger interfered now and then to guard the poor boy from a horse-jest or practical joke, but he too felt that Aime was a great incumbrance, hopelessly cowardly, fanciful, and petulant; and he was sometimes driven to speak to him with severity, verging on contempt, in hopes of rousing a sense of shame.
The timidity, so unusual and inexplicable in a youth of eighteen or twenty, sowed itself irrepressibly at the Sands of Olonne. These were not misty, as on Berenger’s former journey. Nissard steeple was soon in sight, and the guide who joined them on a rough pony had no doubt that there would be ample time to cross before high water. There was, however, some delay, for the winter rains had brought down a good many streams of fresh water, and the sands were heavy and wet, so that their horses proceeded slowly, and the rush and dash of the waves proclaimed that the low of the tide had begun. To the two brothers the break and sweep was a home-sound, speaking of freshness and freedom, and the salt breeze and spray carried with them life and ecstasy. Philip kept as near the incoming waves as his inland-bred horse would endure, and sang, shouted, and hallooed to them as welcome as English waves; but Aime de Selinville had never even beheld the sea before: and even when the tide was still in the distance, was filled with nervous terror as each rushing fall sounded nearer; and, when the line of white foamy crests became more plainly visible, he was impelled to hurry on towards the steeple so fast that the guide shouted to him that he would only bury himself in a quicksand.
‘But,’ said he, white with alarm, and his teeth chattering, ‘how can we creep with those dreadful waves advancing upon us to drown us?’
Berenger silence Philip’s rude laugh and was beginning to explain that the speed of the waves could always be calculated by an experienced inhabitant; and his voice had seemed to pacify Aime a little, when the spreading water in front of a broken wave flowing up to his horse’s feet, again rendered him nearly frantic. ‘Let us go back!’ he wildly entreated, turning his horse; but Berenger caught his bridle, saying, ‘That would be truly death. Boy, unless you would be scorned, restrain your folly. Nothing else imperils us.’
Here, however, the guide interposed, saying that it had become too late to pursue their course along the curve of the shore, but they must at once cut straight across, which he had intended to avoid, because of the greater depth of a small river that they would have to cross, which divided further out into small channels, more easily forded. They thus went along the chord of the arc formed by the shore, and Aime was somewhat reassured, as the sea was at first farther off; but before long they reached the stream, which lost itself in many little channels in the sands, so that when the tide was out there was a perfect network of little streams dividing low shingly or grassy isles, but at nearly high tide, as at present, many of these islets were submerged, and the strife between river and sea caused sudden deepenings of the water in the channels.
The guide eagerly explained that the safest place for crossing was not by the large sandbank furthest inland and looking firm and promising--it was a recent shifting performance of the water’s heaping up, and would certainly sink away and bury horse the channels on either side had shingly bottoms, and were safe.
‘This way,’ called Berenger, himself setting the example, and finding no difficulty; the water did not rise above his boots, and the current was not strong. He had reached the shingly isle when he looked round for his companions; Humfrey and Philip were close behind him; but, in spite of the loud ‘_gare_!’ of the guide, Aime, or his horse,--for each was equally senseless with alarm,--were making inwards; the horse was trying to tread on the sandbank, which gave way like the water itself, under its frantic struggles--there was a loud cry--a shrill, unmistakable woman’s shriek--the horse was sinking--a white face and helpless form were being carried out on the waves, but not before Berenger had flung himself from his horse, thrown off his cloak and sword, and dashed into the water; and in the lapse of a few moments he struggled back to the island, where were Philip and Humfrey, leg-deep in water: the one received his burthen, the other helped him to land.
‘On, gentlemen, not a moment to lose,’ cried the guide; and Berenger, still panting, flung himself on his horse, held out his arms, gathered the small, almost inanimate figure upon the horse’s neck before him, and in a few minutes more they had crossed the perilous passage, and were on a higher bank where they could safely halt; and Philip, as he came to help his brother, exclaimed, ‘What a fool the boy is!’
‘Hush!’ said Berenger, gravely, as they laid the figure on the ground.
‘What! he can’t have been drowned in that moment. We’ll bring him to.’
‘Hands off!’ said Berenger, kneeling over the gasping form, and adding in a lower voice, ‘Don’t you see?’ He would his hand in the long drenched hair, and held it up, with cheeks burning like fire, and his scar purple.
‘A woman! --what? --who?’ Then suddenly divining, he exclaimed, ‘The jade!’ and started with wide eyes.
‘Stand back,’ said Berenger; ‘she is coming to herself.’
Perhaps she had been more herself than he knew, for, as he supported her head, her hand stole over his and held it fast. Full of consternation, perplexity, and anger as he was, he could not but feel a softening pity towards a creature so devoted, so entirely at his mercy. At the moment when she lay helpless against him, gasps heaving her breast under her manly doublet, her damp hair spread on his knees, her dark eyes in their languor raised imploring his face, her cold hand grasping his, he felt as if this great love were a reality, and as if he were hunting a shadow; and, as if fate would have it so, he must save and gratify one whose affection must conquer his, who was so tender, so beautiful--even native generosity seemed on her side. But in the midst, as in his perplexity he looked up over the gray sea, he seemed to see the picture so often present to his mind of the pale, resolute girl, clasping her babe to her breast, fearless of the advancing sea, because true and faithful. And at that thought faith and prayer rallied once again round his heart, shame at the instant’s wavering again dyed his cheek; he recalled himself, and speaking the more coldly and gravely because his heart was beating over hotly, he said, ‘Cousin, you are better. It is but a little way to Nissard.’
‘Why have you saved me, if you will not pity me?’ she murmured.
‘I will not pity, because I respect my kinswoman who has save our lives,’ he said steadying his voice with difficulty. ‘The priests of Nissard will aid me in sparing your name and fame.’
‘Ah!’ she cried, sitting up with a start of joy, ‘but he would make too many inquiries! Take me to England first.’
Berenger started as he saw how he had been misunderstood.
‘Neither here nor in England could my marriage be set aside, cousin. No; not priest shall take charge of you, and place you in safety and honour.’
‘He shall not!’ she cried hotly. ‘Why--why will you drive me from you--me who ask only to follow you as a menial servant?’
‘That has become impossible,’ he answered; ‘to say nothing of my brother, my servant and the guide have seen;’ and, as she remembered her streaming hair, and tried, in dawning confusion, to gather it together, he continued: ‘You shrank from the eye of the King of Navarre. You cannot continue as you have done; you have not even strength.’
‘Ah! have you sailed for England,’ she murmured.
‘It had only been greater shame,’ he said. ‘Cousin, I am head of your family, husband of your kinswoman, and bound to respect the reputation you have risked for me. I shall, therefore, place you in charge of the priest till you can either return to your aunt or to some other convent. You can ride now. We will not wait longer in these wet garments.’
He raised her from the ground, threw his own dry cloak round her shoulders and unmanageable hair, and lifted her on his horse; but, as she would have leant against him, he drew himself away, beckoned Philip, and put the bridle into his hands, saying, ‘Take care of her. I shall ride on and warm the priest.’
‘The rock of diamond,’ she murmured, not aware that the diamond had been almost melting. That youthful gravity and resolution, with the mixture of respect and protection, imposed as usual upon her passionate nature, and daunted her into meekly riding beside Philip without a word--only now and then he heard a low moan, and knew that she was weeping bitterly.
At first the lad had been shocked beyond measure, and would have held aloof as from a kind of monster, but Madame de Selinville had been the first woman to touch his fancy, and when he heard how piteously she was weeping, and recollected where he should have been but for her, as well as all his own harshness to her as a cowardly boy, he felt himself brutally ungrateful, and spoke: ‘Don’t weep so, Madame; I am sorry I was rude to you, but you see, how should I take you for a woman?’
Perhaps she heard, but she heeded not.
‘My brother will take good care to shield you,’ Philip added. ‘He will take care you are safe in one of your nunneries;’ and as she only wept the more, he added, with a sudden thought, ‘You would not go there; you would embrace the Protestant faith?’
‘I would embrace whatever was his.’
Philip muttered something about seeing what could be done. They were already at the entrance of the village, and Berenger had come out to meet them, and, springing towards him, Philip exclaimed, in a low voice, ‘Berry, she would abjure her Popish errors! You can’t give her up to a priest.’
‘Foolery, Philip,’ answered Berenger, sternly.
‘If she would be a convert!’
‘Let her be a modest woman first;’ and Berenger, taking her bridle, led her to the priest’s house.
He found that Pere Colombeau was preaching a Lent sermon, and that nobody was at home but the housekeeper, to whom he had explained briefly that the lady with him had been forced to escape in disguise, had been nearly drowned, and was in need of refreshment and female clothing. Jacinthe did not like the sound, but drenched clothes were such a passport to her master’s house, that she durst not refuse. Berenger carried off his other companions to the cabaret, and when he had dried himself, went to wait for the priest at the church door, sitting in the porch where more than one echo of the exhortation to repentance and purity rang in his ears, and enforced his conviction that here he must be cruel if he would be merciful.
It was long before Pere Colombeau came out, and then, if the scar had not blushed for all the rest of his face, the sickly, lanky lad of three years since would hardly have been recognized to the good cure. But the priest’s aspect was less benignant when Berenger tried to set before him his predicament; he coldly asked where the unhappy lady was; and when Berenger expressed his intention of coming the next morning to ask his counsel, he only bowed. He did not ask the brothers to supper, nor show any civility; and Berenger, as he walked back to the cabaret, perceived that his story was but half believed, and that, if Diane’s passion were still stronger than her truth or generosity, she would be able to make out a terrible case against him, and to willing ears, naturally disposed against a young cavalier and a heretic.
He sat much dispirited by the fire of the little wine shop, thinking that his forbearance had been well-nigh thrown away, and that his character would never be cleared in Eustacie’s eyes, attaching, indeed, more importance to the blot than would have been done by a youth less carefully reared.
It was quite dark when a knock came to the door: the cure’s white head appeared in the lamplight; he nodded kindly to all the guests, and entreated that M. de Ribaumont would do him a favour to come and speak with him.
No sooner were they outside the house, than the cure held out his hand, saying ‘Sir, forgive me for a grievous injustice towards you;’ then pressing his hand, he added with a voice tremulous with emotion, ‘Sir, it is no slight thing to have saved a wandering sheep by your uprightness and loyalty.’
‘Have you then opened her eyes, father?’ said Berenger, relieved from a heavy load.
‘You have, my son,’ said the old man. ‘You have taught her what truth and virtue are. For the rest, you shall heard for yourself.’
Before Berenger knew where he was, a door was opened, and he found himself in the church. The building was almost entirely dark; there were two tall lights at the altar in distance, and a few little slender tapers burning before certain niches and shrines, but without power to conquer with the gloom more than enough to spread a pale circle of yellow light beneath them, and to show mysteriously a bit of vaulting above. A single lamp hung from an arch near the door, and beneath it, near a pillar, knelt, or rather crouched, on the floor, a female figure with a dark peasant cloak drawn over her head.
‘The first token of penitence is reparation to the injured,’ said the priest.
Berenger looked at him anxiously.
‘I will not leave you,’ he added. ‘See, I shall pray for you yonder, by the altar,’ and he slowly moved up the aisle.
‘Rise, cousin, I entreat you,’ said Berenger, much embarrassed, as he disappeared in the darkness.
‘I must speak thus,’ she answered, in a hoarse, exhausted voice. ‘Ah! pardon, pardon!’ she added, rising, however, so far as to raise clasped hands and an imploring face. ‘Ah! can you pardon? It was through me that you bear those wounds; that she--Eustacie--was forced into the masque, to detain you for THAT night. Ah! pardon.’
‘That is long past,’ said Berenger. ‘I have been too near death not to have pardoned that long ago. Rise, cousin, I cannot see you thus.’
‘That is not all,’ continued Diane. ‘It was I--I who moved my father to imprison you.’ Then, as he bent his head, and would have again entreated her to rise, she held out her hand as if to silence him, and spoke faster, more wildly. ‘Then--then I thought it would save your life. I thought---’ she looked at him strangely with her great dark eyes, all hollow and cavernous in her white face.
‘I know,’ said Berenger, kindly, ‘you often urged it on me.’
There was a sort of movement on the part of the kneeling figure of the priest at the altar, and she interrupted, saying precipitately. ‘Then--then, I did think you free.’
‘Ah!’ he gasped. ‘Now---!’
‘Now I know that she lives!’ and Diane once more sank at his feet a trembling, shrinking, annihilated heap of shame and misery.
Berenger absolutely gave a cry that, though instantly repressed, had the ring of ecstasy in it. ‘Cousin--cousin!’ he cried, ‘all is forgiven--all forgotten, if you will only tell me where!’
‘That I cannot,’ said Diane, rousing herself again, but speaking in a dull, indifferent tone, as of one to whom the prime bitterness was past, ‘save that she is under the care of the Duchess de Quinet;’ and she then proceeded, as though repeating a lesson: ‘You remember the Italian conjurer whom you would not consult? Would that I had not!’ she added, clasping her hands. ‘His prediction lured me? Well, he saw my father privately, told him he had seen her, and had bought her jewels, even her hair. My father sent him in quest of her again, but told not me till the man returned with tidings that she was at Quinet, in favour with the Duchess. You remember that he went from home. It was to demand he; and, ah! you know how long I had loved you, and they told me that your marriage was void, and that all would be well upon the dispensation coming. And now the good father there tells me that I was deceived--cruelly deceived--that such a dispensation would not be granted save through gross misrepresentation.’ Then, as Berenger began to show tokens of eagerness to come at tidings of Eustacie, she continued, ‘Ah! it is vain to seek to excuse one you care not for. My father could learn nothing from the Duchess; she avowed that she had been there, but would say no more. However, he and my brother were sure she was under their protection; they took measures, and--and the morning my poor father was stricken, there had been a letter from my brother to say he was on her track, and matters must be ended with you, for he should have her in a week;’ and then, as Berenger started forward with an inarticulate outburst, half of horror, half of interrogation, she added, ‘Where, he said not, nor did I learn from him. All our one interview was spend in sneers that answered to my wild entreaties; but this I know--that you would never have reached Tours a living man.’
‘And now, now he is on the way to her!’ cried Berenger, ‘and you kept it from me!’
‘There lay my hope,’ said Diane, raising her head; and now, with glittering eyes and altered voice, ‘How could I not but hate her who had bereaved me of you; her for whose sake I could not earn your love?’
The change of her tone had, perhaps, warned the priest to draw nearer, and as she perceived him, she said, ‘Yes, father, this is not the way to absolution, but my heart will burst if I say not all.’
‘Thou shalt not prevail, foul spirit,’ said the priest, looking earnestly into the darkness, as though he beheld the fiend hovering over her, ‘neither shall these holy walls be defiled with accents of unhallowed love. You have made your reparation, daughter; it is enough.’
‘And can you tell me no more?’ said Berenger, sadly. ‘Can you give me no clue that I may save her from the wolf that may be already on her track? Cousin, if you would do this, I would bless you for ever.’
‘Alas! I would if I could! It is true, cousin, I have no heart to deceive you any longer. But it is to Madame de Quinet that you must apply, and if my brother has though me worth pursuit, you may be in time! One moment,’--as he would have sprung away as if in the impulse to fly to the rescue,--‘cousin; had you gone to England as I hoped, I would have striven to deserve to win that love of yours, but you have conquered by your constancy. Now, father, I have spoken my last save as penitent.’
She covered her head and sank down again.
Berenger, bewildered and impelled to be doing something, let the priest lead him out before he exclaimed, ‘I said nothing to her of pardon!’
‘You do pardon?’ said the priest.
He paused a moment. ‘Freely, if I find my wife. I can only remember now that she set me on the way. I would ease her soul, poor thing, and thinking would make me hard again.’
‘Do the English bring up their sons with such feelings?’ asked the cure, pausing for a moment.
‘Of course,’ said Berenger. ‘May I say that one word, sir?’
‘Not now,’ said the priest; ‘she had better be left to think of her sin towards Heaven, rather than towards man.’
‘But do you leave her there, sir?’
‘I shall return. I shall pray for her true penitence,’ said the priest, and Berenger perceived from his tone that one without the pale might inquire no further. He only asked how safe and honourable shelter could be found for her; and the cure replied that he had already spoken to her of the convent of Lucon, and should take her there so soon as it could safely be done, and that Abbess Monique, he trusted, would assist her crushed spirit in finding the path of penitence. He thought her cousin had better not endeavour to see her again; and Berenger himself was ready to forget her very existence in his burning anxiety to outstrip Narcisse in the quest of Eustacie.
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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41
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OUR LADY OF HOPE
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Welcome to danger’s hour, Brief greeting serves the time of strife. --SCOTT As soon as it was possible to leave Nissard, Berenger was on his way back to head-quarters, where he hoped to meet the Duke de Quinet among the many Huguenot gentlemen who were flocking to the Bourbon standard; nor was he disappointed in the hope, for he was presented to a handsome middle-aged gentleman, who told him, with much politeness, that his mother had had the honour to receive and entertain Mme. de Ribaumont and that some months ago he had himself arranged for the conveyance of her letters to England, but, he said, with a smile, he made a point of knowing nothing of his mother’s guests, lest his duties as a governor might clash with those of hospitality. He offered to expedite M. de Ribaumont’s journey to Quinet, observing that, if Nid de Merle were, indeed, on the point of seizing the lady, it must be by treachery; indeed he had, not ten days back, had the satisfaction of hanging an Italian mountebank who had last year stolen a whole packet of dispatches, among them letters from Mme. de Ribaumont, and the fellow was probably acting as a spy upon her, so that no time was to be lost in learning from his mother where she was. On the next morning he was about to send forward twenty men to reinforce a little frontier garrison on the river Dronne, and as M. le Baron must pass through the place, it would be conferring a favour on him to take the command. The men were all well mounted, and would not delay; and when once across the frontier of Guyenne, no escort would be needed.
Berenger gladly accepted the proposal. It did not occur to him that he was thus involved in the civil war, and bearing arms against the sovereign. In spite of Queen Elisabeth’s alliance with the French court, she connived at her youthful subjects seeking the bubble reputation in the mouths of Valois cannon; and so little did Henry III. seem to Berenger to be his king, that he never thought of the question of allegiance,--nay, if the royal officers were truly concerned in his arrest, he was already an outlaw. This was no moment for decision between Catholic and Calvinist; all he wanted was to recover his wife and forestall her enemies.
Henry of Navarre gave his full consent to the detachment being placed under charge of M. de Ribaumont. He asked somewhat significantly what had become of the young gentleman who had attended M. de Ribaumont, and Philip blushed crimson to the ears, while Berenger replied, with greater coolness than he had given himself credit for, that the youth had been nearly drowned on the Sable d’Olonne, and had been left at Dom Colombeau’s to recover. The sharp-witted King looked for a moment rather as Sir Hugh the Heron did when Marmion accounted for his page’s absence, but was far too courteous and too INSOUCIANT to press the matter further, though Berenger saw quite enough of is expression to feel that he had been delivered from his companion only just in time.
Berenger set forth as soon as his impatience could prevail to get the men into their saddles. He would fain have ridden day and night, and grudged every halt for refreshment, so as almost to run the risk of making the men mutinous. Evening was coming on, and his troop had dismounted at a cabaret, in front of which he paced up and down with Philip, trying to devise some pretext for hastening them on another stage before night, when a weary, travel-stained trooper rode up to the door and was at once hailed as a comrade by the other men, and asked, ‘What cheer at Pont de Dronne?’
‘Bad enough,’ he answered, ‘unless you can make the more speed there!’ then making obeisance to Berenger he continued his report, saying that Captain Falconnet was sending him to M. le Duc with information that the Guisards were astir, and that five hundred _gens d’armes_, under the black Nid de Merle, as it was said, were on their way intending to surprise Pont de Dronne, and thus cut the King of Navarre off from Guyenne and his kingdom beyond it. After this Berenger had no more difficulty with his men, who were most of them Quinet vassals, with homes south of the Dronne, and the messenger only halted for a hasty meal, hastening on to the Duke, that a more considerable succour might at once be dispatched.
‘Is she there whom they call the Lady of Hope?’ asked one of the soldiers, a mercenary, less interested than most of his comrades, as he had only a fortnight since transferred his services from Guise to Quinet.
‘Our Lady of Sadness just now,’ replied the messenger; ‘her old father is at the point of death. However, she is there, and at our last siege twenty wine-skins would not so well have kept up men’s hearts.’
‘And the little one, the white fairy, is she there too? They say ‘tis a spirit, a changeling that could not brook the inside of a church, but flew out of the Moustier at Montauban like a white swan, in the middle of a sermon.’
‘I only know I’ve seen her sleep like a dormouse through prayers, sermon, and all at Pont de Dronne. _Follette_ is she be, she belongs to the white elves of the moonlight.’
‘Well, they say bullets won’t touch her, and no place can be taken where she is,’ replied the trooper. ‘Nay, that Italian pedlar rogue, the same that the Duke has since hung, has sold to long Gilles and snub-nosed Pierre silver bullets, wherewith they have sworn to shoot the one or the other next time they had a chance.’
These words were spoken at not great distance from Berenger, but passed by him as mere men-at-arms’ gossip, in his eagerness to expedite the start of his party; and in less than an hour they were _en route_ for Pont de Dronne; but hasten as he would, it was not till near noon the next day that he came in sight of a valley, through which wound a river, crossed by a high-backed bridge, with a tall pointed arch in the middle, and a very small one on either side. An old building of red stone, looking like what it was--a monastery converted into a fortress--stood on the nearer, or northern bank, and on the belfry tower waved a flag with the arms of Quinet. Higher up the valley, there was an ominous hum, and clouds of smoke and dust; and the _gen d’armes_, who knew the country, rejoiced that they were come just in time, and exchanged anxious questions whether the enemy were not fording the river above them, so as to attack not only the fortress on this northern side, but the bridge tower on the southern bank of the river.
Spurring down the hill, the party were admitted, at the well-guarded gateway, into a large thickly-walled yard, where the soldiers and horses remained, and Berenger and Philip, passing through a small arched doorway into the body of the old monastery, were conducted to a great wainscoted hall, where a pulpit projecting from the wall, and some defaced emblematic ornaments, showed that this had once been the refectory, though guard-room appliances now occupied it. The man who had shown them in left them, saying he would acquaint Captain Falconnet with their arrival, and just then a sound of singing drew both brothers to the window. It looked out on what had once been the quadrangle, bounded on three sides by the church, the refectory, and the monk’s lodgings, the cloistered arcade running round all these. The fourth side was skirted by the river, which was, however, concealed by an embankment, raised, no doubt, to supply the place of the wall, which had been unnecessary to the peaceful original inhabitants. What attracted Berenger’s eyes was, however, a group in the cloister, consisting of a few drooping figures, some of men in steel caps, others of veiled, shrouded women, and strange, mingled feelings swept over him as he caught the notes of the psalm sung over the open grave-- ‘Si qu’en paix et seurte bonne Coucherai et reposerai-- Car, Seigneur, ta bonte tout ordonne Et elle seule espoir donne Que seur et sain regnant serai.’
‘Listen, Philip,’ he said, with moistening eyes; then as they ended, ‘It is the 4th Psalm: “I lay me down in peace and take my rest.” Eustacie and I used to sing it to my father. It was well done in these mourners to sing it over him whom they are laying down to take his rest while the enemy are at the gates. See, the poor wife still kneels while the rest disperse; how dejected and utterly desolate she looks.’
He was so intently watching her as not to perceive the entrance of a tall, grizzled old man in a steel cap, evidently the commander of the garrison. There was the brief welcome of danger’s hour--the briefer, because Captain Falconnet was extremely deaf, and, taking it for granted that the new-comers were gentlemen of the Duke’s, proceeded to appoint them their posts without further question. Berenger had intended to pursue his journey to Quinet without delay, but the intelligence that the enemy were on the southern as well as the northern side of the river rendered this impossible; and besides, in defending this key of Guyenne against Narcisse, he was also defending Eustacie.
The state of affairs was soon made known to him. The old monastery, covering with its walls an extensive space, formed a fortress quite strong enough to resist desultory attacks, and protect the long bridge, which was itself strongly walled on either side, and with a barbican at the further end. In former assaults the attacks had always been on the north, the Catholic side, as it might be called; but now the enemy had crossed the river above the fort, and were investing the place on both sides. Long foreseeing this, the old commandant had guarded the bank of the river with the earthwork, a long mound sloped irregularly on either hand, over which numerous little paths had since been worn by the women within, when on their way to the river with their washing; but he had been setting every one to work to destroy and fill up these, so that the rampart was smooth and slopping, perfectly easy indeed to cross, but high and broad enough to serve as an effectual protection against such artillery as the detached troops of the Guise party were likely to possess; and the river was far too wide, deep, and strong in its main current to be forded in the face of a hostile garrison. The captain had about fifty _gen d’armes_ in his garrison, besides the twenty new-comers whom he persisted in regarding as Berenger’s charge; and there were, besides, some seventy peasants and silk spinners, who had come into the place as a refuge from the enemy--and with these he hoped to hold put till succour should come from the Duke. He himself took the command of the north gate, where the former assaults had been made, and he instructed to his new ally the tower protecting the bridge, advising him to put on armour; but Berenger, trying on a steel cap, found that his head could not bear the weight and heat, and was forced to return to his broad-brimmed Spanish hat, while Philip in high glee armed himself as best he could with what Captain Falconnet could lend him. he was too much excited to eat of the scanty meal that was set before them: a real flight seemed like a fair-day to him, and he was greatly exalted by his brother’s post of command--a post that Berenger felt a heavy responsibility only thrust upon him by the commandant’s incapacity of hearing how utterly inexperienced he was.
The formal summons to surrender to the King, and the refusal, had duly passed, and it became evident that the first attack was to be on the bridge-gate. Captain Falconnet hurried to the place, and the fighting was hot and desperate. Every assailant who tried to throw his fagot into the moat became a mark for arquebus or pistol, and the weapons that had so lately hung over the hearth at Nid de Merle were now aimed again and again at the heads and corslets of Guisards, with something of the same exulting excitement as, only higher, more engrossing, and fiercer than, that with which the lads had taken aim at a wolf, or ridden after a fox. Scaling-ladders were planted and hurled down again; stones were cast from the battlements, crushing the enemy; and throughout Berenger’s quick eye, alert movements, and great height and strength, made him a most valuable champion, often applauded by a low murmur of commendation from old Falconnet, or a loud shout of ‘Ha, well done, the Duke’s Englishman,’ from the _gen d’armes_--for English they would have him to be--on the presumptions afforded by his companions, his complexion, and his slow speech. Nor did Philip and Humfrey fail to render good service. But just as the enemy had been foiled in a sharp assault and were dragging away their wounded, Philip touched his brother, and saying, ‘I can hold out no longer,’ showed blood trickling down his right side.
Berenger threw an arm round him, and Captain Falconnet, seeing his case, said, ‘You are hit, _petit Anglais_; you have done gallantly. There will be time for you to take him to his quarters, sir; these fellows have had enough for the present, and you can tarry with him till you hear the bugle. Whither, did you ask? Let me see. You, Renaud, take him to the chapel: the old chancel behind the boarding will be more private; and desire Madame to look to him. Farewell! I hope it may prove slight; you are a brave youth.’ And he shook hands with Philip, whose intense gratification sustained him for many steps afterwards.
He hardly remembered receiving the hurt, and was at first too busy to heed it, or to call off any one attention, until a dread of falling, and being trodden on, had seized him and made him speak; and indeed he was so dizzy that Berenger with difficulty kept him on his feet over the bridge, and in the court lifted him in his arms and carried him almost fainting into the cloister, where by the new-made grave still knelt the black-veiled mourner. She started to her feet as the soldier spoke to her, and seemed at first not to gather the sense of his words; but then, as if with an effort, took them in, made one slight sound like a moan of remonstrance at the mention of the place, but again recollecting herself, led the way along a stone passage, into which a flight of stairs descended into the apsidal chancel, roughly boarded off from the rest of the church. It was a ruinous, desolate place, and Berenger looked round in dismay for some place on which to lay down his almost unconscious burthen. The lady bent her head and signed towards the stone sedilia in the wall; then, after two ineffectual essays to make her voice audible, choked as it was with long weeping, she said, low and huskily, ‘We will make him more comfortable soon;’ and added some orders to the soldier, who disappeared up the stairway, and Berenger understood that he was gone to fetch bedding. Then taking from under her heavy mourning cloak a large pair of scissors, she signed to Berenger how to support his brother, while they relieved him of his corslet, sword-belt, and doublet. The soldier had meantime returned with an old woman, both loaded with bedding, which she signed to them to arrange in one of the little bays or niches that served to form a crown of lesser chapels around the chancel. She flung aside her muffling cloak, but her black hood still hung far over her face, and every now and then hand or handkerchief was lifted as if to clear her eyes from the tears that would not cease to gather and blind her; and she merely spoke when some direction to an assistant, some sympathetic word to the patient, was needed. Even Philip in his dizzy trance guessed that he was succeeding to the bed whence one much dearer had gone to his quieter rest in the cloister. Before he was laid there, however, the bugle sounded; there was a loud shout, and Philip exclaimed, ‘Go, brother!’
‘Trust him to me, sir,’ said the sunken, extinguished voice; ‘we will do our best for him.’
He was forced merely to lift Philip to the bed, and to hurry away, while the soldier followed him saying, consolingly, ‘Fear not, sir, now our Lady of Hope has him. Nothing goes ill to which she sets her hand.’
Another growl of artillery was not heard, and it was time for the warriors to forget the wounded in the exigencies of the present. An attack was made on both gates at once, and the commandant being engaged at his own post, Berenger had to make the utmost of his brief experience, backed by the counsel of a tough old sergeant; and great was his sense of exhilaration, and absolute enjoyment in this full and worthy taxing of every power of mind or body. The cry among the enemy, ‘Aime at the black plume,’ attested his prominence; but he black plum was still unscathed when spring twilight fell. The din began to subside; recalls were sounded by the besiegers; and Berenger heard his own exploit bawled in the ear of the deaf commandant, who was advancing over the bridge. The old captain complimented him, told him that he should be well reported of to M. le Duc and Sieur la Noue, and invited him to supper and bed in his own quarters. The supper Berenger accepted, so soon as he should know how it was with his brother; but as to bed, he intended to watch his brother, and visit his post form time to time.
The captain entered by the main door of the chapel, where ten or twelve wounded were now lying, tended by peasant women. Berenger merely passed through, seeing as he went the black hood busy over a freshly-brought-in-patient. He found a door which admitted him through the rough screen of boards to the choir where he had been in the earlier part of the day. The moonlight came through the shivered eastern windows, but a canvas curtain had been hung so as to shelter Philip’s vaulted recess from the cold draught, and the bed itself, with a chair beside it, looked neat, clean, and comfortable. Philip himself was cheery; he said the bullet had made a mere flesh-wound, and had passed out on the other side, and the Lady of Hope, as they called he, was just such another as Aunt Cecily, and had made him very comfortable, with clean linen, good cool drinks, and the tenderest hand. But he was very sleepy, so sleepy that he hardly cared to hear of the combat, only he roused himself for a moment to say, ‘Brother, I have seen Dolly.’
‘Dolly!’
‘Our sister Dolly.’
‘Ah, Phil! many a strange visitor has come to me in the Walnut Chamber at home.’
‘I tell you I was in my perfect senses,’ returned Philip; ‘there she was, just as when we left her. And, what was stranger still, she talked French.’
‘Sleep and see her again,’ laughed Berenger.
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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42
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THE SILVER BULLET
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I am all wonder, O my son, my soul Is stunned within me; powers to speak to him Or to interrogate him have I none, Or even to look on him. --Cowper’s ODYSSEY In his waking senses Philip adhered to his story that his little sister Dolly had stood at the foot of his bed, called him ‘_le pauvre_’ and had afterwards disappeared, led away by the nursing lady. It seemed to Berenger a mere delusion of feverish weakness; for Philip had lost a great deal of blood, and the wound, though not dangerous, permitted no attempt at moving, and gave much pain. Of the perfections of the lady as nurse and surgeon Philip could not say enough, and, pale and overwept as he allowed her to be, he declared that he was sure that her beauty must equal Mme. De Selinville’s. Berenger laughed, and looking round this strange hospital, now lighted by the full rays of the morning sun, he was much struck by the scene.
It was the chancel of the old abbey church. The door by which they had entered was very small, and perhaps had led merely to the abbot’s throne, as an irregularity for his own convenience, and only made manifest by the rending away of the rich wooden stall work, some fragments of which still clung to the walls. The east end, like that of many French churches, formed a semicircle, the high altar having been in the centre, and five tall deep bays forming lesser chapels embracing it, their vaults all gathered up into one lofty crown above, and a slender pillar separating between each chapel, each of which further contained a tall narrow window. Of course, all had been utterly desolated, and Philip was actually lying in one of these chapels, where the sculptured figure of St. John and his Eagle still remained on the wall; and a sufficient remnant of his glowing sanguine robe of love was still in the window to serve as a shield from the _bise_. The high altar of rich marbles was a mere heap of shattered rubbish; but what surprised Berenger more than all the ruined architectural beauty which his _cinque-cento_ trained taste could not understand, was, that the tiles of the pavement were perfectly clean, and diligently swept, the rubbish piled up in corners; and here and there the relics of a cross or carved figure lay together, as by a tender, reverential hand. Even the morsels of painted glass had been placed side by side on the floor, so as to form a mosaic of dark red, blue, and green; and a child’s toy lay beside this piece of patchwork. In the midst of his observations, however, Captain Falconnet’s servant came to summon him to breakfast; and the old woman appearing at the same time, he could not help asking whether the lady were coming.
‘Oh yes, she will come to dress his wound in good time,’ answered the old woman.
‘And when? I should like to hear what she thinks of it,’ said Berenger.
‘How?’ said the old woman with a certain satisfaction in his disappointment; ‘is our Lady of Hope to be coming down among you gay gallants?’
‘But who is this Lady of Hope?’ demanded he.
‘Who should she be but our good pastor’s daughter? Ah! and a brave, good daughter she was too, abiding the siege because his breath was so bad that he could not be moved.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Berenger, attracted strangely by what he heard.
‘Ribault, Monsieur--Pasteur Ribault. Ah! a good man, and sound preacher, when preach he could; but when he could not, his very presence kept the monks’ REVENANTS from vexing us--as a cat keeps mice away; and, ah! The children have been changed creatures since Madame dealt with them. What! Monsieur would know why they call her our Lady of Hope? Esperance is her true name; and, moreover, in the former days this abbey had an image that they called Notre-Dame de l’Esperance, and the poor deceived folk thought it did great miracles. And so, when she came hither, and wrought such cures, and brought blessing wherever she went, it became a saying among us that at length we had our true Lady of Hope.
A more urgent summons here forced Berenger away, and his repetition of the same question received much the same answer from deaf old Captain Falconnet. He was obliged to repair to his post with merely a piece of bread in his hand; abut, though vigilance was needful, the day bade fair to be far less actively occupied than its predecessor: the enemy were either disposed to turn the siege into a blockade, or were awaiting reinforcements and heavier artillery; and there were only a few desultory attacks in the early part of the morning. About an hour before noon, however, the besiegers seemed to be drawing out in arms, as if to receive some person of rank, and at the same time sounds were heard on the hills to the eastward, as if troops were on the march. Berenger having just been told by the old sergeant that probably all would be quiet for some time longer, and been almost laughed at by the veteran for consulting him whether it would be permissible for him to be absent a few minutes to visit his brother, was setting out across the bridge for the purpose, his eyes in the direction of the rampart, which followed the curve of the river. The paths which--as has been said--the feet of the washerwomen and drawers of water had worn away in quieter times, had been smoothed and scarped away on the outer side, so as to come to an abrupt termination some feet above the gay marigolds, coltsfoot, and other spring flowers that smiled by the water-side. Suddenly he beheld on the rampart a tiny gray and white figure, fearlessly trotting, or rather dancing, along the summit and the men around him exclaimed, ‘The little moonbeam child!’ ‘A fairy--a changeling!’ --‘They cannot shoot at such a babe!’ ‘Nor could they harm her!’ ‘Hola! little one! _Gare_! Go back to your mother!’ ‘Do not disturb yourself, sir; she is safer than you,’ were the ejaculations almost at the same moment, while he sprang forward, horrified at the peril of such an infant. He had reached the angle between the bridge and rampart, when he perceived that neither humanity nor superstition were protecting the poor child; for, as she turned down the remnant of one of the treacherous little paths, a man in bright steel and deep black had spurred his horse to the river’s brink, and was deliberately taking aim at her. Furious at such brutality, Berenger fired the pistol he held in his hand, and the wretch dropped from his horse; but at the same moment his pistol exploded, and the child rolled down the bank, whence a piteous wail came up, impelling Berenger to leap down to her assistance, in the full face of the enemy. Perhaps he was protected for the moment by the confusion ensuing on the fall of the officer; and when he reached the bottom of the bank, he saw the little creature on her feet, her round cap and gray woolen dress stripped half off in the fall, and her flaxen hair falling round her plump, white, exposed shoulder, but evidently unhurt, and gathering yellow marigolds as composedly as though she had been making May garlands. He snatched her up, and she said, with the same infantine dignity, ‘Yes, take me up; the naughty people spoilt the path. But I must take my beads first.’ And she tried to struggle out of his arms, pointing therewith to a broken string among the marshy herb-age on which gleamed--the pearls of Ribaumont!
In the few seconds in which he grasped them, and then bore the child up the embankment in desperate bounds, a hail of bullets poured round him, ringing on his breastplate, shearing the plume from his hat, but scarcely even heard; and in another moment he had sprung down, on the inner side, grasping the child with all his might, but not daring even to look at her, in the wondrous flash of that first conviction. She spoke first. ‘Put me down, and let me have my beads,’ she said in a grave, clear tone; and then first he beheld a pair of dark blue eyes, a sweet wild-rose face--Dolly’s all over. He pressed her so fast and so close, in so speechless and over powering an ecstasy, that again she repeated, and in alarm, ‘Put me down, I want my mother!’
‘Yes, yes! your mother! your mother! your mother!’ he cried, unable to let her out of his embrace; and then restraining himself as he saw her frightened eyes, in absolute fear of her spurning him, or struggling from him, ‘My sweet! my child! Ah! do you not know me?’ Then, remembering how wild this was, he struggled to speak calmly: ‘What are you called, my treasure?’
‘I am _la petite Rayonette_,’ she said, with puzzled dignity and gravity; ‘and my mother says I have a beautiful long name of my own besides.’
‘Berangere--my Berangere---’ ‘That is what she says over me, as I go to sleep in her bosom at night,’ said the child, in a wondering voice, soon exchanged for entreaty, ‘Oh, hug me not so hard! Oh, let me go--let me go to her! Mother! mother!’
‘My child, mine own, I am take thee! --Oh, do not struggle with me!’ he cried, himself imploring now. ‘Child, one kiss for thy father;’ and meantime, putting absolute force on his vehement affection, he was hurrying to the chancel.
There Philip hailed them with a shout as of desperate anxiety relieved; but before a word could be uttered, down the stairs flew the Lady of Hope, crying wildly, ‘Not there--she is not--’ but perceiving the little one in the stranger’s arms, she held out her own, crying, ‘Ah! is she hurt, my angel?’
‘Unhurt, Eustacie! Our child is unhurt!’ Berenger said, with an agonized endeavour to be calm; but for the moment her instinct was so entirely absorbed in examining into the soundness of her child’s limbs, that she neither saw nor hear anything else.
‘Eustacie,’ he said, laying his hand on her arm, she started back, with bewildered eyes. ‘Eustacie--wife? do you not know me? Ah! I forgot that I am changed.’
‘You--you--’ she gasped, utterly confounded, and gazing as if turned to stone, and though at that moment the vibration of a mighty discharge of cannon rocked the walls, and strewed Philip’s bed with the crimson shivers of St. John’s robe, yet neither of them would have been sensible of it had not Humfrey rushed in at the same moment, crying, ‘They are coming on like friends, sir!’
Berenger passed his hand over his face. ‘You will know me WHEN--IF I return, my dearest,’ he said. ‘If not, then still, thank God! Philip, to you I trust them!’
And with one kiss on that still, cold, almost petrified brow, he had dashed away. There was a space of absolutely motionless silence, save that Eustacie let herself drop on the chancel step, and the child, presently breaking the spell, pulled her to attract her notice to the flowers. ‘Mother, here are the _soucis_ for the poor gentleman’s broth. See, the naughty people had spoilt all the paths, and I rolled down and tore my frock, and down fell the beads, but be not angry, mother dear, for the good gentleman picked them up, and carried me up the bank.’
‘The bank!’ cried Eustacie, with a scream, as the sense of the words reached her ears. ‘Ah! no wonder! Well might thy danger bring thy father’s spirit;’ and she grasped the little one fervently in her arms, murmuring, ‘Thank, thank God, indeed! Oh! my precious one; and did He send that blessed spirit to rescue thee?’
‘And will you tie up my frock? and may I put the flowers into the broth?’ chattered Rayonette. ‘And why did he kiss me and hug me so tight? and how did he know what you say over me as we fall asleep?’
Eustacie clasped her tighter, with a convulsive, shudder of thankfulness; and Philip, but half hearing, and barely gathering the meaning of her mood, ventured to speak, ‘Madame---’ As if touched by an electric shock, Eustacie started up, as recalled to instant needs, and coming towards him said, ‘Do you want anything, sir? Pardon one who has but newly seen a spirit from the other world--brought by his child’s danger.’ And the dazed, trance-like look was returning.
‘Spirit!’ cried Philip. ‘Nay, Madame, it was himself. Ah! and you are she whom we have sought so long; and this dear child--no wonder she has Dolly’s face.’
‘Who--what?’ said Eustacie, pressing her temples with her hands, as if to retain her senses. ‘Speak; was yonder a living or dead man--and who?’
‘Living, thank God! and your own husband; that is, if you are really Eustacie. Are you indeed?’ he added, becoming doubtful.
‘Eustacie, that am I,’ she murmured. ‘But he is dead--they killed him; I swathe blood where he had waited for me. His child’s danger brought him from the grave.’
‘No, no. Look at me, sister Eustacie. Listen to me. Osbert brought him home more dead than alive--but alive still.’
‘No!’ she cried, half passionately. ‘Never could he have lived and left me to mourn him so bitterly.’
‘If you knew--’ cried Philip, growing indignant. ‘For weeks he lay in deadly lethargy, and when, with his left hand, he wrote and sent Osbert to you, your kinsfolk threw the poor fellow into a dungeon, and put us off with lies that you were married to your cousin. All believed, only he--sick, helpless, speechless, as he was--he trusted you still; and so soon as Mericour came, though he could scarcely brook the saddle, nothing would hold him from seeking you. We saw only ruin at La Sablerie, and well-nigh ever since have we been clapped up in prison by your uncle. We were on the way to Quinet to seek you. He has kept his faith whole through wounds and pain and prison and threats,--ay, and sore temptation,’ cried Philip, waxing eloquent; ‘and, oh, it cannot be that you do not care for him!’
‘Doubt not my faith, sir,’ said Eustacie, proudly; ‘I have been as true to him as if I had known he lived. Nor do I know who you are to question me.’
At this moment the child pressed forward, holding between her tow careful plump hands a red earthenware bowl, with the tisane steaming in it, and the yellow petals strewn over the surface. She and Philip had taken a great fancy to each other, and while her mother was busy with the other patients, she had been left to her quiet play with her fragments of glass, which she carried one by one to display, held up to the light, to her new friends; who, in his weak state, and after his long captivity, found her the more charming playmate because she so strangely reminded him of his own little sisters. She thought herself his little nurse, and missing from his broth the yellow petals that she had been wont to think the charm of tisane, the housewifely little being had trotted off, unseen and unmissed, across the quadrangle, over the embankment, where she had often gathered them, or attended on the ‘_lessive_’ on the river’s brink; and now she broke forth exultingly, ‘Here, here is the tisane, with all the _soucis_. Let me feed you with them, sir.’
‘Ah! thou sweet one,’ gasped Philip, ‘I could as soon eat them as David could drink the water! For these--for these---!’ and the tears rushed into his eyes. ‘Oh! let me but kiss her, Madame; I loved her from the first moment. She has the very face of my little sweeting, (what French word is good enough for her?) didst run into peril for me, not knowing how near I was to thee? What, must I eat it? Love me then.’
But the boarded door was thrown back, and ‘Madame, more wounded,’ resounded. The thrill of terror, the elastic reaction, at the ensuing words, ‘from the north gate,’ was what made Eustacie in an instant know herself to be not widow but wife. She turned round at once, holding out her hand, and saying with a shaken, agitated voice, ‘_Mon frere_, pardon me, I know not what I say; and, after all, he will find me _bien mechante_ still.’ Then as Philip devoured her hand with kisses, and held it fast, ‘I must go; these poor men need me. When I can, I will return.’
‘Only let me have the little one,’ entreated Philip; ‘it is almost home already to look at her.’
And when Eustacie next looked in on them, they were both fast asleep.
She, poor thing, the only woman with brains among the many scared females in the garrison, might not rest or look the wonder in the face. Fresh sufferers needed her care, and related gallant things of ‘the Duke’s Englishman,’ things of desperate daring and prowess that sent the blood throbbing to her heart with exultation, but only to be followed by a pang of anguish at having let him go back to peril--nay, perhaps, to death--without a word of tenderness or even recognition. She imaged him as the sunny-faced youth who had claimed her in the royal castle, and her longing to be at his side and cling to him as his own became every moment more fervent and irresistible, until she gladly recollected the necessity of carrying food to the defenders; and snatching an interval from her hospital cares, she sped to the old circular kitchen of the monastery, where she found the lame baker vainly trying to organize a party of frightened women to carry provisions to the garrison of the bridge-tower.
‘Give some to me,’ she said. ‘My husband is there! I am come to fetch his dinner.’
The peasant women looked and whispered as if they thought that, to add to their misfortunes, their Lady of Hope had become distracted by grief; and one or two, who held the old faith, and were like the crane among the sparrows, even observed that it was a judgment for the profane name that had been given her, against which she had herself uniformly protested.
‘My husband is come,’ said Eustacie, looking round with shining eyes. ‘Let us be brave wives, and not let our men famish.’
She lifted a loaf and a pitcher of broth, and with the latter poised on her erect and graceful head, and elastic though steady step, she led the way; the others following her with a sort of awe, as of one they fancied in a superhuman state. In fact, there was no great danger in traversing the bridge with its lofty parapet on either side; and her mind was too much exalted and moved to be sensible of anything but a certain exulting awe of the battle sounds. There was, however, a kind of lull in the assault which had raged so fiercely ever since the fall of the officer, and the arrival of the reinforcements. Either the enemy had paused to take food, or were devising some fresh mode of attack; and as the line of women advanced, there started forth from under the arch a broad-shouldered, white-faced, golden-bearded personage, who cried joyously, ‘My dearest, my bravest! this for me!’ and lifted the pitcher from her head as he grasped her hand with a flesh and blood clasp indeed, but the bright-cheeked, wavy-haired lad of her dream withered away with a shock of disappointment, and she only looked up with wistful puzzled earnestness instead of uttering the dear name that she had so long been whispering to herself. ‘Dearest,’ he said, ‘this is precious indeed to me, that you should let me feast my eyes once more on you. But you may not tarry; the rogues may renew the attack at any moment.’
She had thought of herself as insisting on standing beside him and sharing his peril. Had he been himself she must have don so, but this was a stranger, whose claiming her made her shrink apart till she could feel the identity which, though she believed, she could not realize. Her hand lay cold and tremulous within his warm pressure, but he was too much wrought up and too full of joy and haste to be sensible of anything but of the brave affection that had dared all to come to him; and he was perfectly happy, even as a trumpet-call among the foe warned him to press her fingers to his lips and say, as his bright blue eye kindled, ‘God grant that we may meet and thank Him tonight! Farewell, my lost and found! I fight as one who has something to fight for.’
He might not leave his post, but he watched her with eyes that could not be satiated, as she recrossed the bridge; and, verily, his superabundant ecstasy, and the energy that was born of it, were all needed to sustain the spirits of his garrison through that terrible afternoon. The enemy seemed to be determined to carry the place before it could be relieved, and renewed the storm again and again with increasing violence; while the defenders, disheartened by their pertinacity, dismayed at the effects of the heavy artillery, now brought to bear on the tower, and direfully afraid of having the bridge destroyed, would have abandoned their barbican and shut themselves up within the body of the place, had not Berenger been here, there, and everywhere, directing, commanding, exhorting, cheering, encouraging, exciting enthusiasm by word and example, winning proud admiration by feats of valour and dexterity sprung of the ecstatic inspiration of new-found bliss, and watching, as the conscious defender of his own most beloved, without a moment’s respite, till twilight stillness sank on the enemy, and old Falconnet came to relieve him, thanking him for his gallant defence, and auguring that, by noonday tomorrow at latest, M. le Duc would succour them, unless he were hampered by any folly of this young Navarre.
Too blissful for the sense of fatigue, Berenger began to impart to the Commandant his delight, but the only answer he got was ‘Hope, yes, every hope;’ and he again recognized what he had already perceived, that the indistinctness of his utterance made him entirely unintelligible to the deaf Commandant, and that shouting did but proclaim to the whole garrison, perhaps even to the enemy’s camp, what was still too new a joy not to be a secret treasure of delight. So he only wrung the old Captain’s hand, and strode away as soon as he was released.
It was nearly dark, in spite of a rising moon, but beneath the cloister arch was torchlight, glancing on a steel head-piece, and on a white cap, both bending down over a prostrate figure; and he heard the voice he loved so well say, ‘It is over! I can do no more. It were best to dig his grave at once here in silence--it will discourage the people less. Renaud and Armand, here!’
He paused for a few minutes unseen in the shadow while she closed the eyes and composed the limbs of the dead soldier; then, kneeling, said the Lord’s Prayer in French over him. Was this the being he had left as the petted plaything of the palace? When she rose, she came to the arch and gazed wistfully across the moonlit quadrangle, beyond the dark shade cast by the buildings, saying to the soldier, ‘You are sure he was safe?’
‘My Eustacie,’ said Berenger, coming forward, ‘we meet in grave times!’
The relief of knowing him safe after the sickening yearnings and suspense of the day, and moreover the old ring of tenderness in his tone, made her spring to him with real warmth of gladness, and cry, ‘It is you! All is well.
‘Blessedly well, _ma mie_, my sweetheart,’ he said, throwing his arm round her, and she rested against him murmuring, ‘Now I feel it! Thou are thyself!’ They were in the dark cloister passage, and when he would have moved forward she clung closer to him, and murmured, ‘Oh, wait, wait, yet an instant--thus I can feel that I have thee--the same--my own!’
‘My poor darling,’ said Berenger, after a second, ‘you must learn to bear with both my looks and speech, though I be but a sorry shattered fellow for you.’
‘No, no,’ she cried, hanging on him with double fervour. ‘No, I am loving you the more already,--doubly--trebly--a thousand times. Only those moments were so precious, they made all these long years as nothing. But come to the little one, and to your brother.’
The little one had already heard them, and was starting forward to meet them, though daunted for a moment by the sight of the strange father: she stood on the pavement, in the full flood of the moonlight from the east window, which whitened her fair face, flaxen hair, and gray dress, so that she did truly look like some spirit woven of the moonbeams. Eustacie gave a cry of satisfaction: ‘Ah! good, good; it was by moonlight that I saw her first!’
Berenger took her in his arm, and held her to his breast with a sense of insatiable love, while Philip exclaimed, ‘Ay, well may you make much of her, brother. Well might you seek them far and wide. Such treasures are not to be found in the wide world.’
Berenger without answering, carried the little one to the step of the ruined high altar, and there knelt, holding Eustacie by the hand, the child in one arm, and, with the moon glancing on his high white brow and earnest face, he spoke a few words of solemn thanks and prayer for a blessing on their reunion, and the babe so wonderfully preserved to them.
Not till then did he carry her into the lamplight by Philip’s bed, and scan therein every feature, to satisfy his eyes with the fulfilled hope that had borne him through those darkest days, when, despairing of the mother, the thought of the child had still sustained him to throw his will into the balance of the scale between life and death. Little Berangere gazed up into his face silently, with wondering, grave, and somewhat sleepy eyes, and then he saw them fix themselves on his powder-grimed and blood-stained hands. ‘Ah! little heart,’ he said, ‘I am truly in no state to handle so pure a piece of sugar as thou; I should have rid myself of the battle-stains ere touching thee, but how recollect anything at such a moment?’
Eustacie was glad he had broken the spell of silence; for having recovered her husband, her first instinct was to wait upon him. She took the child from him, explaining that she was going to put her to bed in her own rooms up the stone stair, which for the present were filled with fugitive women and children who had come in from the country, so that the chancel must continue the lodging of Berenger and his brother; and for the time of her absence she brought him water to wash away the stains, and set before him the soup she had kept warm over her little charcoal brazier. It was only when thus left that he could own, in answer to Philip’s inquiries, that he could feel either hunger or weariness; nay, he would only acknowledge enough of the latter to give a perfect charm to rest under such auspices. Eustacie had dispatched her motherly cares promptly enough to be with him again just as in taking off his corselet he had found that it had been pierced by a bullet, and pursuing the trace, through his doublet, he found it lodged in that purse which he had so long worn next his heart, where it had spent its force against the single pearl of Ribaumont. And holding it up to the light, he saw that it was of silver. Then there returned on him and Philip the words they had heard two days before, of silver bullets forged for the destruction of the white moonlight fairy, and he further remembered the moment’s shock and blow that in the midst of his wild amaze on the river’s bank had made him gather his breath and strength to bound desperately upwards, lest the next moment he should find himself wounded and powerless.
For the innocent, then, had the shot been intended; and she running into danger out of her sweet, tender instincts of helpfulness, had been barely saved at the extreme peril of her unconscious father’s life. Philip, whose vehement affection for the little one had been growing all day, was in the act of telling Berenger to string the bullet in the place of the injured pearl, as the most precious heirloom of Ribaumont bravery, when Eustacie returned, and learning all, grew pale and shuddered as danger had never made her do before: but this strange day had almost made a coward of her.
‘And this is has spared,’ said Berenger, taking out the string of little yellow shells. ‘Dost know them, sweet heart? They have been my chaplet all this time.’
‘Ah!’ cried Eustacie, ‘poor, good Mademoiselle Noemi! she threaded them for my child, when she was very little. Ah! could she have given them to you--could it then not have been true--that horror?’
‘Alas! it was too true. I found these shells in the empty cradle, in the burnt house, and deemed them all I should ever have of my babe.’
‘Poor Noemi! poor Noemi! She always longed to be a martyr; but we fled from her, and the fate we had brought on her. That was the thought that preyed on my dear father. He grieved so to have left his sheep--and it was only for my sake. Ah! I have brought evil on all who have been good to me, beginning with you. You had better cast me off, or I shall bring yet worse!’
‘Let it be so, if we are only together.’
He drew her to him and she laid her head on his shoulder, murmuring, ‘Ah! father, father, were you but here to see it. So desolate yesterday, so ineffably blest today. Oh! I cannot even grieve for him now, save that he could not just have seen us; yet I think he knew it would be so.’
‘Nay, it may be that he does see us,’ said Berenger. ‘Would that I had known who it was whom you were laying down “_en paix et seurte bonne_!” As it was, the psalm brought precious thoughts of Chateau Leurre, and the little wife who was wont to sing it with me.’
‘Ah!’ said Eustacie, ‘it was when he sang those words as he was about to sleep in the ruin of the Temple that first I--cowering there in terror--knew him for no Templar’s ghost, but for a friend. That story ended my worst desolation. That night he became my father; the next my child came to me!’
‘My precious treasure! Ah! what you must have undergone, and I all unknowing, capable of nothing wiser than going out of my senses, and raging in a fever because I could convince no one that those were all lies about your being aught but my true and loving wife. But tell me, what brought thee hither to be the tutelary patron, where, but for the siege, I had over-passed thee on the way to Quinet?’
Then Eustacie told him how the Italian pedlar had stolen her letters, and attempted to poison her child--the pedlar whom he soon identified with that wizard who had talked to him of ‘Esperance,’ until the cue had evidently been given by the Chevalier. Soon after the Duke had dispatched a messenger to say that the Chevalier de Ribaumont was on the way to demand his niece; and as it was a period of peace, and the law was decidedly on his side, Madame de Quinet would be unable to offer any resistance. She therefore had resolved to send Eustacie away--not to any of the seaports whither the uncle would be likely to trace her, but absolutely to a place which he would have passed through on his journey into Guyenne. The monastery of Notre-Dame de l’Esperance at Pont de Dronne had been placed there, as well as a colony of silk-spinners, attracted by the mulberry-trees of the old abbey garden. These, however, having conceived some terror of the ghosts of the murdered monks, had entreated for a pastor to protect them; and Madame la Duchesse thought that in this capacity Isaac Gardon, known by one of the many aliases to which the Calvinist ministers constantly resorted, might avoid suspicion for the present. She took the persecuted fugitives for some stages in an opposite direction, in her own coach, then returned to face and baffle the Chevalier, while her trusty steward, by a long _detour_, conducted them to Pont de Dronne, which they reached the very night after to Chevalier had returned through it to Nid de Merle.
The pastor and his daughter were placed under the special protection of Captain Falconnet, and the steward had taken care that they should be well lodged in three rooms that had once been the abbot’s apartments. Their stay had been at first intended to be short, but the long journey had been so full of suffering to Isaac, and left such serious effects, that Eustacie could not bear to undertake it again, and Madame de Quinet soon perceived that she was safer there than at the chateau, since strangers were seldom admitted to the fortress, and her presence there attracted no attention. But for Isaac Gardon’s declining health, Eustacie would have been much happier here than at the chateau; the homely housewifely life, where all depended on her, suited her; and, using her lessons in domestic arts of nursing and medicine for the benefit of her father’s flock, she had found, to her dismay, that the simple people, in their veneration, had made her into a sort of successor to the patroness of the convent. Isaac had revived enough for a time to be able to conduct the worship in the church, and to instruct some his flock; but the teaching of the young had been more and more transferred to her, and, as he ingenuously said, had taught her more than she ever knew before. He gradually became weaker through more suffering, and was absolutely incapable of removal, when an attack by the Guisards was threatened. Eustacie might have been sent back to Quinet; but she would not hear of leaving him; and this first had been a mere slight attack, as if a mere experiment on the strength of the place. She had, however, then had to take the lead in controlling the women, and teaching them to act as nurses, and to carry out provisions; and she must then have been seen by some one, who reported her presence there to Narcisse--perhaps by the Italian pedlar. Indeed Humfrey, who came in for a moment to receive his master’s orders, report his watch, and greet his lady, narrated, on the authority of the lately enlisted men-at-arms, that M. de Nid de Merle had promised twenty crowns to any one who might shoot down the heretics’ little white _diablesse_.
About six weeks had elapsed since the first attack on Pont de Dronne, and in that time Gardon had sunk rapidly. He died as he lived, a gentle, patient man, not a characteristic Calvinist, though his lot had been thrown with that party in his perplexed life of truth-seeking and disappointment in the aspirations and hopes of early youth. He had been, however, full of peace and trust that he should open his eyes where the light was clear, and no cloud on either side would mar his perception; and his thankfulness had been great for the blessing that his almost heaven-sent daughter had been to him in his loneliness, bereavement, and decay. Much as he loved her, he did not show himself grieved or distressed on her account; but, as he told her, he took the summons to leave her as a sign that his task was done, and the term of her trials ended. ‘I trust as fully,’ he said, ‘that thou wilt soon be in safe and loving hands, as though I could commit thee to them.’
And so he died in her arms, leaving her a far fuller measure of blessing and of love than ever she had derived from her own father; and as the enemy’s trumpets were already sounding on the hills, she had feared insult to his remains, and had procured his almost immediate burial in the cloister, bidding the assistants sing, as his farewell, that evening psalm which had first brought soothing to her hunted spirit.
There, while unable, after hours of weeping, to tear herself from the grave of her father and protector, had she in her utter desolation been startled by the summons, not only to attend to the wounded stranger, but to lodge him in the chancel. ‘Only this was wanting,’ was the first thought in her desolation, for this had been her own most cherished resort. Either the _bise_, or fear of a haunted spot, or both, had led to the nailing up of boards over the dividing screen, so that the chancel was entirely concealed from the church; and no one ever thought of setting foot there till Eustacie, whose Catholic reverence was indestructible, even when she was only half sure that it was not worse than a foible, had stolen down thither, grieved at its utter desolation, and with fond and careful hands had cleansed it, and amended the ruin so far as she might. She had no other place where she was sure of being uninterrupted; and here had been her oratory, where she daily prayed, and often came to hide her tears and rally her spirits through that long attendance on her fatherly friend. It had been a stolen pleasure. Her reverent work there, if once observed, would have been treated as rank idolatry; and it was with consternation as well as grief that she found, by the Captain’s command, that this her sanctuary and refuge was to be invaded by strange soldiers! Little did she think---!
And thus they sat, telling each other all, on the step of the ruined chancel, among the lights and shadows of the apse. How unlike to stately Louvre’s halls of statuary and cabinets of porcelain, or the Arcadian groves of Montpipeau! And yet how little they recked that they were in a beleaguered fortress, in the midst of ruins, wounded sufferers all around, themselves in hourly jeopardy. It was enough that they had one another. They were so supremely happy that their minds unconsciously gathered up those pale lights and dark fantastic shades as adjuncts of their bliss.
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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43
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LE BAISER D’EUSTACIE
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No pitying voice, no eye, affords One tear to grace his obsequies. --GRAY Golden sunshine made rubies and sapphires of the fragments of glass in the windows of Notre-Dame de l’Esperance, and lighted up the brown face and earnest eyes of the little dark figure, who, with hands clasped round her knees, sat gazing as if she could never gaze her fill, upon the sleeping warrior beside whom she sat, his clear straight profile like a cameo, both in chiseling and in colour, as it lay on the brown cloak where he slept the profound sleep of content and of fatigue.
Neither she nor Philip would have spoken or stirred to break that well-earned rest; but sounds from without were not long in opening his eyes, and as they met her intent gaze, he smiled and said, ‘Good morrow, sweet heart! What, learning how ugly a fellow is come back to thee?’
‘No, indeed! I was trying to trace thine old likeness, and then wondering how I ever liked thy boyish face better than the noble look thou bearest now!’
‘Ah! when I set out to come to thee, I was a walking rainbow; yet I was coxcomb enough to think thou wouldst overlook it.’
‘Show me those cruel strokes,’ she said; ‘I see one’--and her finger traced the seam as poor King Charles had done--‘but where is the one my wicked cousin called by that frightful name?’
‘Nay, verily, that sweet name spared my life! A little less spite at my peach cheek, and I had been sped, and had not lisped and stammered all my days in honour of _le baiser d’Eustacie_!’ and as he pushed aside his long golden silk moustache to show the ineffaceable red and purple scar, he added, smiling, ‘It has waited long for its right remedy.’
At that moment the door in the rood-screen opened. Captain Falconnet’s one eye stared in amazement, and from beneath his gray moustache thundered forth the word ‘Comment!’ in accents fit to wake the dead.
Was this Esperance, the most irreproachable of pastor’s daughters and widows? ‘What, Madame, so soon as your good father is under ground? At least I thought ONE woman could be trusted; but it seems we must see to the wounded ourselves.’
She blushed, but stood her ground; and Berenger shouted, ‘She is my wife, sir! --my wife whom I have sought so long!’
‘That must be as Madame la Duchesse chooses,’ said the Captain. ‘She is under her charge, and must be sent to her as soon as this _canaille_ is cleared off. To your rooms, Madame!’
‘I am her husband!’ again cried Berenger. ‘We have been married sixteen years.’
‘You need not talk to me of dowry; Madame la Duchesse will settle that, if you are fool enough to mean anything by it. No, no, Mademoiselle, I’ve no time for folly. Come with me, sir, and see if that be true which they say of the rogues outside.’
And putting his arm into Berenger’s, he fairly carried him off, discoursing by the way on _feu_ M. l’Amiral’s saying that ‘over-strictness in camp was perilous, since a young saint, an old devil,’ but warning him that this was prohibited gear, as he was responsible for the young woman to Madame la Duchesse. Berenger, who had never made the Captain hear anything that he did not know before, looked about for some interpreter whose voice might be more effectual, but found himself being conducted to the spiral stair of the church steeple; and suddenly gathering that some new feature in the case had arisen, followed the old man eagerly up the winding steps to the little square of leaden roof where the Quinet banner was planted. It commanded a wide and splendid view, to the Bay of Biscay on the one hand, and the inland mountains on the other; but the warder who already stood there pointed silently to the north, where, on the road by which Berenger had come, was to be seen a cloud of dust, gilded by the rays of the rising sun.
Who raised it was a matter of no doubt; and Berenger’s morning orisons were paid with folded hands, in silent thanks-giving, as he watched the sparkling of pikes and gleaming of helmets--and the white flag of Bourbon at length became visible.
Already the enemy below were sending out scouts--they rode to the top of the hill--then a messenger swan his horse across the river. In the camp before the bridge-tower men buzzed out of their tents, like ants whose hill is disturbed; horses were fastened to the cannon, tents were struck, and it was plain that the siege was to be raised.
Captain Falconnet did his ally the honour to consult him on the expedience of molesting the Guisards by a sally, and trying to take some of their guns; but Berenger merely bowed to whatever he said, while he debated aloud the PROS and CONS, and at last decided that the garrison had been too much reduced for this, and that M. le Duc would prefer finding them drawn up in good order to receive him, to their going chasing and plundering disreputable among the enemy--the Duke being here evidently a much greater personage than the King of Navarre, hereditary Governor of Guyenne though he were. Indeed, nothing was wanting to the confusion of Berenger’s late assailants. In the camp on the north side of the river, things were done with some order; but that on the other side was absolutely abandoned, and crowds were making in disorder for the ford, leaving everything behind them, that they might not have their retreat cut off. Would there be a battle? Falconnet, taking in with his eye the numbers of the succouring party, thought the Duke would allow the besiegers to depart unmolested, but remembered with a sigh that young king had come to meddle in their affair!
However, it was needful to go down and marshal the men for the reception of the new-comers, or to join in the fight, as the case might be.
And it was a peaceful entrance that took place some hours later, and was watched from the windows of the prior’s rooms by Eustacie, her child, and Philip, whom she had been able to install in her own apartments, which had been vacated by the refugee women in haste to return home, and where he now sat in Maitre Gardon’s great straw chair, wrapped in his loose gown, and looking out at the northern gates, thrown open to receive the King and Duke, old Falconnet presenting the keys to the Duke, the Duke bowing low as he offered them to the King, and the King waving them back to the Duke and the Captain. Then they saw Falconnet presenting the tall auxiliary who had been so valuable to him, his gesture as he pointed up to the window, and the King’s upward look, as he doffed his hat and bowed low, while Eustacie responded with the most graceful of reverences, such as reminded Philip that his little sister-in-law and tender nurse was in truth a great court lady.
Presently Berenger came up-stairs, bringing with him his faithful foster-brother Osbert, who, though looking gaunt and lean, had nearly recovered his strength, and had accompanied the army in hopes of finding his master. The good fellow was full of delight at the welcome of his lady, and at once bestirred himself in assisting her in rectifying the confusion in which her guests had left her apartment.
Matters had not long been set straight when steps were heard on the stone stair, and, the door opening wide, Captain Falconnet’s gruff voice was heard, ‘This way, Monseigneur; this way, Sire.’
This was Madame la Baronne de Ribaumont’s first reception. She was standing at the dark walnut table, fresh starching and crimping Berenger’s solitary ruff, while under her merry superintendence those constant playfellows, Philip and Rayonette, were washing, or pretending to wash, radishes in a large wooden bowl, and Berenger was endeavouring to write his letter of good tidings, to be sent by special messenger to his grand-father. Philip was in something very like a Geneva gown; Eustacie wore her prim white cap and frill, and coarse black serge kirtle; and there was but one chair besides that one which Philip was desired to retain, only two three-legged stools and a bench.
Nevertheless, Madame de Ribaumont was equal to the occasion; nothing could have been more courtly, graceful, or unembarrassed than her manner of receiving of King’s gallant compliments, and of performing all the courtesies suited to the hostess and queen of the place: it was the air that would have befitted the stateliest castle hall, yet that in its simplicity and brightness still more embellished the old ruinous convent-cell. The King was delighted, he sat down upon one of the three-legged stools, took Rayonette upon his knee, undertook to finish washing the radishes, but ate nearly all he washed, declaring that they put him in mind of his old hardy days on the mountains of Bearn. He insisted on hearing all Rayonette’s adventure in detail; and on seeing the pearls and the silver bullet, ‘You could scarcely have needed the token, sir,’ said he with a smile to Berenger; ‘Mademoiselle had already shown herself of the true blood of the bravest of knights.’
The tidings of the attack on Pont de Dronne had caused the Duke to make a forced march to its relief, in which the King had insisted on joining him; and they now intended to wait at Pont de Dronne till the rest of the troops came up, and to continue their march through Guyenne to Nerac, the capital of Henry’s county of Foix. The Duke suggested that if Philip were well enough to move when the army proceeded, the family might then take him to Quinet, where the Duchess would be very desirous to see Madame; and therewith they took leave with some good-humoured mirth as to whether M. le Ribaumont would join them at supper, or remain in the bosom of his family, and whether he were to be regarded as a gay bridegroom or a husband of sixteen year’s standing.
‘Nay,’ said the King, ‘did his good Orpheus know how nearly his Eurydice had slipped through his fingers again? how M. de Quinet had caught the respectable Pluto yonder in the gray moustache actually arranging an escort to send the lady safe back to Quinet _bon gre malgre_--and truly a deaf Pluto was worse than even Orpheus had encountered!’
So laughing, he bowed again his compliments; but Eustacie demanded, so soon as he was gone, what he meant by calling her by such names. If he thought it was her Christian name, it was over-familiar--if not, she liked it less.
‘It is only that he last saw you in the Infernal Region, _ma mie_,’ said Berenger; ‘and I have sought you ever since, as Orpheus sought Eurydice.’
But her learning did not extend so far; and when the explanation was made, she pouted, and owned that she could not bear to be reminded of the most foolish and uncomfortable scene in her life--the cause of all her troubles; and as Berenger was telling her of Diane’s confession that her being involved in the pageant was part of the plot for their detention at Paris, Osbert knocked at the door, and entered with a bundle in his arms, and the air of having done the right thing.
‘There, sir,’ he said with proud satisfaction, ‘I have been to the camp across the river. I heard there were good stuffs to be had there for nothing, and thought I would see if I could find a coat for Monsieur Philippe, for his own is a mere ruin.’
This was true, for Eustacie had been deciding that between blood and rents it had become a hopeless case for renovation; and Osbert joyfully displayed a beautifully-embroidered coat of soft leather, which he had purchased for a very small sum of a plunderer who had been there before him. The camp had been so hastily abandoned that all the luggage had been left, and, like a true valet, Osbert had not neglected the opportunity of replenishing his master’s wardrobe. ‘And,’ said he, ‘I saw there on whom M. le Baron knows,--M. de Nid de Merle.’
‘Here!’ cried Eustacie, startled for a moment, but her eyes resting reassured on her husband.
‘Madame need not be alarmed,’ said Osbert; ‘M. le Baron has well repaid him. Ah! ah! there he lies, a spectacle for all good Christians to delight in.’
‘It was then he, _le scelerat_?’ exclaimed Berenger; ‘I have already thought it possible.’
‘And he fell by your hands!’ cried Eustacie. ‘That is as it should be.’
‘Yes, Madame,’ said Osbert; ‘it did my very heart good to see him writhing there like a crushed viper. M. le Baron’s bullet was mortal, and his own people thought him not worth the moving, so there he lies on the ground howling and cursing. I would have given him the _coup de grace_ myself, but that I thought M. le Baron might have some family matters to settle with him; so I only asked what he thought now of clapping guiltless folk into dungeons, and shooting innocent children like sparrows; but he grinned and cursed like a demon, and I left him.’
‘In any one’s charge?’ asked Berenger.
‘In the field’s, who is coming for him,’ said the descendant of the Norseman. ‘I only told Humfrey that if he saw any one likely to meddle he should tell them he was reserved for you. Eh! M. le Baron is not going now. Supper is about to be served, and if M. le Baron would let me array him with this ruff of Spanish point, and wax the ends of his belle moustache---’ ‘It is late,’ added Eustacie, laying her hand on his arm; ‘there may be wild men about--he may be desperate! Oh, take care!’
‘_Ma mie_, do you not think me capable of guarding myself from a wild cat leap of a dying man? He must not be left thus. Remember he is a Ribaumont.’
Vindictiveness and revenge had their part in the fire of Eustacie’s nature. Many a time had she longed to strangle Narcisse; and she was on the point of saying, ‘Think of his attempts on that little one’s life--think of your wounds and captivity;’ but she had not spent three years with Isaac Gardon without learning that there was sin in giving way to her keen hatred; and she forced herself to silence, while Berenger said, reading her face, ‘Keep it back, sweet heart! Make it not harder for me. I would as soon go near a dying serpent, but it were barbarity to leave him as Osbert describes.’
Berenger was too supremely and triumphantly happy not to be full of mercy; and as Osbert guided him to the hut where the miserable man lay, he felt little but compassion. The scene was worse than he had expected; for not only had the attendants fled, but plunderers had come in their room, rent away the coverings from the bed, and torn the dying man from it. Livid, nearly naked, covered with blood, his fingers hacked, and ears torn for the sake of the jewels on them, lay the dainty and effeminate tiger-fop of former days, moaning and scarcely sensible. But when the mattress had been replaced, and Berenger had lifted him back to it, laid a cloak over him, and moistened his lips, he opened his eyes, but only to exclaim, ‘You there! As if I had not enough to mock me! Away!’ and closed them sullenly.
‘I would try to relieve you, cousin,’ said Berenger.
The answer was a savage malediction on hypocrisy, and the words, ‘And my sister?’
‘Your sister is in all honour and purity at the nunnery of Lucon.’
He laughed a horrible, incredulous laugh. ‘Safely disposed of ere you cajoled _la petite_ with the fable of your faithfulness! Nothing like a Huguenot for lying to both sides;’ and then ensued another burst of imprecations on the delay that had prevented him from seizing the fugitives--till he--till he felt as if the breath of hell were upon him, and could not help vindicating himself, vain though he knew it to be: ‘Narcisse de Ribaumont,’ he said gravely, ‘my word has never been broken, and you know the keeping of it has not been without cost. On that word believe that Madame de Selinville is as spotless a matron as when she periled herself to save my life. I never even knew her sex till I had drawn her half drowned from the sea, and after that I only saw her in the presence of Dom Colombeau of Nissard, in whose care I left her.’
Narcisse’s features contorted themselves into a frightful sneer as he muttered, ‘The intolerable fool; and that he should have got the better of me, that is if it be true--and I believe not a word of it.’
‘At least,’ said Berenger, ‘waste not these last hours on hating and reviling me, but let this fellow of mine, who is a very fair surgeon, bind your wound again.’
‘Eh!’ said Narcisse, spitefully, turning his head, ‘your own rogue? Let me see what work he made of _le baiser d’Eustacie_. Pray, how does it please her?’
‘She thanks Heaven that your chief care was to spoil my face.’
‘I hear she is a prime doctress; but of course you brought her not hither lest she should hear HOW you got out of our keeping.’
‘She knows it.’
‘Ah! she has been long enough at court to know one must overlook, that one’s own little matters may be overlooked.’
Berenger burst out at last, ‘Her I will not hear blasphemed: the next word against her I leave you to yourself.’
‘That is all I want,’ said Narcisse. ‘These cares of yours are only _douceurs_ to your conceited heretical conscience, and a lengthening out of this miserable affair. You would scoff at the only real service you could render me.’
‘And that is---’ ‘To fetch a priest. Ha! ha! one of your sort would sooner hang me. You had rather see me perish body and soul in this Huguenot dog-hole! What! do you stammer? Bring a psalm-singing heretic here, and I’ll teach him and you what you MAY call blasphemy.’
‘A priest you shall have, cousin,’ said Berenger, gravely; ‘I will do my utmost to bring you one. Meanwhile, strive to bring yourself into a state in which he may benefit you.’
Berenger was resolved that the promise should be kept. He saw that despair was hardening the wretched man’s heart, and that the possibility of fulfilling his Church’s rites might lead him to address himself to repentance; but the difficulties were great. Osbert, the only Catholic at hand, was disposed to continue his vengeance beyond the grave, and only at his master’s express command would even exercise his skill to endeavour to preserve life till the confessor could be brought. Ordinary Huguenots would regard the desire of Narcisse as a wicked superstition, and Berenger could only hurry back to consult some of the gentlemen who might be supposed more unprejudiced.
As he was crossing the quadrangle at full speed, he almost ran against the King of Navarre, who was pacing up and down reading letters, and who replied to his hasty apologies by saying he looked as if the fair Eurydice had slipped through his hands again into the Inferno.
‘Not so, Sire, but there is one too near those gates. Nid de Merle is lying at the point of death, calling for a priest.’
‘_Ventre Saint-Gris_!’ exclaimed the King, ‘he is the very demon of the piece, who carved your face, stole your wife, and had nearly shot your daughter.’
‘The more need of his repentance, Sire, and without a priest he will not try to repent. I have promised him one.’
‘A bold promise!’ said Henry. ‘Have you thought how our good friends here are likely to receive a priest of Baal into the camp?’
‘No, Sire, but my best must be done. I pray you counsel me.’
Henry laughed at the simple confidence of the request, but replied, ‘The readiest way to obtain a priest will be to ride with a flag of truce to the enemy’s camp--they are at St. Esme--and say that M. de Nid de Merle is a prisoner and dying, and that I offer safe-conduct to any priest that will come to him--though whether a red-hot Calvinist will respect my safe-conduct or your escort is another matter.’
‘At least, Sire, you sanction my making this request?’
‘Have you men enough to take with you to guard you from marauders?’
‘I have but two servants, Sire, and I have left them with the wounded man.’
‘Then I will send with you half a dozen Gascons, who have been long enough at Paris with me to have no scruples.’
By the time Berenger had explained matters to his wife and brother, and snatched a hasty meal, a party of gay, soldierly-looking fellows were in the saddle, commanded by a bronzed sergeant who was perfectly at home in conducting messages between contending parties. After a dark ride of about five miles, the camp at the village of St. Esme was reached, and this person recommended that he himself should go forward with a trumpet, since M. de Ribaumont was liable to be claimed as an escaped prisoner. There was then a tedious delay, but at length the soldier returned, and another horseman with him. A priest who had come to the camp in search of M. de Nid de Merle was willing to trust himself to the King of Navarre’s safe-conduct.
‘Thanks, sir,’ cried Berenger; ‘this is a work of true charity.’
‘I think I know that voice,’ said the priest.
‘The priest of Nissard!’
‘Even so, sir. I was seeking M. de Nid de Merle, and had but just learnt that he had been left behind wounded.’
‘You came to tell him of his sister?’
And as they rode together the priest related to Berenger that M. de Solivet had remained in the same crushed, humiliated mood, not exactly penitent, but too much disappointed and overpowered with shame to heed what became of her provided she were not taken back to her brother or her aunt. She knew that repentance alone was left for her, and permitted herself to be taken to Lucon, where Mere Monique was the only person whom she had ever respected. There had no doubt been germs of good within her, but the crime and intrigue of the siren court of Catherine de Medicis had choked them; and the first sense of better things had been awakened by the frank simplicity of the young cousin, while, nevertheless, jealousy and family tactics had led her to aid in his destruction, only to learn through her remorse how much she loved him. And when in his captivity she thought him in her power, but found him beyond her reach, unhallowed as was her passion, yet still the contemplation of the virtues of one beloved could not fail to raise her standard. It was for his truth and purity that she had loved him, even while striving to degrade these quantities; and when he came forth from her ordeal unscathed, her worship of him might for a time be more intense, but when the idol was removed, the excellence she had first learnt to adore in him might yet lead that adoration up to the source of all excellence. All she sought NOW was shelter wherein to weep and cower unseen; but the priest believed that her tears would soon spring from profound depths of penitence such as often concluded the lives of the gay ladies of France. Mere Monique had received her tenderly, and the good priest had gone from Lucon to announce her fate to her aunt and brother.
At Bellaise he had found the Abbess much scandalized. She had connived at her niece’s releasing the prisoner, for she had acquired too much regard for him to let him perish under Narcisse’s hands, and she had allowed Veronique to personate Diane at the funeral mass, and also purposely detained Narcisse to prevent the detection of the escape; but the discovery that her niece had accompanied his flight had filled her with shame and furry.
Pursuit had been made towards La Rochelle, but when the neighbourhood of the King of Navarre became known, no doubt was entertained that the fugitives had joined him, and Narcisse, reserving his vengeance for the family honour till he should encounter Berenger, had hotly resumed the intention of pouncing on Eustacie at Pont de Dronne, which had been decided on upon the report of the Italian spy, and only deferred by his father’s death. This once done, Berenger’s own supposed infidelity would have forced him to acquiesce in the annulment of the original marriage.
It had been a horrible gulf, and Berenger shuddered as one who had barely struggled to the shore, and found his dear ones safe, and his enemies shattered and helpless on the strand. They hurried on so as to be in time. The priest, a brave and cautious man, who had often before carried the rites of the Church to dying men in the midst of the enemy, was in a secular dress, and when Berenger had given the password, and obtained admittance they separated, and only met again to cross the bridge. They found Osbert and Humfrey on guard, saying that the sufferer still lingered, occasionally in a terrible paroxysm of bodily anguish, but usually silent, except when he upbraided Osbert with his master’s breach of promise or incapacity to bring a priest through his Huguenot friends.
Such a taunt was on his tongue when Pere Colombeau entered, and checked the scoff by saying, ‘See, my son, you have met with more pardon and mercy even on earth than you had imagined possible.’
There was a strange spasm on Narcisse’s ghastly face, as though he almost regretted the obligation forced on him, but Berenger scarcely saw him again. It was needful for the security of the priest and the tranquillity of the religious rites that he should keep watch outside, lest any of the more fanatical of the Huguenots should deem it their duty to break in on what they had worked themselves into believing offensive idolatry.
His watch did not prove uncalled for. At different times he had to plead the King’s safe-conduct, and his own honour, and even to defend his own Protestantism by appealing to his wounds and services. Hearts were not soft enough then for the cruelty of disturbing a dying man to be any argument at all in that fierce camp; but even there the name of Pere Colombeau met with respect. The saintly priest had protected too many enemies for any one who had heard of him to wish him ill.
Nearly all night was Berenger thus forced to remain on guard, that the sole hope of Narcisse’s repentance and salvation might not be swept away by violence from without, renewing bitterness within. Not till towards morning was he called back. The hard, lingering death struggle had spent itself, and slow convulsive gasps showed that life was nearly gone; but the satanic sneer had passed away, and a hand held out, a breathing like the word ‘pardon’ seemed to be half uttered, and was answered from the bottom of Berenger’s kind and pitying heart. Another quarter of an hour, and Narcisse de Ribaumont Nid de Merle was dead. The priest looked pale, exhausted, shocked, but would reveal nothing of the frame of mind he had shown, only that if he had been touched by any saving penitence, it was owing to his kinsman.
Berenger wished to send the corpse to rest in the family vault at Bellaise, where the Chevalier had so lately been laid; and the priest undertook to send persons with a flag of truce to provide for the transport, as well as to announce the death to the sister and the aunt. Wearied as he was, he would not accept Berenger’s earnest invitation to come and take rest and refreshment in the prior’s rooms, but took leave of him at the further side of the fortress, with almost reverent blessings, as to one not far from the kingdom of heaven; and Berenger, with infinite peacefulness in his heart, went home in the silence of the Sunday morning, and lay sleeping away his long fatigue through the chief part of the day, while Pastor Merlin was preaching and eloquent sermon upon his good brother Isaac Gardon, and Eustacie shed filial tears, more of tenderness than sorrow.
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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44
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THE GALIMAFRE
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Speats and raxes, speats and raxes, speat and raxes Lord Somerville’s billet Never wont to let the grass grow under his feet, Henry of Navarre was impatient of awaiting his troops at Pont de Dronne, and proposed to hasten on to Quinet, as a convenient centre for collecting the neighbouring gentry for conference. Thus, early on Monday, a party of about thirty set forth on horseback, including the Ribaumonts, Rayonette being perched by turns in front of her father or mother, and the Duke de Quinet declaring that he should do his best to divide the journey into stages not too long for Philip, since he was anxious to give his mother plenty of time to make preparations for her royal guest.
He had, however, little reckoned on the young King’s promptitude. The first courier he had dispatched was overtaken at a _cabaret_ only five leagues from Pont de Dronne, baiting his horse, as he said; the second was found on the road with a lame horse; and the halt a day’s journey remained beyond it. The last stage had been ridden, much to the Duke’s discontent, for it brought them to a mere village inn, with scarcely any accommodation. The only tolerable bed was resigned by the King to the use of Philip, whose looks spoke the exhaustion of which his tongue scorned to complain. So painful and feverish a night ensued that Eustacie was anxious that he should not move until the Duke should, as he promised, send a mule litter back for him; but this proposal he resented; and in the height of his constitutional obstinacy, appeared booted and spurred at the first signal to mount.
Nor could Eustacie, as she soon perceived, annoy him more than by showing her solicitude for him, or attracting to him the notice of the other cavaliers. As the only lady of the party, she received a great deal of attention, with some of which she would gladly have dispensed. Whether it were the King’s habit of calling her ‘_la Belle Eurydice_,’ or because, as she said, he was ‘_si laid_’ and reminded her of old unhappy days of constraint, she did not like him, and had almost displeased her husband and his brother by saying so. She would gladly have avoided the gallantries of this day’s ride by remaining with Philip at the inn; but not only was this impossible, but the peculiar ill-temper of concealed suffering made Philip drive her off whenever she approached him with inquiries; so that she was forced to leave him to his brother and Osbert, and ride forward between the King and the Duke, the last of whom she really liked.
Welcome was the sight of the grand old chateau, its mighty wings of chestnut forest stretching up the hills on either side, and the stately avenue extending before it; but just then the last courier was discovered, reeling in his saddle under the effects of repeated toasts in honour of Navarre and Quinet.
‘We are fairly sped,’ said the Duke to Eustacie, shrugging his shoulders between amusement and dismay.
‘Madame la Duchesse is equal to any _galimafre_,’ said Eustacie, demurely; at which the Duke laughed heartily, saying, ‘It is not for the family credit I fear, but for my own!’
‘Nay, triumph makes everything be forgiven.’
‘But not forgotten,’ laughed the Duke. ‘But, _allons_. Now for the onset. We are already seen. The forces muster at the gateway.’
By the time the cavalcade were at the great paved archway into the court, the Duchess stood at the great door, a grandson on either side, and a great burly fresh-coloured gentleman behind her.
M. de Quinet was off his horse in a second, his head bare, his hand on the royal rein, and signing to his eldest son to hold the stirrup; but, before the boy had comprehended, Henry had sprung down, and was kissing the old lady’s hand, saying, ‘Pardon, Madame! I trust to your goodness for excusing this surprise from an old friend’s son.’
Neither seeing nor caring for king or prince, the stranger gentleman at the same moment pounced upon Eustacie and her little girl, crying aloud in English, ‘Here she is! My dear, I am glad to see you. Give her to me, poor Berenger’s little darling. Ah! she does not understand. Where’s Merrycourt?’
Just then there was another English exclamation, ‘My father! Father! dear father!’ and Philip, flinging himself from the saddle, fell almost prone on that broad breast, sobbing convulsively, while the eyes that, as he truly boasted, had never wasted a tear on his enemies, were streaming so fast that his father’s welcome savoured of reproof: ‘What’s all this? Before these French too.’
‘Take care, father,’ cried Berenger, leaping from his horse; ‘he has an ugly wound just where you are holding him.’
‘Wounded! my poor boy. Look up.’
‘Where is your room, sir?’ said Berenger, seeing his hosts entirely occupied with the King; and at once lifting the almost helpless Philip like a little child in his strong arms, he followed Sir Marmaduke, who, as if walking in his sleep, led the way up the great stone staircase that led outside the house to the upper chambers.
After a short interval, the Duchess, in the plenitude of her glory at entertaining her dear Queen’s son, came up _en grande tenue_, leading the King by the hand, the Duke walking backwards in front, and his two sons each holding a big wax candle on either side.
‘Here, Sire, is the chamber where the excellent Queen did me the honour to repose herself.’
The Duke swung open the door of the state bed-chamber. There on the velvet-hung bed sat _le gros Chevalier Anglais_, whom she had herself installed there on Saturday. Both his hands were held fast in those of a youth who lay beside him, deadly pale, and half undressed, with the little Ribaumont attending to a wound in his side, while her child was held in the arms of a very tall, bald-headed young man, who stood at the foot of the bed. The whole group of interlopers looked perfectly glorified with happiness and delight. Even the wounded youth, ghastly and suffering as he was, lay stroking the big Englishman’s hand with a languid, caressing air of content, almost like that of a dog who has found his master. None of them were the least embarrassed, they evidently thought this a visit of inquiry after the patient; and while the Duchess stood confounded, and the Duke much inclined to laugh, Eustacie turned eagerly, exclaiming, ‘Ah! Madame, I am glad you are come. May I beg Mademoiselle Perrot for some of your cooling mallow salve. Riding has sadly inflamed the wound.’
‘Riding--with such a wound! Are we all crazed?’ said Madame la Duchesse, absolutely bewildered out of her dignified equanimity: and her son, seeing her for once at a loss, came to her rescue. ‘His Grace will condescend to the Andromeda Chamber, Madame. He kindly gave up his bed to our young friend last night, when there was less choice than you can give him.’
They all moved off again; and, before Eustacie was ready for the mallows, Madame de Quinet, for whom the very name of a wound had an attraction, returned with two hand-maidens bearing bandages and medicaments, having by this time come to the perception that the wounded youth was the son of the big Englishman who had arrived with young Mericour in search of her little _protegee_, and that the tall man was the husband so long supposed to be dead. She was curious to see her pupil’s surgery, of which she highly approved, though she had no words to express her indignation at the folly of traveling so soon. Indeed, nothing but the passiveness of fatigue could have made her despotism endurable to Philip; but he cared for nothing so long as he could see his father’s face, and hear his voice--the full tones that his ear had yearned for among the sharp expression of the French accent--and Sir Marmaduke seemed to find the same perfect satisfaction in the sight of him; indeed, all were so rejoiced to be together, that they scarcely exerted themselves to ask questions. When Berenger would have made some explanation, Sir Marmaduke only said, ‘Tell me not yet, my dear boy. I see it is all right, and my head will hold no more yet but that I have you and the lad again! Thank God for it! Never mind how.’
When, however, with some difficulty they got him away from Philip’s bedside down to supper, the King came and made him high compliments upon the distinguished bravery of his sons, and Mericour interpreted, till Sir Marmaduke--though answering that of course the lads must do their duty, and he was only glad to hear they had done it--became more and more radiant and proud, as he began to gather what their trials and what their steadfastness and courage had been. His goodly face, beaming with honest gladness, was, as Henry told the Duchess, an absolute ornament to her table.
Unable, however, to converse with any one but Berenger and Mericour, and pining all the time to get back to his son, the lengthy and ceremonious meal was a weary penance to him; and so soon as his release was possible, he made his way up-stairs again, where he found Philip much refreshed by a long sleep, and only afraid that he should find the sight of his father merely a dream; then, when satisfied on that head, eager to hear of all at home--‘the sisters, the dogs, my mother, and my little brother?’ as he arranged his inquiry.
‘Ha! you heard of that, did you?’
‘Yes,’ said Philip, ‘the villains gave us letters once--only once--and those what they thought would sting us most. O father, how could you all think such foul shame of Berry?’
‘Don’t speak of it, Phil; I never did, nor Aunt Cecily, not for a moment; but my Lord is not the man he was, and those foes of yours must have set abroad vile reports for the very purpose of deceiving us. And then this child must needs be born, poor little rogue. I shall be able to take to him now all is right again; but by St. George, they have tormented me so about him, and wanted me to take him as a providence to join the estates together, instead of you and Berry, that I never thought to care so little for a child of my own.’
‘We drank his health at Nid de Merle, and were not a little comforted that you would have him in our place.’
‘I’d rather--Well, it skills not talking of it, but it just shows the way of women. After all the outcry Dame Annora had made about her poor son, and no one loving him or heeding his interest save herself, no sooner was this little fellow born than she had no thought for any but he, and would fain have had her father settle all his lands on him, protesting that if Berry lived, his French lands were enough for him. Out of sight, out of mind, is the way with women.’
Womanhood was already made accountable for all Lady Thistlewood’s follies, and Philip acquiesced, asking further, ‘Nay, but how came you hither, father? Was it to seek us or Eustacie?’
‘Both, both, my lad. One morning just after Christmas, I rid over to Combe with my dame behind me, and found the house in commotion with a letter that young Sidney, Berry’s friend, had just sent down by special messenger. It had been writ more than a year, but, bless you, these poor foreigners have such crooked ears and tongues that they don’t know what to make of a plain man’s name, and the only wonder was that it ever came at all. It seems the Duke here had to get it sent over by some of the secret agents the French Protestants have in England, and what do they do but send it to one of the Vivians in Cornwall; and it was handed about among them for how long I cannot say, till there was a chance of sending it up to my Lord of Warwick; and he, being able to make nothing if it, shows it to his nephew, Philip Sidney, who, perceiving at once whom it concerned, sends it straight to my Lord, with a handsome letter hoping that it brought good tidings. There then it was, and so we first knew that the poor lady had not been lost in the sack of the town, as Master Hobbs told us. She told us how this Duchess had taken her under her protection, but that her enemies were seeking her, and had even attempted her child’s life.’
‘The ruffians! Even so.’
‘And she said her old pastor was failing in health, and prayed that some trusty person might be sent to bring home at least the child to safety with her kindred. There was a letter to the same effect, praising her highly too, from the Duchess, saying that she would do her best to guard her, but the kinsmen had the law on their side, and she would be safer in England. Well, this was fair good news, save that we marveled the more how you and Berry should have missed her; but the matter now was who was the trusty person who should go. Claude Merrycourt was ready---’ ‘How came he there?’ demanded Philip. ‘I thought he had gone, or been sent off with Lady Burnet’s sons.’
‘Why, so he had; but there’s more to say on that score. He was so much in favour at Combe, that my Lord would not be denied his spending the holiday times there; and, besides, last summer we had a mighty coil. The Horners of Mells made me a rare good offer for Lucy for their eldest son, chiefly because they wanted a wife for him of my Lady Walwyn’s and Mistress Cecily’s breeding; and my wife was all for accepting it, having by that time given up all hope of poor Berry. But I would have no commands laid on my girl, seeing that I had pledged my word not to cross her in the matter, and she hung about my neck and prayed me so meekly to leave her unwedded, that I must have been made of stone not to yield to her. So I told Mr. Horner that his son Jack must wait for little Nancy if he wanted a daughter of mine--and the stripling is young enough. I believe he will. But women’s tongues are not easy to stop, and Lucy was worn so thin, and had tears in her eyes--that she thought I never marked--whenever she was fretted or flouted, and at last I took her back to stay at Combe for Aunt Cecily to cheer up a bit; and--well, well, to get rid of the matter and silence Dame Nan, I consented to a betrothal between her and Merrycourt--since she vowed she would rather wait single for him than wed any one else. He is a good youth, and is working himself to a shadow between studying and teaching; but as to sending him alone to bring Berry’s wife back, he was over-young for that. No one could do that fitly save myself, and I only wish I had gone three years ago, to keep you two foolish lads out of harm’s way. But they set up an unheard-of hubbub, and made sure I should lose myself. What are you laughing at, you Jacksauce?’
‘To think of you starting, father, with not a word of French, and never from home further than once to London.’
‘Ah! you thought to come the traveled gentleman over me, but I’ve been even with you. I made Dame Nan teach me a few words, but I never could remember anything but that “mercy” is “thank ye”. However, Merrycourt offered to come with me, and my Lord wished it. Moreover, I thought he might aid in tracing you out. So I saw my Lord alone, and he passed his word to me that, come what would, no one should persuade him to alter his will to do wrong to Berenger’s daughter; and so soon as Master Hobbs could get the THROSTLE unladen, and fitted out again, we sailed for Bordeau, and there he is waiting for us, while Clause and I bought horses and hired a guide, and made our way here on Saturday, where we were very welcome; and the Duchess said she would but wait till she could learn there were no bands of the enemy at hand, to go down with me herself to the place where she had sent the lady. A right worthy dame is this same Duchess, and a stately; and that young King, as they call him, seems hard to please, for he told Berry that his wife’s courtliness and ease in his reception were far above aught that he found here. What he means is past a plain man, for as to Berry’s wife she is handy, and notable enough, and ‘tis well he loves her so well; but what a little brown thing it is, for a man to have gone through such risks for. Nothing to look at beside his mother!’
‘If you could only see Madame de Selinville!’ sighed Philip; then--‘Ah! sir, you would know the worth of Eustacie had you seen her in yonder town.’
‘Very like!’ said Sir Marmaduke; ‘but after all our fears at home of a fine court madam, it takes one aback to see a little homely brown thing, clad like a serving wench. Well, Dame Nan will not be displeased, she always said the girl would grow up no beauty, and ‘tis the way of women to brook none fairer than themselves! Better so. She is a good Protestant, and has done rarely by you, Phil.’
‘Truly, I might be glad ‘twas no court madam that stood by me when Berry was called back to the fight: and for the little one, ‘tis the loveliest and bravest little maid I ever saw. Have they told you of the marigolds, father?’
‘Why, the King told the whole to the Duchess, so Berry said, and then drank the health of the daughter of the bravest of knights; and Berry held her up in his arms to bow again, and drink to them from his glass. Berry looked a proud man, I can tell you, and a comely, spite of his baldness; and ‘tis worth having come here to see how much you lads are thought of--though to be sure ‘tis not often the poor creatures here see so much of an Englishman as we have made of Berry.’
Philip could not but laugh. ‘’Tis scarce for that that they value him, sir.’
‘Say you so? Nay, methinks his English heart and yours did them good service. Indeed, the King himself told me as much by the mouth of Merrycourt. May that youngster’s head only not be turned! Why, they set him at table above Berenger, and above half the King’s gentlemen. Even the Duchess makes as if he were one of her highest guests--he a poor Oxford scholar, doubting if he can get his bread by the law, and flouted as though he were not good enough for my daughter. ‘Tis the world topsy turvy, sure enough! And that this true love that Berenger has run through fire and water after, like a knight in a pedlar’s run through turn out a mere little, brown, common-looking woman after all, not one whit equal to Lucy!’
Sir Marmaduke modified his disappointment a little that night, when he had talked Philip into a state of feverishness and suffering that became worse under Madame de Quinet’s reproofs and remedies, and only yielded to Eustacie’s long and patient soothing. He then could almost have owned that it was well she was not like his own cherished type of womanhood, and the next day he changed his opinion still more, even as to her appearance.
There was a great gathering of favourers of the Huguenot cause on that day; gentlemen came from all parts to consult with Henry of Navarre, and Madame de Quinet had too much sense of the fitness of things to allow Madame de Ribaumont to appear at the ensuing banquet in her shabby, rusty black serge, and tight white borderless cap. The whole wardrobe of the poor young Duchess de Quinet was placed at her service, and though, with the thought of her adopted father on her heart, she refused gay colours, yet when, her toilette complete, she said into Philip’s room, he almost sprang up in delight, and Sir Marmaduke rose and ceremoniously bowed as to a stranger, and was only undeceived when little Rayonette ran joyously to Philip, asking if _Manan_ was not _si belle, si belle_.
The effects of her unrestful nights has now passed away, and left her magnificent eyes in their full brilliancy and arch fire; the blooming glow was restored to her cheek; and though neck, brow, and hands were browner than in the shelter of convent or palace, she was far more near absolute beauty than in former days, both from countenance and from age. Her little proud head was clustered with glossy locks of jet, still short, but curling round her brow and neck, whose warm brunette tints contrasted well with the delicate, stiffened cobweb of her exquisite standing ruff, which was gathered into a white satin bodice, with a skirt of the same material, over which swept a rich black brocade train open in front, with an open body and half-sleeves with falling lace, and the hands, delicate and shapely as ever, if indeed a little tanned, held fan and handkerchief with as much courtly grace as though they had never stirred broth nor wrung out linen. Sir Marmaduke really feared he had the court madam on his hands after all, but he forgot all about his fears, as she stood laughing and talking, and by her pretty airs and gestures, smiles and signs, making him enter into her mirth with Philip, almost as well as if she had not spoken French.
Even Berenger started, when he came up after the counsel to fetch her to the banqueting-hall. She was more entirely the Eustacie of the Louvre than he had ever realized seeing her, and yet so much more; and when the Duchess beheld the sensation she produced among the _noblesse_, it was with self-congratulation in having kept her in retirement while it was still not known that she was not a widow. The King of Navarre had already found her the only lady present possessed of the peculiar aroma of high-breeding which belonged to the society in which both he and she had been most at home, and his attentions were more than she liked from one whose epithet of Eurydice she had never quite forgiven; at least, that was the only reason she could assign for her distaste, but the Duchess understood her better than did Berenger, nay, better than she did herself, and kept her under the maternal wings of double form and ceremony.
Berenger, meanwhile, was in great favour. A command had been offered him by the King of Navarre, who had promised that if he would cast in his lot with the Huguenots, his claims on all the lands of Ribaumont should be enforced on the King of France when terms were wrung from him, and Narcisse’s death removed all valid obstacle to their recognition; but Berenger felt himself bound by all home duties to return to England, nor had he clear convictions as to the absolute right of the war in which he had almost unconsciously drawn his sword. Under the Tudors the divine right of kings was strongly believed in, and it was with many genuine misgivings that the cause of Protestant revolt was favoured by Elisabeth and her ministers; and Berenger, bred up in a strong sense of loyalty, as well as in doctrines that, as he had received them, savoured as little of Calvinism as of Romanism, was not ready to espouse the Huguenot cause with all his heart; and as he could by no means have fought on the side of King Henry III. or of the Guises, felt thankful that the knot could be cut by renouncing France altogether, according to the arrangement which had been defeated by the Chevalier’s own supper-subtle machinations.
At the conference of gentlemen held at Quinet, he had been startled by hearing the name of the Sieur de Bellaise, and had identified him with a grave, thin, noble-looking man, with an air of high-bred and patient poverty. He was a Catholic but no Guisard, and supported the middle policy of the Montmorency party, so far as he possessed any influence; but his was only the weight of personal character, for he had merely a small property that had descended to him through his grandmother, the wife of the unfortunate Bellaise who had pined to death in the dungeon at Loches, under Louis XI. Here, then, Berenger saw the right means of riding himself and his family of the burthen that his father had mourned over, and it only remained to convince Eustacie. Her first feeling when she heard of the King’s offer, was that at last her ardent wish would be gratified, she should see her husband at the head of her vassals, and hear the war-cry motto ‘_A moi Ribaumont_.’ Then came the old representation that the Vendeen peasants were faithful Catholics who could hardly be asked to fight on the Calvinist side. The old spirit rose in a flush, a pout, a half-uttered query why those creatures should be allowed their opinions. Madame la Baronne was resuming her haughty temperament in the _noblesse_ atmosphere; but in the midst came the remembrance of having made that very speech in her Temple ruin--of the grave sad look of rebuke and shake of the head with which the good old minister had received it--and how she had sulked at him till forced to throw herself on him to hinder her separation from her child. She burst into tears, and as Berenger, in some distress, began to assure her that he would and could do nothing without her consent, she struggled to recover voice to say, ‘No! no! I only grieve that I am still as wicked as ever, after these three years with that saint, my dear father. Do as you will, only pardon me, the little fierce one!’
And then, when she was made to perceive that her husband would have to fight alone, and could not take her with him to share his triumphs or bind his wounds, at least not except by bringing her in contact with Henry of Navarre and that atmosphere of the old court, she acquiesced the more readily. She was a woman who could feel but not reason; and, though she loved Nid de Merle, and had been proud of it, Berenger’s description of the ill-used Sieur de Bellaise had the more effect on her, because she well remembered the traditions whispered among the peasants with whom her childhood had been passed, that the village crones declared nothing had gone well with the place since the Bellaise had been expelled, with a piteous tale of the broken-hearted lady, that she had never till now understood.
For the flagrant injustice perpetrated on her uncle and cousin in the settlement on Berenger and herself she cared little, thinking they had pretty well repaid themselves, and not entering into Berenger’s deeper view, that this injustice was the more to be deplored as the occasion of their guilt; but she had no doubt or question as to the grand stroke of yielding up her claims on the estate to the Sieur de Bellaise. The generosity of the deed struck her imagination, and if Berenger would not lead her vassals to battle, she did not want them. There was no difficulty with Sir Marmaduke; he only vowed that he liked Berenger’s wife all the better for being free of so many yards of French dirt tacked to her petticoat, and Philip hated the remembrance of those red sugar-loaf pinnacles far too much not to wish his brother to be rid of them.
M. de Bellaise, when once he understood that restitution was intended, astonished Sir Marmaduke by launching himself on Berenger’s neck with tears of joy; and Henry of Navarre, though sorry to lose such a partisan as the young Baron, allowed that the Bellaise claims, being those of a Catholic, might serve to keep out some far more dangerous person whom the court party might select in opposition to an outlaw and a Protestant like M. de Ribaumont.
‘So you leave us,’ he said in private to Berenger, to whom he had taken a great liking. ‘I cannot blame you for not casting your lot into such a witch’s caldron as this poor country. My friends think I dallied at court like Rinaldo in Armida’s garden. They do not understand that when one hears the name of Bourbon one does not willingly make war with the Crown, still less that the good Calvin left a doctrine bitter to the taste and tough of digestion. Maybe, since I have been forced to add my spoon to stir the caldron, it may clear itself; if so, you will remember that you have rights in Normandy and Picardy.’
This was the royal farewell. Henry and his suite departed the next morning, but the Duchess insisted on retaining her other guests till Philip’s cure should be complete. Meantime, Claude de Mericour had written to his brother and arranged a meeting with him. He was now no boy who could be coerced, but a staid, self-reliant, scholarly person, with a sword by his side and an English passport to secure him, and his brother did not regard him as quite the disgrace to his family he had at first deemed him. He was at least no rebel; and though the law seemed to French eyes infinitely beneath the dignity of a scion of nobility, still it was something not to have him a heretic preacher, and to be able at least to speak of him as betrothed to the sister of the Baron de Ribaumont. Moreover, that Huguenot kinsman, whose extreme Calvinist opinions had so nearly revolted Mericour, had died and left him all his means, as the only Protestant in the family; and the amount, when Claude arranged matters with his brother, proved to be sufficient to bear him through his expenses handsomely as a student, with the hope of marriage so soon as he should have kept his terms at the Temple.
And thus the good ship THROSTLE bore home the whole happy party to Weymouth, and good Sir Marmaduke had an unceasing cause for exultation in the brilliant success of his mission to France.
After all, the first to revisit that country was no other than the once homesick Philip. He wearied of inaction, and thought his county neighbours ineffably dull and lubberly, while they blamed him for being a fine, Frenchified gentleman, even while finding no fault with their old friend Berenger, or that notable little, lively, housewifely lady his wife, whose broken English and bright simplicity charmed every one. Sorely Philip needed something to do; he might have been a gentleman pensioner, but he had no notion, he said, of loitering after a lady to boat and hunt, when such a king as Henry of Navarre was in the field; and he agreed with Eustacie in her estimate of the court, that it was horribly dull, and wanting in all the sparkle and brilliancy that even he had perceived at Paris.
Eustacie gladly retreated to housewifery at Combe Walwyn, but a strenuous endeavour on Lady Thistlewood’s part to marry her stepson to a Dorset king’s daughter, together with the tidings of the renewed war in France, spurred Philip into writing permission from his father to join the King of Navarre as a volunteer.
Years went by, and Philip was only heard of in occasional letters, accompanied by presents to his sisters and to little Rayonette, and telling of marches, exploits, and battles,--how he had taken a standard of the League at Coutras, and how he had led a charge of pikemen at Ivry, for which he received the thanks of Henry IV. But, though so near home, he did not set foot on English ground till the throne of France was secured to the hero of Navarre, and he had marched into Paris in guise very unlike the manner he had left it.
Then home he came, a bronzed gallant-looking warrior, the pride of the county, ready for repose and for aid to his father in his hearty old age, and bearing with him a pressing invitation from the King to Monsieur and Madame de Ribaumont to resume their rank at court. Berenger, who had for many years only known himself as Lord Walwyn, shook his head. ‘I thank the King,’ he said, ‘but I am better content to breed up my children as wholly English. He bade me to return when he should have stirred the witch’s caldron into clearness. Alas! all he has done is to make brilliant colours shine on the vapour thereof. Nay, Phil; I know your ardent love for him, and marvel not at it. Before he joined the Catholic Church I trusted that he might have given truth to the one party, and unity to the other; but when the clergy accepted him with all his private vices, and he surrendered unconditionally, I lost hope. I fear there is worse in store. Queen Catherine did her most fatal work of evil when she corrupted Henry of Navarre.’
‘If you say more, Berry, I shall be ready to challenge you!’ said Philip. ‘When you saw him, you little knew the true king of souls that he is, is greatness, or his love for his country.’
‘Nay, I believe it; but tell me, Philip, did you not hint that you had been among former friends--at Lucon, you said, I think?’
Philip’s face changed. ‘Yes; it was for that I wished to see you alone. My troop had to occupy the place. I had to visit the convent to arrange for quartering my men so as least to scandalize the sisters. The Abbess came to speak to me. I knew her only by her eyes! She is changed--aged, wan, thin with their discipline and fasts--but she once or twice smiled as she alone in old times could smile. The place rings with her devotion, her charity, her penances, and truly her face is’--he could hardly speak--‘like that of a saint. She knew me at once, asked for you all, and bade me tell you that NOW she prays for you and yours continually, and blesses you for having opened to her the way of peace. Ah! Berry, I always told you she had not her equal.’
‘Think you so even now?’
‘How should I not, when I have seen what repentance has made of her?’
‘So!’ said Berenger, rather sorrowfully, ‘our great Protestant champion has still left his heart behind in a French convent.’
‘Stay, Berenger! do you remember yonder villain conjurer’s prediction that I should wed none but a lady whose cognizance was the leopard?’
‘And you seem bent on accomplishing it,’ said Berenger.
‘Nay, but in another manner--that which you devised on the spur of the moment. Berenger, I knew the sorcerer spake sooth when that little moonbeam child of yours brought me the flowers from the rampart. I had speech with her last night. She has all the fair loveliness that belongs of right to your mother’s grandchild, but her eye, blue as it is, has the Ribaumont spirit; the turn of the head and the smile are what I loved long ago in yonder lady, and, above all, she is her own sweet self. Berenger, give me your daughter Berangere, and I ask no portion with her but the silver bullet. Keep the pearls for your son’s heirloom; all I ask with Rayonette is the silver bullet.’
THE END
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{
"id": "5274"
}
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1
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OUT IN A STORM.
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“What do you think of this storm, Joe?”
“I think it is going to be a heavy one, Ned. I wish we were back home,” replied Joe Bodley, as he looked at the heavy clouds which overhung Lake Tandy.
“Do you think we'll catch much rain before we get back?” And Ned, who was the son of a rich man and well dressed, looked at the new suit of clothes that he wore.
“I'm afraid we shall, Ned. Those black clouds back of Mount Sam mean something.” “If this new suit gets soaked it will be ruined,” grumbled Ned, and gave a sigh.
“I am sorry for the suit, Ned; but I didn't think it was going to rain when we started.”
“Oh, I am not blaming you, Joe. It looked clear enough this morning. Can't we get to some sort of shelter before the rain reaches us?”
“We can try.”
“Which is the nearest shelter?”
Joe Bodley mused for a moment.
“The nearest that I know of is over at yonder point, Ned. It's an old hunting lodge that used to belong to the Cameron family. It has been deserted for several years.”
“Then let us row for that place, and be quick about it,” said Ned Talmadge. “I am not going to get wet if I can help it.”
As he spoke he took up a pair of oars lying in the big rowboat he and Joe Bodley occupied. Joe was already rowing and the rich boy joined in, and the craft was headed for the spot Joe had pointed out.
The lake was one located in the central part of the State of Pennsylvania. It was perhaps a mile wide and more than that long, and surrounded by mountains and long ranges of hills. At the lower end of the lake was a small settlement of scant importance and at the upper end, where there was a stream of no mean size, was the town of Riverside. At Riverside were situated several summer hotels and boarding houses, and also the elegant mansion in which Ned Talmadge resided, with his parents and his four sisters.
Joe Bodley was as poor as Ned Talmadge was rich, yet the two lads were quite friendly. Joe knew a good deal about hunting and fishing, and also knew all about handling boats. They frequently went out together, and Ned insisted upon paying the poorer boy for all extra services.
Joe's home was located on the side of the mountain which was just now wrapped in such dark and ominous looking clouds. He lived with Hiram Bodley, an old man who was a hermit. The home consisted of a cabin of two rooms, scantily furnished. Hiram Bodley had been a hunter and guide, but of late years rheumatism had kept him from doing work and Joe was largely the support of the pair,--taking out pleasure parties for pay whenever he could, and fishing and hunting in the between times, and using or selling what was gained thereby.
There was a good deal of a mystery surrounding Joe's parentage. It was claimed that he was a nephew of Hiram Bodley, and that, after the death of his mother and sisters, his father had drifted out to California and then to Australia. What the real truth concerning him was we shall learn later.
Joe was a boy of twelve, but constant life in the open air had made him tall and strong and he looked to be several years older.
He had dark eyes and hair, and was much tanned by the sun. The rowboat had been out a good distance on the lake and a minute before the shore was gained the large drops of rain began to fall.
“We are going to get wet after all!” cried Ned, chagrined.
“Pull for all you are worth and we'll soon be under the trees,” answered Joe.
They bent to the oars, and a dozen more strokes sent the rowboat under a clump of pines growing close to the edge of the lake. Just as the boat struck the bank and Ned leaped out there came a great downpour which made the surface of Lake Tandy fairly sizzle.
“Run to the lodge, Ned; I'll look after the boat!” shouted Joe.
“But you'll get wet.”
“Never mind; run, I tell you!”
Thus admonished, Ned ran for the old hunting lodge, which was situated about two hundred feet away. Joe remained behind long enough to secure the rowboat and the oars and then he followed his friend.
Just as one porch of the old lodge was reached there came a flash of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder that made Ned jump. Then followed more thunder and lightning, and the rain came down steadily.
“Ugh! I must say I don't like this at all,” remarked Ned, as he crouched in a corner of the shelter. “I hope the lightning doesn't strike this place.”
“We can be thankful that we were not caught out in the middle of the lake, Ned.”
“I agree on that, Joe,--but it doesn't help matters much. Oh, dear me!” And Ned shrank down, as another blinding flash of lightning lit up the scene.
It was not a comfortable situation and Joe did not like it any more than did his friend. But the hermit's boy was accustomed to being out in the elements, and therefore was not so impressed by what was taking place.
“The rain will fill the boat,” said Ned, presently.
“Never mind, we can easily bail her out or turn her over.”
“When do you think this storm will stop?”
“In an hour or two, most likely. Such storms never last very long. What time is it, Ned?”
“Half-past two,” answered Ned, after consulting the handsome watch he carried.
“Then, if it clears in two hours, we'll have plenty of time to get home before dark.”
“I don't care to stay here two hours,” grumbled Ned. “It's not a very inviting place.”
“It's better than being out under the trees,” answered Joe, cheerfully. The hermit's boy was always ready to look on the brighter side of things.
“Oh, of course.”
“And we have a fine string of fish, don't forget that, Ned. We were lucky to get so many before the storm came up.”
“Do you want the fish, or are you going to let me take them?”
“I'd like to have one fish. You may take the others.”
“Not unless you let me pay for them, Joe.”
“Oh, you needn't mind about paying me.”
“But I insist,” came from Ned. “I won't touch them otherwise.”
“All right, you can pay me for what I caught.”
“No, I want to pay for all of them. Your time is worth something, and I know you have to support your--the old hermit now.”
“All right, Ned, have your own way. Yes, I admit, I need all the money I get.”
“Is the old hermit very sick?”
“Not so sick, but his rheumatism keeps him from going out hunting or fishing, so all that work falls to me.”
“It's a good deal on your shoulders, Joe.”
“I make the best of it, for there is nothing else to do.”
“By the way, Joe, you once spoke to me about--well, about yourself,” went on Ned, after some hesitation. “Did you ever learn anything more? You need not tell me if you don't care to.”
At these words Joe's face clouded for an instant.
“No, I haven't learned a thing more, Ned.”
“Then you don't really know if you are the hermit's nephew or not?”
“Oh, I think I am, but I don't know whatever became of my father.”
“Does the hermit think he is alive?”
“He doesn't know, and he hasn't any means of finding out.”
“Well, if I were you, I'd find out, some way or other.”
“I'm going to find out--some day,” replied Joe. “But, to tell the truth, I don't know how to go at it. Uncle Hiram doesn't like to talk about it. He thinks my father did wrong to go away. I imagine they had a quarrel over it.”
“Has he ever heard from your father since?”
“Not a word.”
“Did he write?”
“He didn't know where to write to.”
“Humph! It is certainly a mystery, Joe.”
“You are right, Ned; and as I said before, I am going to solve it some time, even if it takes years of work to do it,” replied the hermit's boy.
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{
"id": "528"
}
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2
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A MYSTERIOUS CONVERSATION.
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The old hunting lodge where the two boys had sought shelter was a rambling affair, consisting of a square building built of logs, and half a dozen wings, running to the rear and to one side. There were also two piazzas, and a shed, where wood had been kept for winter use.
“In another year or two this old lodge will fall down,” remarked Ned, as he gazed around him.
“It must have been a nice place in its day,” returned Joe. “What a pity to let it run down in this fashion.”
“The rain is coming around on this side now, Joe; let us shift to the other.”
The hermit's boy was willing, and watching their chance, between the downpours, they ran around to another portion of the old lodge.
“It certainly is a little better here,” observed Joe, as he dashed the water from his cap.
A minute later the rumbling of the thunder ceased for the time being, and they heard a murmur of voices coming from one of the rooms of the lodge.
“Why, somebody must be here!” ejaculated Ned. “Who can it be?”
“Two men, by their voices,” answered the hermit's boy. “Wait till I take a look at them?”
“Why not go in?” questioned the rich youth, carelessly.
“They may not be persons that we would care to meet, Ned. You know there are some undesirable characters about the lake.”
“That's true.”
Not far off was a narrow window, the panes of glass of which had long since been broken out. Moving toward this, Joe peered into the apartment beyond.
Close to an old fireplace, in which a few sticks of half-green timber were burning, sat two men. Both were well dressed, and Joe rightfully surmised that they were from the city. Each wore a hunting outfit and had a gun, but neither had any game.
“We came on a wild-goose chase,” grumbled one, as he stirred the fire. “Got nothing but a soaking for our pains.”
“Never mind, Malone,” returned the other, who was evidently the better educated of the two. “As we had to make ourselves scarce in the city this was as good a place to come to as any.”
“Don't you think they'll look for us here?”
“Why should they? We were sharp enough not to leave any trail behind--at least, I was.”
“Reckon I was just as sharp, Caven.”
“You had to be--otherwise you would have been nabbed.” Gaff Caven chuckled to himself. “We outwitted them nicely, I must say. We deserve credit.”
“I've spent more than half of what I got out of the deal,” went on Pat Malone, for such was the full name of one of the speakers.
“I've spent more than that. But never mind, my boy, fortune will favor us again in the near future.”
A crash of thunder drowned out the conversation following, and Joe hurried back to where he had left Ned.
“Well, have you found out who they are?” demanded the rich youth, impatiently.
“No, Ned, but I am sure of one thing.”
“What is that?”
“They are two bad men.”
“What makes you think that?”
“They said something about having to get out of the city, and one spoke about being nabbed. Evidently they went away to avoid arrest.”
At this announcement Ned Talmadge whistled softly to himself.
“Phew! What shall we do about it?” he asked, with a look of concern on his usually passive face.
Joe shrugged his shoulders.
“I don't know what to do.”
“Let us listen to what they have to say. Maybe we'll strike some clew to what they have been doing.”
“Would that be fair--to play the eaves-dropper?”
“Certainly--if they are evildoers. Anybody who has done wrong ought to be locked up for it,” went on Ned boldly.
With caution the two boys made their way to the narrow window, and Ned looked in as Joe had done. The backs of the two men were still towards the opening, so the lads were not discovered.
“What is this new game?” they heard the man called Malone ask, after a peal of thunder had rolled away among the mountains.
“It's the old game of a sick miner with some valuable stocks to sell,” answered Gaff Caven.
“Have you got the stocks?”
“To be sure--one thousand shares of the Blue Bell Mine, of Montana, said to be worth exactly fifty thousand dollars.”
“Phew! You're flying high, Gaff!” laughed Pat Malone.
“And why not, so long as I sell the stocks?”
“What did they cost you?”
“Well, they didn't cost me fifty thousand dollars,” and Gaff Caven closed one eye suggestively.
“You bet they didn't! More than likely they didn't cost you fifty dollars.”
“What, such elegantly engraved stocks as those?”
“Pooh! I can buy a bushel-basket full of worthless stocks for a dollar,” came from Pat Malone. “But that isn't here nor there. I go into the deal if you give me my fair share of the earnings.”
“I'll give you one-third, Pat, and that's a fair share, I think.”
“Why not make it half?”
“Because I'll do the most of the work. It's no easy matter to find a victim.” And Gaff Caven laughed broadly. He had a good-appearing face, but his eyes were small and not to be trusted.
“All right, I'll go in for a third then. But how soon is the excitement to begin?”
“Oh, in a week or so. I've got the advertisements in the papers already.”
“Not in New York?”
“No, it's Philadelphia this time. Perhaps I'll land one of our Quaker friends.”
“Don't be so sure. The Quakers may be slow but they generally know what they are doing.”
More thunder interrupted the conversation at this point, and when it was resumed the two men talked in such low tones that only an occasional word could be caught by the two boys.
“They surely must be rascals,” remarked Ned, in a whisper. “I'm half of a mind to have them locked up.”
“That's easier said than done,” answered Joe. “Besides, we haven't any positive proofs against them.”
The wind was now rising, and it soon blew so furiously that the two boys were forced to seek the shelter of the woodshed, since they did not deem it wise to enter the lodge so long as the two men were inside. They waited in the shed for fully half an hour, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm let up and the sun began to peep forth from between the scattering clouds.
“Now we can go home if we wish,” said Joe. “But for my part, I'd like to stay and see what those men do, and where they go to.”
“Yes, let us stay by all means,” answered the rich youth.
They waited a few minutes longer and then Ned suggested that they look into the window of the lodge once more. The hermit's boy was willing, and they approached the larger building with caution.
Much to their astonishment the two strangers had disappeared.
“Hullo! what do you make of that?” cried Ned, in amazement.
“Perhaps they are in one of the other rooms,” suggested Joe.
At the risk of being caught, they entered the lodge and looked into one room after another. Every apartment was vacant, and they now saw that the fire in the fireplace had been stamped out.
“They must have left while we were in the woodshed,” said Ned.
“Maybe they are out on the lake,” answered the hermit's boy, and he ran down to the water's edge, followed by his companion. But though they looked in every direction, not a craft of any kind was to be seen.
“Joe, they didn't take to the water, consequently they must have left by one of the mountain paths.”
“That is true, and if they did they'll have no nice time in getting through. All the bushes are sopping wet, and the mud is very slippery in places.”
They walked to the rear of the lodge and soon found the footprints of the two strangers. They led through the bushes and were lost at a small brook that ran into the lake.
“There is no use of our trying to follow this any further,” said Joe. “You'll get your clothing covered with water and mud.”
“I don't intend to follow,” answered Ned. “Just the same, I should like to know more about those fellows.”
“I wish I had seen their faces.”
“Yes, it's a pity we didn't get a better look at them. But I'd know their voices.”
By the time they gave up the hunt the sun was shining brightly. Both walked to where the boat had been left, and Joe turned the craft over so that the water might run out. Then he mopped off the seats as best he could.
Ned wanted to go directly home, and he and Joe rowed the craft in the direction of Riverside. As they passed along the lake shore the hermit's boy noted that several trees had been struck by lightning.
“I'm glad the lightning didn't strike the lodge while we were there,” said he.
“It was certainly a severe storm while it lasted, Joe. By the way, shall I say anything about those two men?”
“Perhaps it won't do any harm to tell your father, Ned.”
“Very well, I'll do it.”
Soon Riverside was reached, and having paid for the fish and the outing, Ned Talmadge walked in the direction of his residence. Joe shoved off from the tiny dock and struck out for his home. He did not dream of the calamity that awaited him there.
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{
"id": "528"
}
|
3
|
A HOME IN RUINS.
|
As Joe rowed toward his home on the mountain side, a good mile from Riverside, he could not help but think of the two mysterious men and of what they had said.
“They were certainly rascals,” he mused. “And from their talk they must have come from New York and are now going to try some game in Philadelphia.”
The hermit's boy was tired out by the day's outing, yet he pulled a fairly quick stroke and it was not long before he reached the dock at which he and Hiram Bodley were in the habit of leaving their boat. He cleaned the craft out, hid the oars in the usual place, and then, with his fishing lines in one hand and a good sized fish in the other, started up the trail leading to the place that he called home.
“What a place to come to, alongside of the one Ned lives in,” he said to himself. “I suppose the Talmadges think this is a regular hovel. I wish we could afford something better,--or at least live in town. It's lonesome here with nobody but old Uncle Hiram around.”
As Joe neared the cabin something seemed to come over him and, for some reason he could not understand, he felt very much depressed in spirits. He quickened his pace, until a turn of the trail brought the homestead into view.
A cry of alarm broke from his lips and with good reason. The little shelter had stood close to a large hemlock tree. The lightning had struck the tree, causing it to topple ever. In falling, it had landed fairly and squarely upon the cabin, smashing it completely. One corner of the cabin was in ashes, but the heavy rain had probably extinguished the conflagration.
“Uncle Hiram!” cried the boy, as soon as he recovered from his amazement. “Uncle Hiram, where are you?”
There was no answer to this call and for the moment Joe's heart seemed to stop beating. Was the old hermit under that pile of ruins? If so it was more than likely he was dead.
Dropping his fish and his lines, the youth sprang to the front of the cabin. The door had fallen to the ground and before him was a mass of wreckage with a small hollow near the bottom. He dropped on his knees and peered inside.
“Uncle Hiram!” he called again.
There was no answer, and he listened with bated breath. Then he fancied he heard a groan, coming from the rear of what was left of the cabin. He ran around to that point and pulled aside some boards and a broken window sash.
“Uncle Hiram, are you here?”
“Joe!” came in a low voice, full of pain. The man tried to say more but could not.
Hauling aside some more boards, Joe now beheld the hermit, lying flat on his back, with a heavy beam resting on his chest. He was also suffering from a cut on the forehead and from a broken ankle.
“This is too bad, Uncle Hiram!” he said, in a trembling voice. “I'll get you out just as soon as I can.”
“Be--be careful, Joe--I--I--my ribs must be broken,” gasped the hermit.
“I'll be careful,” answered the boy, and began to pull aside one board after another. Then he tugged away at the beam but could not budge it.
“Raise it up Joe--it--is--crushing the life ou--out of me,” said the hermit faintly.
“I'll pry it up,” answered the boy, and ran off to get a block of wood. Then he procured a stout pole and with this raised the heavy beam several inches.
“Can you crawl out, Uncle Hiram?”
There was no answer, and Joe saw that the man had fainted from exhaustion. Fixing the pole so it could not slip, he caught hold of the hermit and dragged him to a place of safety.
Joe had never had to care for a hurt person before and he scarcely knew how to proceed. He laid the hermit on the grass and washed his face with water. Soon Hiram Bodley opened his eyes once more.
“My chest!” he groaned. “All of my ribs must be broken! And my ankle is broken, too!” And he groaned again.
“I had better get a doctor, Uncle Hiram.”
“A doctor can't help me.”
“Perhaps he can.”
“I haven't any faith in doctors. A doctor operated on my mother and killed her.”
“But Doctor Gardner is a nice man. He will do all he can for you, I am sure,” urged Joe.
“Well, Dr. Gardner is a good fellow I admit. If you--can--can get him--I'll--I'll--” The sufferer tried to go on but could not.
“I think I can get him. But I hate to leave you alone.” And Joe stared around helplessly. He wished he had Ned with him.
“Never mind--give me a drink--then go,” answered Hiram Bodley. He had often taken Doctor Gardner out to hunt with him and liked the physician not a little.
Inside of five minutes Joe was on the way to the doctor's residence, which was on the outskirts of Riverside. He had left the hermit as comfortable as possible, on a mattress and covered with a cloth to keep off the night air,--for it was now growing late and the sun had set behind the mountains.
Tired though he was the boy pulled with might and main, and so reached the dock of the physician's home in a short space of time. Running up the walk of the neatly-kept garden, he mounted the piazza and rang the bell several times.
“What's the matter?” asked Doctor Gardner, who came himself to answer the summons.
“Our cabin is in ruins, because of the storm, and Mr. Bodley is badly hurt,” answered Joe, and related some of the particulars.
“This is certainly too bad, my boy,” said the physician. “I'll come at once and do what I can for him.”
He ran for a case of instruments and also for some medicines, and then followed Joe back to the boat.
“You act as if you were tired,” said the doctor, after he had watched Joe at the oars for several minutes.
“I am tired, sir--I've been rowing a good deal to-day. But I guess I can make it.”
“Let me row,” said the physician, and took the oars. He was a fine oarsman, and the trip was made in half the time it would have taken Joe to cover the distance.
At the dock there was a lantern, used by Joe and the hermit when they went fishing at night. This was lit, and the two hurried up the trail to the wreck of the cabin.
Hiram Bodley was resting where Joe had left him. He was breathing with difficulty and did not at first recognize the doctor.
“Take it off!” he murmured. “Take it off! It is--is crushing th--the life out of--of me!”
“Mr. Bodley--Hiram, don't you know me?” asked Doctor Gardner, kindly.
“Oh! So it's you? I guess you can't do much, doctor, can you? I--I'm done for!” And a spasm of pain crossed the sufferer's face.
“While there is life there is hope,” answered the physician, noncommittally. He recognized at once that Hiram Bodley's condition was critical.
“He'll get over it, won't he?” questioned Joe, quickly.
The doctor did not answer, but turned to do what he could for the hurt man. He felt of his chest and listened to his breathing, and then administered some medicine.
“His ankle is hurt, too,” said Joe.
“Never mind the ankle just now, Joe,” was the soft answer.
There was something in the tone that alarmed the boy and he caught the physician by the arm.
“Doctor, tell me the truth!” he cried. “Is he is he going to die?”
“I am afraid so, my lad. His ribs are crushed and one of them has stuck into his right lung.”
At these words the tears sprang into the boy's eyes and it was all he could do to keep from crying outright. Even though the old hermit had been rough in his ways, Joe thought a good deal of the man.
“Cannot you do something, doctor,” he pleaded.
“Not here. We might do something in a hospital, but he would not survive the journey. He is growing weaker every moment. Be brave, my lad. It is a terrible trial, I know, but you must remember that all things are for the best.”
Joe knelt beside the sufferer and took hold of his hand. Hiram Bodley looked at him and then at the doctor.
“I--I can't live--I know it,” he said hoarsely. “Joe, stay by me till I die, won't you?”
“Yes!” faltered the boy. “Oh, this is awful!”
“I'm sorry to leave you so soon, Joe--I--I thought I'd be--be able to do something for you some day.”
“You have done something for me, Uncle Hiram.”
“All I've got goes to you, Joe. Doctor, do you hear that?”
“I do.”
“It--it ain't much, but it's something. The blue box--I put it in the blue box--” Here the sufferer began to cough.
“The blue box?” came from Joe questioningly.
“Yes, Joe, all in the blue box--the papers and the money--And the blue box is--is--” Again the sufferer began to cough. “I--I want water!” he gasped.
The water was brought and he took a gulp. Then he tried to speak again, but the effort was in vain. The doctor and Joe raised him up.
“Uncle Hiram! Speak to me!” cried the boy.
But Hiram Bodley was past speaking. He had passed to the Great Beyond.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
4
|
THE SEARCH FOR THE BLUE BOX.
|
Three days after his tragic death Hiram Bodley was buried. Although he was fairly well known in the lake region only a handful of people came to his funeral. Joe was the chief mourner, and it can honestly be said that he was much downcast when he followed the hermit to his last resting place.
After the funeral several asked Joe what he intended to do. He could not answer the question.
“Have you found that blue box?” questioned Doctor Gardner.
“No, sir, I have not thought of it.”
“Probably it contains money and papers of value, Joe.”
“I am going to look for it to-day,” said the boy. “I--I couldn't look for it while--while--” “I understand. Well, I trust you locate the box and that it contains all you hope for,” added the physician.
As luck would have it, Ned Talmadge's family had just gone away on a trip to the West, so Mr. Talmadge could offer the boy no assistance. But Ned was on hand and did what he could.
“You don't know what you'll do next, do you, Joe?” asked Ned, as he and Joe returned to the wreck of the cabin.
“No.”
“Well, if you haven't any money I'll do what I can for you.”
“Thank you, Ned; you are very kind.”
“It must be hard to be thrown out on the world in this fashion,” went on the rich boy, sympathetically.
“It is hard. After all, I thought a good deal of Uncle Hiram. He was strange in his ways, but he had a good heart.”
“Wasn't he shot in the head once by accident in the woods?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that made him queer at times.”
“Perhaps so.”
“I've got six dollars and a half of my spending money saved up. You may have that if you wish,” continued Ned, generously.
“I'd rather not take it, Ned.”
“Why not?”
“If I can, I want to be independent. Besides, I think there is money around somewhere,” and Joe mentioned the missing blue box.
“You must hunt for that blue box by all means!” cried the rich boy. “I'll help you.”
After the death of Hiram Bodley, Joe and two of the lake guides had managed to repair one room of the broken-down cabin, and from this the funeral had taken place.
The room contained a bed, a table, two benches and a few dishes and cooking utensils The floor was bare and the window was broken out. It was truly a most uninviting home.
“Of course you are not going to stay here, now you are alone?” said Ned, after a look around.
“I don't know where else to go, Ned.”
“Why not move into town!”
“Perhaps I will. But I want to find that blue box before I decide on anything.”
Without delay the two boys set to work among the ruins, looking into every hole and corner they could think of and locate. They pulled away heavy boards and logs, and Joe even got a spade and dug up the ground at certain points.
“It doesn't seem to be here,” said Ned, after an hour had passed.
“It must be here,” cried Joe.
“Perhaps it was buried under a tree.”
“That may be true. Anyway, I am certain it is somewhere around this cabin.”
After that the hunt was continued for another hour, and they visited several spots in that locality where Joe thought the blue box might have been placed. But it was all to no purpose, the box failed to come to light.
At last the two boys sat down on a bench in front of the cabin. Both were tired out, Ned especially so. Joe was much downcast and his friend did what he could to cheer him up.
“The box is bound to come to light some day,” said Ned. “That is, unless some of those men carried it off.”
“What men, Ned?”
“The fellows who helped to mend the cabin just before the funeral.”
“Oh, I don't think they would steal the box. Bart Andrews and Jack Thompson are as honest as the day is long.”
“Well, it's mighty queer you can't find some trace of the blue box.”
The boys talked the matter over for some time, and then Ned announced that he must go home.
“You can go with me if you wish,” he said. “It will be better than staying here all alone.”
But Joe declined the offer.
“I'll stay here, and begin the hunt again the first thing in the morning,” he said.
“Well, if you want anything, come and see me, Joe; won't you?”
“I will, Ned.”
Ned had come over in his own boat and now Joe walked down to the lake with him. His friend gone, the hermit's boy returned to the dilapidated cabin.
He was hungry but he had no heart to eat. He munched some bread and cheese which a neighbor had brought over. He felt utterly alone in the great worlds and when he thought of this a strange feeling came over him.
It was a bitter night for the poor boy, but when morning came his mind was made up. He would make his own way in the world, asking aid from no one, not even Ned.
“And if I can't find the blue box I'll get along without it,” he told himself.
As soon as it was light he procured breakfast and then started on another hunt for the missing box. The entire day was spent in the search, but without results. Towards night, Joe went down to the lake. Here he caught a couple of small fish, which he fried for his supper.
All told, Joe had exactly a dollar and a half of his own and nine dollars which he had found in the hermit's pocketbook.
“Ten dollars and a half,” he mused, as he counted the amount over. “Not very much to go out into the world with. If I want to do anything in town I'll have to buy some clothes.”
From this it will be surmised that Joe was thinking of giving up his roving life around the lake and mountains, and this was true.
Hunting and fishing appealed to him only in an uncertain way, and he longed to go forth into the busy world and make something of himself.
He had two suits of clothing, but both were very much worn, and so were his shoes and his cap. Hiram Bodley had left some old clothing, but they were too big for the boy.
“I guess I'll get Jasok the peddler to come up here and make me an offer for what is here,” he told himself.
Jasok was a Hebrew peddler who drove around through the lake region, selling tinware and doing all sorts of trading. It was time for him to visit that neighborhood and Joe went to the nearest house on the main road and asked about the man.
“He will most likely be along to-morrow, Joe,” said the neighbor.
“If he comes, Mr. Smith, will you send him over to my place? Tell him I want an offer for the things.”
“Going to sell out, Joe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What are you going to do after that?”
“Try for some job in town.”
“That's a good idea. Hunting and fishing isn't what it used to be. What do you want for the things?”
“All I can get,” and a brief smile hovered on Joe's face.
“I wouldn't sell out too cheap. Jasok is a great fellow to drive a bargain.”
“If he won't give me a fair price, I'll load the things on the rowboat and sell them in town.”
“That's an idea. Do you want to sell Hiram's double-barrel shot gun?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I'll give you ten dollars for it.”
“I was going to ask twelve, Mr. Smith. It's a pretty good gun.”
“So it is, although it is a little bit old-fashioned. Well, bring it over and I'll allow you twelve dollars,” answered the neighbor, who was willing to assist Joe all he could.
Joe went back for the gun without delay, and received his money. Then he returned to the cabin and brought out all the goods he wished to sell.
By the middle of the next day the Hebrew peddler appeared. At first he declared that all of the things Joe had to sell were not worth two dollars.
“Very well, if you think that, we won't talk about it,” said Joe, briefly.
“Da vos all vorn out,” said Jasok. “De clothes vos rags, and de furniture an' dishes was kracked.”
“If you don't want them, I'll take them to town and sell them. I am sure Moskowsky will buy them.”
Now it happened that Moskowsky was a rival peddler who also boasted of the ownership of a second-hand store. To think that the goods might go to this man nettled Jasok exceedingly.
“Vell, I likes you, Cho,” he said. “I vos your friend, an' I gif you dree dollars for dem dings.”
“You can have them for ten dollars,” answered the boy.
A long talk followed, and in the end the Hebrew peddler agreed to pay seven dollars and a half, providing Joe would help to carry the goods to the main road, where the wagon had been left. The money was paid over, and by nightfall all of the goods were on the wagon, and Joe was left at the cabin with nothing but the suit on his back. But he had thirty dollars in his pocket, which he counted over with great satisfaction.
“I ought to be able to get something to do before that is gone,” he told himself. “If I don't, it will be my own fault.”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
5
|
A NEW SUIT OF CLOTHES.
|
On the following day it rained early in the morning, so Joe had to wait until noon before he left the old cabin. He took with him all that remained of his possessions, including the precious pocketbook with the thirty dollars. When he thought of the blue box he sighed.
“Perhaps it will never come to light,” he told himself. “Well, if it does not I'll have to make the best of it.”
Two o'clock found him on the streets of Riverside, which was a town of fair size. During the summer months many visitors were in the place and the hotels and boarding houses were crowded.
There was one very fine clothing store in Riverside, but Joe did not deem it best, with his limited capital, to go there for a suit. Instead he sought out a modest establishment on one of the side streets.
Just ahead of him was an Irish couple who had evidently not been in this country many years. The man entered the store awkwardly, as if he did not feel at home. Not so his wife, who walked a little in advance of her husband.
“Have you got any men's coats?” said she to the clerk who came forward to wait on the pair. “If I can get one cheap for me husband here I'll buy one.”
“Oh, yes, madam,” was the ready reply. “We have the best stock in town, by all odds. You can't fail to be suited.”
So saying, he led the way to a counter piled high with the articles called for, and hauled them over.
“There,” said he, pulling out one of a decidedly ugly pattern. “There is one of first quality cloth. It was made for a gentleman of this town, but did not exactly fit him, and so we'll sell it cheap.”
“And what is the price?”
“Three dollars.”
“Three dollars!” exclaimed the Irish lady, lifting up her hands in extreme astonishment.
“Three dollars! You'll be afther thinkin' we're made of money, sure! I'll give you a dollar and a half.”
“No, ma'am, we don't trade in that way. We don't very often take half what we ask for an article.”
“Mike,” said she, “pull off yer coat an' thry it on. Three dollars, and it looks as if it was all cotton.”
“Not a thread of cotton in that,” was the clerk's reply.
“Not wan, but a good many, I'm thinkin',” retorted the Irish lady, as she helped her husband draw on the coat. It fitted tolerably well and Mike seemed mightily pleased with his transformation.
“Come,” said the wife. “What will ye take?”
“As it's you, I'll take off twenty-five cents,” replied the clerk.
“And sell it to me for two dollars?” inquired his customer, who had good cause for her inaccurate arithmetic.
“For two dollars and seventy-five cents.”
“Two dollars and seventy-five cents! It's taking the bread out of the childer's mouths you'd have us, paying such a price as that! I'll give you two twenty-five, an' I'll be coming again some time.”
“We couldn't take so low as two twenty-five, ma'am. You may have it for two dollars and a half.”
After another ineffectual attempt to get it for two dollars and a quarter, the Irish woman finally offered two dollars and forty-five cents, and this offer was accepted.
She pulled out a paper of change and counted out two dollars and forty cents, when she declared that she had not another cent. But the clerk understood her game and coolly proceeded to put the coat back on the pile. Then the woman very opportunely found another five-cent piece stored away in the corner of her pocket.
“It's robbin' me, ye are,” said she as she paid it over.
“Oh, no, ma'am, you are getting a great bargain,” answered the clerk.
Joe had witnessed the bargaining with a good deal of quiet amusement. As soon as the Irish couple had gone the clerk came toward the boy.
“Well, young man, what can I do for you?” he asked, pleasantly.
“I want a suit of clothing. Not an expensive suit, but one guaranteed to be all wool.”
“A light or a dark suit?”
“A dark gray.”
“I can fit you out in a fine suit of this order,” and the clerk pointed to several lying in a heap nearby.
“I don't want that sort. I want something on the order of those in the window marked nine dollars and a half.”
“Oh, all right.”
Several suits were brought forth, and one was found that fitted Joe exceedingly well.
“You guarantee this to be all wool?” asked the boy.
“Every thread of it.”
“Then I'll take it.”
“Very well; the price is twelve dollars.”
“Isn't it like that in the window?”
“On that order, but a trifle better.”
“It seems to me to be about the same suit. I'll give you nine dollars and a half.”
“I can't take it. I'll give it to you for eleven and a half. That is our best figure.”
“Then I'll go elsewhere for a suit,” answered Joe, and started to leave the clothing establishment.
“Hold on, don't be so fast!” cried the clerk, catching him by the arm. “I'll make it eleven and a quarter.”
“Not a cent more than the advertised price, nine and a half,” replied Joe, firmly.
“Oh, but this isn't the same suit.”
“It's just like it, to my eye. But you needn't sell it for that if you don't want it. Mason & Harris are offering some bargains, I believe.”
“You can get a better bargain here than anywhere in this town, or in Philadelphia either,” answered the clerk, who did not intend to let his prospective customer get away. “We'll make it an even eleven dollars and say no more about it.”
Instead of answering Joe started once more for the door.
“Hold on!”
“I haven't got time.”
“Make it ten and a half. At that price we are losing exactly half a dollar on that suit.”
“Not a cent over what I offered.”
“We can't sell suits at such a loss. It would ruin us.”
“Then don't do it. I think Mason & Harris have some good suits very cheap. And they are quite up-to-date, too,” added Joe.
“Our suits are the best in town, young man. Take this one for an even ten dollar bill.”
“I will if you'll throw in one of those half dollar caps,” answered our hero.
“Well, have your own way, but it's a sacrifice,” grumbled the clerk.
He wanted to wrap up the suit, but, afraid he might substitute something else, Joe insisted upon donning the suit then and there and likewise the new cap. Then he had the old articles of wearing apparel done up into a bundle and paid over the ten dollars.
“You're pretty smart after a bargain,” said the clerk.
“I've got to be--when I strike such fellows as you,” was the reply.
“You got a better bargain than that Irish woman did.”
“I did--if the suit is all wool. But if it's cotton, I'm stuck,” returned our hero, and with his bundle under his arm he walked from the store.
He had left his rowboat in charge of an old boatman named Ike Fairfield, and now he walked down to the boathouse.
“Just in time, Joe,” said the old boatman. “Want to earn a dollar?”
“To be sure I do,” answered our hero.
“A party of ladies want a long row around the lake. You can have the job.”
“All right, Ike.”
“I charged them a dollar and a quarter. I'll keep the quarter for my commission.”
“That is fair.”
“One of the ladies said she wanted somebody that looked pretty decent. I think you'll fill the bill with that new suit.”
“I didn't expect to wear the suit out on the lake, but in this case I'll keep it on,” answered Joe.
“I find it pays to keep well dressed, when you take out the summer boarders,” answered the old boatman. “And it pays to keep the boats in good shape, too.”
“Where am I to get the party?”
“Over to the dock of Mallison's Hotel. One of the ladies is Mallison's niece.”
“Why don't they take a hotel boat?”
“All engaged, two days ago. It's a busy season. But I've got to be going. You had better go over to the dock at once. They want to go out at three o'clock sharp.”
“Very well, I'll be on hand,” answered our hero.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
6
|
AN ACCIDENT ON THE LAKE.
|
Joe certainly presented a neat appearance when he rowed over to the hotel dock. Before going he purchased a new collar and a dark blue tie, and these, with his new suit and new cap, set him off very well.
The boat had been cleaned in the morning, and when the ladies appeared they inspected the craft with satisfaction.
“What a nice clean boat,” said Mabel Mallison, the niece of the proprietor of the hotel.
“And a nice clean boatman, too,” whispered one of her friends. “I couldn't bear that man we had day before yesterday, with his dirty hands and the tobacco juice around his mouth.”
The ladies to go out were four in number, and two sat in the bow and two in the stern. It made quite a heavy load, but as they were not out for speed our hero did not mind it.
“We wish to go up to Fern Rock,” said Mabel Mallison. “They tell me there are some beautiful ferns to be gathered there.”
“There are,” answered Joe. “I saw them last week.”
“And I wish to get some nice birch bark if I can,” said another of the ladies.
“I can get you plenty of it.”
Joe rowed along in his best style, and while doing so the ladies of the party asked him numerous questions concerning the lake and vicinity. When Fern Rock was reached, all went ashore, and our hero pointed out the ferns he had seen, and dug up such as the others wished to take along. An hour was spent over the ferns, and in getting some birch bark, and then they started on the return for the hotel.
“I'd like to row,” cried one of the ladies, a rather plump personage.
“Oh, Jennie, I don't think you can!” cried another.
“Of course I can,” answered Jennie, and sprang up from her seat to take the oars.
“Be careful!” came in a warning from Joe, as the boat began to rock.
“Oh, I'm not afraid!” said the plump young lady, and leaned forward to catch hold of one oar. Just then her foot slipped and she fell on the gunwale, causing the boat to tip more than ever. As she did this, Mabel Mallison, who was leaning over the side, gazing down into the clear waters of the lake, gave a shriek.
“Oh, save me!” came from her, and then she went over, with a loud splash.
Joe was startled, and the ladies left in the boat set up a wail of terror.
“She will be drowned!”
“Oh, save her! Save her, somebody!”
“It is my fault!” shrieked the plump young lady. “I tipped the boat over!”
Joe said nothing, but looked over the side of the boat. He saw the body of Mabel Mallison not far away. But it was at the lake bottom and did not offer to rise.
“It's queer she doesn't come up,” he thought.
Then he gave a second look and saw that the dress of the unfortunate one was caught in some sharp rocks. Without hesitation he dived overboard, straight for the bottom.
It was no easy matter to unfasten the garment, which was caught in a crack between two heavy stones. But at the second tug it came free, and a moment later both our hero and Mabel Mallison came to the surface.
“Oh!” cried two of the ladies in the row-boat. “Is she drowned?”
“I trust not,” answered Joe. “Sit still, please, or the boat will surely go over.”
As best he could Joe hoisted Mabel into the craft and then clambered in himself. As he did so the unfortunate girl gave a gasp and opened her eyes.
“Oh!” she murmured.
“You are safe now, Mabel!” said one of her companions.
“And to think it was my fault!” murmured the plump young lady. “I shall never forgive myself as long as I live!”
Mabel Mallison had swallowed some water, but otherwise she was unhurt. But her pretty blue dress was about ruined, and Joe's new suit did not look near as well as it had when he had donned it.
“Let us row for the hotel,” said one of the young ladies. “Are you all right?” she asked of Joe.
“Yes, ma'am, barring the wetting.”
“It was brave of you to go down after Mabel.”
“Indeed it was!” cried that young lady. “If it hadn't been for you I might have been drowned.” And she gave a deep shudder.
“I saw she was caught and that's why I went over after her,” answered our hero simply. “It wasn't so much to do.”
All dripping as he was, Joe caught up the oars of the boat and sent the craft in the direction of the hotel at a good speed. That she might not take cold, a shawl was thrown over Mabel's wet shoulders.
The arrival of the party at the hotel caused a mild sensation. Mabel hurried to her room to put on dry clothing, and Joe was directed to go around to the kitchen. But when the proprietor of the place had heard what Joe had done for his niece he sent the lad to a private apartment and provided him with dry clothing belonging to another who was of our hero's size.
“That was a fine thing to do, young man,” said the hotel proprietor, when Joe appeared, dressed in the dry garments, and his own clothing had been sent to the laundry to be dried and pressed.
“I'm glad I was there to do it, Mr. Mallison.”
“Let me see, aren't you Hiram Bodley's boy?”
“I lived with Mr. Bodley, yes.”
“That is what I mean. It was a terrible accident that killed him. Are you still living at the tumbled-down cabin?”
“No, sir. I've just sold off the things, and I am going to settle in town.”
“Where?”
“I haven't decided that yet. I was going to hunt up a place when Ike Fairfield gave me the job of rowing out the young ladies.”
“I see. You own the boat, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ought to be able to make a fair living, taking out summer boarders.”
“I suppose so, but that won't give me anything to do this winter.”
“Well, perhaps something else will turn up by that time.” Andrew Mallison drew out a fat wallet. “I want to reward you for saving Mabel.”
He drew out two ten-dollar bills and held them towards our hero. But Joe shook his head and drew back.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Mallison, but I don't want any reward.”
“But you have earned it fairly, my lad.”
“I won't touch it. If you want to help me you can throw some odd rowing jobs from the hotel in my way.”
“Then you won't really touch the money?”
“No, sir.”
“How would you like to work for the hotel regularly?”
“I'd like it first-rate if it paid.”
“I can guarantee you regular work so long as the summer season lasts.”
“And what would it pay?”
“At least a dollar a day, and your board.”
“Then I'll accept and with thanks for your kindness.”
“When can you come?”
“I'm here already.”
“That means that you can stay from now on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don't suppose you want the job of hauling somebody from the lake every day,” said Andrew Mallison, with a smile.
“Not unless I was dressed for it, Mr. Mallison. Still, it has been the means of getting me a good position.”
“I shall feel safe in sending out parties with you for I know you will do your best to keep them from harm.”
“I'll certainly do that, I can promise you.”
“To-morrow you can take out two old ladies who wish to be rowed around the whole lake and shown every point of interest. Of course you know all the points.”
“Yes, sir, I know every foot of ground around the lake, and I know the mountains, too.”
“Then there will be no difficulty in keeping you busy. I am glad to take you on. I am short one man--or will be by to-night. I am going to let Sam Cullum go, for he drinks too much.”
“Well, you won't have any trouble with me on that score.”
“Don't you drink?”
“Not a drop, sir.”
“I am glad to hear it, and it is to your credit,” concluded the hotel proprietor.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
7
|
BLOWS AND KIND DEEDS.
|
Several days passed and Joe went out half a dozen times on the lake with parties from the hotel. All whom he served were pleased with him and treated him so nicely that, for the time being, his past troubles were forgotten.
At the beginning of the week Ned Talmadge came to see him.
“I am going away to join the folks out West,” said Ned.
“I hope you will have a good time,” answered our hero.
“Oh, I'm sure to have that, Joe. By the way, you are nicely settled here, it would seem.”
“Yes, and I am thankful for it.”
“Mr. Mallison is a fine man to work for, so I have been told. You had better stick to him.”
“I shall--as long as the work holds out.”
“Maybe he will give you something else to do, after the boating season is over.”
A few more words passed, and then Ned took his departure. It was to be a long time before the two friends would meet again.
So far Joe had had no trouble with anybody around the hotel, but that evening, when he was cleaning out his boat, a man approached him and caught him rudely by the shoulder.
“So you're the feller that's took my job from me, eh?” snarled the newcomer.
Our hero looked up and recognized Sam Cullum, the boatman who had been discharged for drinking. Even now the boatman was more than half under the influence of intoxicants.
“I haven't taken anybody's job from him,” answered Joe.
“I say yer did!” growled Cullum. “It ain't fair, nuther!”
To this our hero did not reply, but went on cleaning out his boat.
“Fer two pins I'd lick yer!” went on the tipsy boatman, lurching forward.
“See here, Sam Cullum, I want you to keep your distance,” said Joe, sharply. “Mr. Mallison discharged you for drinking. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I don't drink; leastwise, I don't drink no more'n I need.”
“Yes, you do. It would be the best thing in the world for you if you'd leave liquor alone entirely.”
“Humph! don't you preach to me, you little imp!”
“Then leave me alone.”
“You stole the job from me an' I'm going to lick you for it.”
“If you touch me you'll get hurt,” said Joe, his eyes flashing. “Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone.”
“Bah!” snarled the other, and struck out awkwardly. He wanted to hit Joe on the nose, but the boy dodged with ease, and Sam Cullum fell sprawling over the rowboat.
“Hi! what did ye trip me up for?” spluttered the half-intoxicated man, as he rose slowly. “Don't you do that ag'in, do yer hear?”
“Then don't try to strike me again.”
There was a moment of silence and then Sam Cullum gathered himself for another blow. By this time a small crowd of boys and hotel helpers began to collect.
“Sam Cullum's going to fight Joe Bodley!”
“Sam'll most kill Joe!”
With all his strength the man rushed at Joe. But the boy dodged again and put out his foot and the man went headlong.
“Now will you let me alone?” asked our hero, coolly.
“No, I won't!” roared Sam Cullum. “Somebody give me a club! I'll show him!”
Arising once more, he caught up an oar and launched a heavy blow at Joe's head. For a third time our hero dodged, but the oar struck him on the arm, and the blow hurt not a little.
Joe was now angry and believed it was time to defend himself. He edged towards the end of the dock and Sam Cullum followed. Then, of a sudden the boy ducked under the man's arm, turned, and gave him a quick shove that sent him with a splash into the lake.
“Hurrah! score one for Joe!”
“That will cool Sam Cullum's temper.”
“Yes, and perhaps it will sober him a little,” came from a man standing by, who had witnessed the quarrel from the beginning. “He brought this on himself; the boy had nothing to do with it.”
Sam Cullum floundered around in the water like a whale cast up in the shallows. The lake at that point was not over four feet deep, but he did not know enough to stand upright.
“Save me!” he bellowed. “Save me! I don't want to drown!”
“Swallow a little water, it will do you good!” said a bystander, with a laugh.
“Walk out and you'll be all right,” added another.
At last Sam Cullum found his feet and walked around the side of the dock to the shore. A crowd followed him and kept him from going at Joe again.
“I'll fix him another time,” growled the intoxicated one, and shuffled off, with some small boys jeering him.
“You treated him as he deserved,” said one of the other boatmen to Joe.
“I suppose he'll try to square up another time,” answered our hero.
“Well, I wouldn't take water for him, Joe.”
“I don't intend to. If he attacks me I'll do the best I can to defend myself.”
“He has made a nuisance of himself for a long time. It's a wonder to me that Mr. Mallison put up with it so long.”
“He was short of help, that's why. It isn't so easy to get new help in the height of the summer season.”
“That is true.”
Joe expected to have more trouble with Sam Cullum the next day but it did not come. Then it leaked out that Cullum had gotten into a row with his wife and some of her relatives that night and was under arrest. When the boatman was brought up for trial the Judge sentenced him to six months' imprisonment.
“And it serves him right,” said the man who brought the news to Joe.
“It must be hard on his wife.”
“Well, it is, Joe.”
“Have they any children?”
“Four--a boy of seven and three little girls.”
“Are they well off?”
“What, with such a father? No, they are very poor. She used to go out washing, but now she has to stay at home to take care of the baby. Sam was a brute to strike her. I don't wonder the relatives took a hand.”
“Perhaps the relatives can help her.”
“They can't do much, for they are all as poor as she is, and one of them is just getting over an operation at the hospital.”
“Where do the Cullums live?”
“Down on Railroad Alley, not far from the water tower. It's a mite of a cottage.”
Joe said no more, but what he had been told him set him to thinking, and that evening, after his work was over, he took a walk through the town and in the direction of Railroad Alley.
Not far from the water station he found the Cullum homestead, a mite of a cottage, as the man had said, with a tumbled-down chimney and several broken-out windows. He looked in at one of the windows and by the light of a smoking kerosene lamp beheld a woman in a rocking-chair, rocking a baby to sleep. Three other youngsters were standing around, knowing not what to do. On a table were some dishes, all bare of food.
“Mamma, I want more bread,” one of the little ones was saying.
“You can have more in the morning, Johnny,” answered the mother.
“No, I want it now,” whimpered the youngster. “I'm hungry.”
“I'm hungry, too,” put in another little one.
“I can't give you any more to-night, for I haven't it,” said the mother, with a deep sigh. “Now, be still, or you'll wake the baby.”
“Why don't dad come home?” asked the boy of seven.
“He can't come home, Bobby--he--had to go away,” faltered the mother. “Now all be still, and you shall have more bread in the morning.”
The children began to cry, and unable to stand the sight any longer Joe withdrew. Up the Alley was a grocery store and he almost ran to this.
“Give me some bread,” he said, “and some cake, and a pound of cheese, and some smoked beef, and a pound of good tea, and some sugar. Be quick, please.”
The goods were weighed out and wrapped up, and with his arms full he ran back to the cottage and kicked on the door.
“Who is there?” asked Mrs. Cullum, in alarm.
“Here are some groceries for you!” cried Joe. “All paid for!”
“Oh, look!” screamed the boy of seven. “Bread, and cheese!”
“And sugar!” came from one of the little girls.
“And tea! Mamma, just what you like!” said another.
“Where did this come from?” asked Mrs. Cullum.
“A friend,” answered Joe. “It's all paid for.”
“I am very thankful.”
“Now we can have some bread, can't we?” queried the boy.
“Yes, and a bit of smoked beef and cheese, too,” said the mother, and placing the sleeping baby on a bed, she proceeded to deal out the good things to her children.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
8
|
THE TIMID MR. GUSSING.
|
It was not until the children had been satisfied and put to bed that Joe had a chance to talk to Mrs. Cullum. She was greatly astonished when she learned who he was.
“I didn't expect this kindness,” said she. “I understand that my husband treated you shamefully.”
“It was the liquor made him do it ma'am,” answered our hero. “I think he'd be all right if he'd leave drink alone.”
“Yes, I am sure of it!” She gave a long sigh. “He was very kind and true when we were first married. But then he got to using liquor and--and--this is the result.”
“Perhaps he will turn over a new leaf when he comes out of jail.”
“I hope he does. If he doesn't, I don't know what I am going to do.”
“Have you anything to do?”
“I used to wash for two families in town but they have regular hired help now.”
“Perhaps you can get more work, if you advertise. If you'll allow me, I'll put an advertisement in the Riverside News for you.”
“Thank you. I don't see what makes you so kind.”
“Well, I have been down in the world myself, Mrs. Cullum, so I know how to feel for others.”
“Did you say you used to live with Bodley, the hermit?”
“Yes.”
“My folks used to know him. He was rather a strange man after he got shot by accident.”
“Yes, but he was kind.”
“Are you his son?”
“No. He said I was his nephew. But I never found out much about that.”
“Oh, yes, I remember something about that. He had a brother who lost his wife and several children. Are you that man's son?”
“I believe I am.”
“And you have never heard from your father?”
“Not a word.”
“That is hard on you.”
“I am going to look for my father some day.”
“If so, I hope you will find him.”
“So do I.” Joe arose. “I must be going.” He paused. “Mrs. Cullum, will you let me help you?” he added, earnestly.
“Why, you have helped me a good deal already. Not one in a thousand would do what you have done--after the way my husband treated you.”
“I thought that you might be short of money.”
“I must confess I am.”
“I am not rich but, if you can use it, I can let you have five dollars.”
“I'll accept it as a loan. I don't want you to give me the money,” answered the poor woman. She thought of the things she absolutely needed, now that her husband was gone.
The money was handed over, and a few minutes later Joe took his departure. Somehow his heart felt very light because of his generosity. He had certainly played the part of a friend in need.
But he did not stop there. Early in the morning he sought out Andrew Mallison and told the hotel proprietor of Mrs. Cullum's condition.
“I was thinking that you might be able to give her work in the hotel laundry,” he continued.
The hotel man called up the housekeeper and from her learned that another woman could be used to iron.
“You can let her come and we'll give her a trial,” said he.
It did not take Joe long to communicate with the poor woman, and she was overjoyed to see work in sight, without waiting for an advertisement in the newspaper.
“I'll go at once,” said she. “I'll get a neighbor's girl to mind the children.” And she was as good as her word. As it happened, she proved to be a good laundress, and Mr. Mallison gave her steady employment until her husband came from jail. Then, much to his wife's satisfaction, Sam Cullum turned over a new leaf and became quite sober and industrious.
Joe was now becoming well acquainted around the hotel and took an interest in many of the boarders.
Among the number was a young man named Felix Gussing. He was a nice individual in his way, but had certain peculiarities. One was that he was exceedingly afraid of horses and at every possible opportunity he gave them as wide a berth as possible.
“Don't like them at all, don't you know,” he said, to Joe, during a boat ride. “Can't understand them at all.”
“Oh, I think a good horse is very nice,” answered our hero.
“But they are so--so balkish--so full of kicking,” insisted Felix Gussing.
“Well, I admit some of them are,” answered Joe.
There were two young ladies stopping at the hotel and the young man had become quite well acquainted with both of them. One he thought was very beautiful and was half tempted to propose to her.
On the day after the boat ride with Joe, Felix Gussing took the ladies to have some ice cream, and during the conversation all spoke of a certain landmark of interest located about three miles from Riverside.
“I have seen it and it is--aw--very interesting,” drawled Felix.
“Then we must see it, Belle,” said one of the young ladies, to her companion.
“Oh, I'm not going to walk that far,” answered Belle, with a bewitching look at the young man.
“You might drive over,” suggested Felix, without stopping to think twice.
“Oh, yes, I love driving!” cried one of the girls.
“And so do I!” answered the other.
“I will find out what can be done about a conveyance,” answered Felix.
Being a good deal of a dude, and dressing very fastidiously, he did not much relish visiting the livery stable attached to the hotel. But, early on the following morning, he walked down to the place, and ordered a horse and carriage, to be ready at ten o'clock.
Now it must be known that Felix did not intend to drive the carriage. He thought the young ladies would drive for themselves, since both had said that they loved driving. Unfortunate man! he knew not the snare he had laid for himself!
Punctual to the minute the carriage drove up to the door.
Felix was on hand, standing on the steps, with politeness in his air, though with trembling in his heart because so near the horses. He assisted the ladies in. Then he handed the reins to Miss Belle.
“Do you wish me to hold the horses while you get in?” she asked sweetly.
“Till I get in!” ejaculated Felix, taken aback.
“Certainly! You don't think we are going to drive ourselves, do you? Of course you are going with us.”
Poor Felix! He was “in for it” now, decidedly. It required a good deal of moral courage, a quality in which he was deficient, to resist a lady's demand. His knees trembled with fear as he scrambled in. Joe, who was standing not far away, looked on with a quiet smile on his face. He realized what was passing in the dude's mind.
“He'd give ten dollars to get out of it,” our hero told himself.
The boy who had brought the turnout around looked at Felix Gussing earnestly.
“Take care of that horse, mister,” said he, warningly. “He's young and a little bit wild.”
“Wild?” gasped the dude. “I--I don't want to drive a wild horse.”
“Oh, he'll be all right if you keep an eye on him,” went on the stable boy.
“Young and a little bit wild!” thought Felix to himself. “Oh, dear, what in the world shall I do? I never drove a horse before. If I get back with less than a broken neck I'll be lucky! I'd give a thousand to be out of this pickle.”
“Hadn't we better start, Mr. Gussing?” asked one of the young ladies, after a pause.
“Oh, yes--certainly!” he stammered. “But--er--you can drive if you wish.”
“Thank you, but I would prefer that you drive.”
“Won't you drive?” he asked of the other young lady.
“Oh, no, not to-day. But I'll use the whip if you say so,” she answered.
“Not for the world!” cried the unhappy Felix. “He is a bit wild already and there is no telling what he'd do if he felt the whip.”
At last the carriage drove off. Joe gazed after it thoughtfully.
“Unless I miss my guess, there is going to be trouble before that drive is over,” he thought. And there was trouble, as we shall soon learn.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
9
|
AN UNFORTUNATE OUTING.
|
Fortunately for the unhappy Felix the horse walked away from the hotel in an orderly fashion, and soon they gained the highway leading to the resort the party wished to visit.
Had the dude left the horse alone all might have gone well. But he deemed it necessary to pull on first one line and then the other, which kept the carriage in a meandering course.
“I don't think, Mr. Gussing, that you can be much used to driving,” said one of the young ladies, presently.
“That's a fact,” answered the dude.
“Why don't you keep to the right of the road?”
“Well,--er--the fact is, this horse is a very difficult one to drive. I don't believe I ever drove one which was more so.”
As this was the first horse Mr. Gussing had ever driven, this assertion was true in every particular.
“Oh, I can't travel so slow!” cried one of the young ladies, and seized the whip, and before Felix could stop her, used it on the steed.
The effect was magical. The horse started up like a racer, and tore through the street as if trying to win a race for a thousand dollars.
The dude clung to the reins in the wildest terror. To his frenzied imagination it seemed that his final hour was approaching.
“Whoa!” he screamed, jerking on the lines. “Stop, you crazy beast! Stop, before we all get killed!”
But the horse only went the faster. And now, to increase his alarm, he saw a buggy approaching from the opposite direction. It contained one of the town lawyers, Silas Simms by name.
“We shall run into that buggy!” screamed the fair Belle. “Oh, Mr. Gussing, be careful!”
A moment later the two turnouts came together with a crash, and one wheel was torn from the buggy and the town lawyer pitched out headlong to the ground. Then on went the carriage with the dude and the two young ladies, at a faster pace than ever.
“Let me jump out!” screamed one of the ladies.
“No, not yet! You'll be killed, Grace,” answered Belle.
“Then stop the carriage!”
Alas, the poor Felix was already doing his best to stop the horse. But his jerkings on the reins only added to the horse's wildness.
Not far along the road was a good sized brook, spanned by a neat wooden bridge. As the carriage neared the bridge, Felix pulled on the wrong rein once again. The horse turned from the road proper, and descended full speed into the stream itself.
“Oh, now we'll be drowned!” shrieked Grace.
But she was mistaken. The stream was easily fordable, so there was no danger on that score. But the rate at which they were impelled through the water naturally created no inconsiderable splashing, so that on emerging on the other side the dude, as well as the young ladies, were well drenched.
To the great joy of Felix the contact with the water cooled the ardor of the steed, so that he resumed the journey at a far more moderate rate of speed.
“Wasn't it just glorious!” cried Belle, who, after the danger seemed past, grew enthusiastic. “What a noble animal!”
“Glorious?” echoed the dude. “I don't care much about such glory. As for the noble animal--I--er--I wish he was hung! That's the best he deserves.”
The dude spoke bitterly, for the spell of terror was still on him. Had he consulted his own wishes he would have leaped from the carriage and left the ladies to their fate.
But the thought of the bewitching Belle made him keep his seat, and he resolved that if he must die he would do it like a martyr.
The horse went on, and at last they neared the end of the short journey. But here a new obstacle presented itself. There was a big fence and a gate, and the gate was tight shut.
As they could not enter the grounds without opening the gate, the dude got down out of the carriage. He did not hand the reins to either of the ladies but laid them over the dashboard.
The instant the gate was swung open the steed darted forward, and brought up with a jerk against a post that happened to be in the way. Here he reared and plunged, causing the young ladies to scream “murder” at the top of their voices.
“Oh, my! Oh, dear me!” bawled Felix, and took refuge behind a neighboring hedge. “The horse has gone crazy! He'll bite somebody next!”
The cries reached some men who were not far off, and they came running to the assistance of the party. One caught the steed by the bridle and soon had him quieted down.
“I'll never drive that horse again!” said the dude. “Not for a million dollars!”
“How are we to get home?” queried Belle.
“I'll drive you,” said one of the men. “I know this horse. He used to belong to Bill Perkins. I know how to handle him.”
“Then do so,” answered Felix, “and I'll pay you two dollars.”
The man was as good as his word, and to Felix's astonishment he made the horse go back to the hotel without the slightest mishap. Then the horse was put in the stable, the dude paid the bill, and the party separated.
“I shall never drive again, never!” declared the dude to himself, and it may be added that he kept his word.
“I hope you had a nice drive,” said Joe, when he met Felix that evening.
“It was beastly, don't you know,” was the answer. “That horse was a terribly vicious creature.”
“He looked to be gentle enough when he started off.”
“I think he is a crazy horse.”
“By the way, Mr. Gussing, Mr. Silas Simms was looking for you.”
“You mean that lawyer who drives the spotted white horse?”
“Yes.”
Felix gave a groan.
“He says he wants damages.”
“It wasn't my fault that the horse ran into him.”
“Well, he is very angry about it, anyway,” said our hero.
Early the next morning Felix Gussing received a communication from the lawyer. It was in the following terms:-- “MR. GUSSING. Sir:--In consequence of your reckless driving yesterday, I was thrown from my carriage, receiving a contusion on my shoulder and other injuries. My carriage was also nearly ruined. If you choose to make a race-course of the public highways you must abide the consequences. The damage I have sustained I cannot estimate at less than one hundred and fifty dollars. Indemnify me for that and I will go no further. Otherwise, I shall be compelled to resort to legal action.
“SILAS SIMMS, Atty.” Felix read the letter several times and his knees shook visibly. He did not want to pay over such an amount, yet it struck him with terror when he thought he might possibly be arrested for fast driving. He went to see Mr. Silas Simms.
“I am very sorry,” he began.
“Have you come to pay?” demanded the attorney, curtly.
“Well--er--the fact is--don't you think you are asking rather a stiff price, Mr. Simms?”
“Not at all! Not at all, sir! I ought to have placed the damages at three hundred!”
“I'll give you fifty dollars and call it square.”
“No, sir, a hundred and fifty! Not a penny less, not one penny! Look at my nose, sir--all scratched! And my ear! Not a penny less than one hundred and fifty dollars!” And the lawyer pounded on his desk with his fist.
“All right then, I'll pay you, but you must give me a receipt in full,” answered the dude.
He had to wait until the bank opened, that he might cash a check, and then he paid over the amount demanded. The lawyer drew up a legal paper discharging him from all further obligations. Felix read it with care and stowed it in his pocket.
“And now let me give you some advice, Mr. Gussing,” said the lawyer, after the transaction was concluded. “Don't drive such a wild horse again.”
“Depend upon it, I never shall,” answered the dude. “It costs too much!” he added, with a faint smile.
“Are you well acquainted with horses?”
“No.”
“Then you had better leave them alone altogether.”
“I have already made up my mind to do so.”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
10
|
DAVID BALL FROM MONTANA.
|
Finding that Joe could be depended upon, Mr. Mallison put him in charge of all of the boats at the hotel, so that our hero had almost as much work ashore as on the lake.
During the week following, the events just narrated, many visitors left the hotel and others came in. Among those to go were Felix Gussing and the two young ladies. The dude bid our hero a cordial good-bye, for he now knew Joe quite well.
“Good-bye, Mr. Gussing,” said Joe. “I hope we meet again.”
“Perhaps we shall, although I generally go to a different place each summer.”
“Well, I don't expect to stay in Riverside all my life.”
“I see. If you make a move, I hope you do well,” returned Felix.
On the day after the dude left, a man came to the hotel who, somehow, looked familiar to our hero. He came dressed in a light overcoat and a slouch hat, and carried a valise and a suit case.
“I've seen him before, but where?” Joe asked himself not once but several times.
The man registered as David Ball, and put down his address as Butte, Montana. He said he was a mining expert, but added that he was sick and the doctors had ordered him to come East for a rest.
“'ve heard of Riverside being a nice place,” said he, “so I came on right after striking Pittsburg.”
“We shall do all we can to make your stay a pleasant one,” said the hotel proprietor, politely.
“All I want is a nice sunny room, where I can get fresh air and take it easy,” said the man.
He was willing to pay a good price, and so obtained one of the best rooms in the house, one overlooking the river and the lake. He ate one meal in the dining room, but after that he had his meals sent to his apartment.
“Is he sick?” asked Joe, after watching the man one day.
“He certainly doesn't seem to be well,” answered Andrew Mallison.
“It runs in my mind that I have seen him before, but I can't place him,” went on our hero.
“You must be mistaken, Joe. I questioned him and he says this is his first trip to the East, although he has frequently visited St. Louis and Chicago.”
On the following day the man called for a physician and Doctor Gardner was sent for.
“I've got pains here,” said the man from the West, and pointed to his chest. “Do you think I am getting consumption?”
The Riverside physician made a careful examination and then said the man had probably strained himself.
“Reckon I did,” was the ready answer. “I was in the mine and a big rock came down on me. I had to hold it up for ten minutes before anybody came to my aid. I thought I was a dead one sure.”
“I will give you some medicine and a liniment,” said the doctor. “Perhaps you'll feel better after a good rest.” And then he left.
That afternoon Joe had to go up into the hotel for something and passed the room of the new boarder. He saw the man standing by the window, gazing out on the water.
“I'm dead certain I've seen him before,” mused our hero. “It is queer I can't think where.”
Doctor Gardner wanted to be taken across the lake and Joe himself did the job. As he was rowing he asked about the man who had signed the hotel register as David Ball from Montana.
“Is he very sick, doctor?”
“No, I can't say that he is,” was the physician's answer. “He looks to be as healthy as you or I.” “It's queer he keeps to his room.”
“Perhaps something happened out at his mine to unsettle his nerves. He told me of some sort of an accident.”
“Is he a miner?”
“He is a mine owner, so Mr. Mallison told me, but he never heard of the man before.”
The stranger received several letters the next day and then a telegram. Shortly after that he took to his bed.
“I am feeling worse,” said he to the bell boy who answered his ring. “I want you to send for that doctor again. Ask him to call about noon.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the boy, and Doctor Gardner was sent for without delay. He came and made another examination and left some medicine.
“I'll take the medicine regularly,” said the stranger, who was in bed. But when the doctor had left he quietly poured half of the contents of the bottle into the wash bowl, where it speedily drained from sight!
“Don't catch me drinking such rot,” he muttered to himself. “I'd rather have some good liquor any day,” and he took a long pull from a black bottle he had in his valise.
About noon a carriage drove up to the hotel and two men alighted.
One led the way into the hotel and asked to see the register.
“I'd like to see Mr. David Ball,” said he to the clerk.
“Mr. Ball is sick.”
“So I have heard and that is why I wish to see him.”
“I'll send up your card.”
“I don't happen to have a card. Tell him Mr. Anderson is here, from Philadelphia, with a friend of his.”
The message was sent to the sick man's room, and word came down that he would see the visitors in a few minutes.
“He says he is pretty sick and he can't talk business very long,” said the bell boy.
“We won't bother him very much,” answered the man who had given his name as Anderson.
Joe happened to be close by during this conversation and he looked the man called Anderson over with care.
“I've seen that man, too!” he declared to himself. “But where? I declare he is as much of a mystery as the sick one!”
Our hero's curiosity was now aroused to the highest pitch, and when the two men walked up to David Ball's room he followed to the very doorway.
“Come in,” came from the room, and a deep groan followed. On the bed lay the man from Montana, wrapped in several blankets and with a look of anguish on his features.
“Feeling pretty bad, eh?” said Anderson, as he stalked in. “I am downright sorry for you.”
“I'm afraid I am going to die,” groaned the man in bed. “The doctor says I am in bad shape. He wants me to take a trip to Europe, or somewhere else.”
“This is Mr. Maurice Vane,” went on Anderson. “We won't trouble you any more than is necessary, Mr. Ball.”
“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Maurice Vane. He was a kindly looking gentleman. “Perhaps we had better defer this business until some other time.”
“Oh, no, one time is as bad as another,” came with another groan from the bed. “Besides, I admit I need money badly. If it wasn't for that--“. The man in bed began to cough. “Say, shut the door,” he went on, to the first man who had come in.
The door was closed, and for the time being Joe heard no more of the conversation.
It must be admitted that our hero was perplexed, and with good reason. He felt certain that the man in bed was shamming, that he was hardly sick at all. If so, what was his game?
“Something is surely wrong somewhere,” he reasoned. “I wish I could get to the bottom of it.”
The room next to the one occupied by David Ball was empty and he slipped into this. The room contained a closet, and on the other side was another closet, opening into the room the men were in. The partition between was of boards, and as the other door stood wide open, Joe, by placing his head to the boards, could hear fairly well.
“You have the stock?” he heard Maurice Vane ask.
“Yes, in my valise. Hand me the bag and I'll show you,” answered the man in bed. “Oh, how weak I feel!” he sighed.
There was a silence and then the rustling of papers.
“And what is your bottom price for these?” went on Maurice Vane.
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
“I told Mr. Vane you might possibly take twenty-five thousand,” came from the man called Anderson.
“They ought to be worth face value--fifty thousand dollars,” said the man in bed.
A talk in a lower tone followed, and then more rustling of papers.
“I will call to-morrow with the cash,” said Maurice Vane, as he prepared to leave. “In the meantime, you promise to keep these shares for me?”
“I'll keep them until noon. I've got another offer,” said the man in bed.
“We'll be back,” put in the man called Anderson. “So don't you sell to anybody else.”
Then the two visitors left and went downstairs. Five minutes later they were driving away in the direction of the railroad station.
“This certainly beats anything I ever met before,” said Joe, to himself as he watched them go. “I'll wager all I am worth that I've met that Anderson before, and that he is a bad man. I do wish I could get at the bottom of what is going on.”
In the evening he had occasion to go upstairs in the hotel once more. To his surprise he saw Mr. David Ball sitting in a rocking-chair, calmly smoking a cigar and reading a paper.
“He isn't as sick as he was this morning,” he mused. “In fact, I don't think he is sick at all.”
He wished to be on hand the following morning, when the strangers came back, but an errand took him up the lake. He had to stop at several places, and did not start on the return until four in the afternoon.
On his way back Joe went ashore close to where the old lodge was located, and something, he could not tell what, made him run over and take a look at the spot that had proved a shelter for Ned and himself during the heavy storm. How many things had occurred since that fatal day!
As our hero looked into one of the rooms he remembered the strange men he had seen there--the fellows who had talked about mining stocks. Then, of a sudden, a revelation came to him, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky.
“I've got it! I've got it!” he cried. “Mr. David Ball is that fellow who called himself Malone, and Anderson is the man named Caven! They are both imposters!”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
11
|
A FRUITLESS CHASE.
|
The more Joe thought over the matter the more he became convinced that he was right. He remembered a good deal of the talk he had overheard during the storm, although such talk had, for the time being, been driven from his mind by the tragic death of old Hiram Bodley.
“If they are working some game what can this Maurice Vane have to do with it?” he asked himself.
He thought it best to get back to the hotel at once, and tell Mr. Mallison of his suspicions. But, as luck would have it, scarcely had he started to row his boat again when an oarlock broke, and so it took him the best part of an hour to make the trip.
“Where is Mr. Mallison?” he asked of the clerk of the hotel.
“Out in the stable, I believe,” was the answer.
Without waiting, our hero ran down to the stable and found the hotel proprietor inspecting some hay that had just been unloaded.
“I'd like to speak to you a moment, Mr. Mallison,” he said. “It's important,” and he motioned for the man to follow him.
“What is it, Joe?”
“It's about those men who called to see that sick man, and about the sick man, too.”
“He has gone--all of them have gone.”
“What!” ejaculated our hero. “The sick man, too?”
“Exactly. But he didn't go with the others. While they were here he was in bed, but right after they left he arose, dressed himself, and drove away.”
“Where did he go to?”
“I don't know.”
“Do you know what became of the other two men?”
“I do not. But what's up? Is there anything wrong?” questioned the hotel proprietor, with a look of concern on his face.
“I am afraid there is,” answered Joe, and told his tale from beginning to end.
“That's an odd sort of a yarn, Joe. It's queer you didn't recognize the men before.
“It is queer, sir, but I can't help that. It flashed over me just as I looked into the window of the old lodge.”
“You haven't made any mistake?”
“No, sir.”
“Humph!” Andrew Mallison mused for a moment. “I don't really see what I can do in the matter. We can't prove that those men are wrongdoers, can we?”
“Not unless they tried some game on this Mr. Maurice Vane.”
“They may have sold him some worthless mining shares. That sort of a trick is rather old.”
“I think we ought to make a search for this David Ball, or Malone, or whatever his name is.”
“I'm willing to do that.”
After questioning half a dozen people they learned that the pretended sick man had driven off in the direction of a village called Hopedale.
“What made him go there, do you think?” questioned Joe.
“I don't know, excepting that he thought of getting a train on the other line.”
A horse and buggy were procured, and in this Mr. Mallison and our hero drove over to Hopedale. They were still on the outskirts of the village when they heard a locomotive whistle.
“There's the afternoon train now!” cried Joe. “Perhaps it's the one he wants to catch.”
The horse was touched up and the buggy drove up to the railroad platform at breakneck speed. But the train was gone and all they could see of it was the last car as it swung around one of the mountain bends.
“Too late, Mr. Mallison!” sang out the station master. “If I had known ye was comin' I might have held her up a bit.”
“I didn't want the train, Jackson. Who got on board?”
“Two ladies, a man and a boy--Dick Fadder.”
“Did you know the man?”
“No.”
“What did he have with him?”
“A dress suit case.”
“Was he dressed in a dark blue suit and wear a slouch hat?” asked Joe.
“Yes, and had a light overcoat with him.”
“That was our man.”
“Anything wrong with him?” asked the station master.
“Perhaps,” answered the hotel proprietor. “Anyway, we wanted to see him. Did he buy a ticket?”
“Yes, to Snagtown.”
“What can he want in Snagtown?” asked Joe.
“Oh, that might have been a blind, Joe. He could easily go through to Philadelphia or some other place, if he wanted to.”
At first they thought of telegraphing ahead to stop the man, but soon gave that plan up. They had no evidence, and did not wish to make trouble unless they knew exactly what they were doing.
“I hope it turns out all right,” observed Andrew Mallison, when they were driving back to Riverside. “If there was a swindle it would give my hotel a black eye.”
“That's one reason why I wanted that man held,” answered Joe.
The next day and that following passed quietly, and our hero began to think that he had made a mistake and misjudged the men. He was kept very busy and so almost forgot the incident.
Among the new boarders was a fussy old man named Chaster, who was speedily nicknamed by the bell boys Chestnuts. He was a particular individual, and made everybody as uncomfortable as he possibly could.
One day Wilberforce Chaster--to use his full name,--asked Joe to take him out on the lake for a day's fishing. Our hero readily complied, and was in hot water from the time they went out until they returned. Nothing suited the old man, and as he caught hardly any fish he was exceedingly put out when he came back to the hotel.
“Your boatman is of no account,” he said to Andrew Mallison. “I have spent a miserable day,” and he stamped off to his room in high anger.
“It was not my fault, Mr. Mallison,” said Joe, with burning cheeks. “I did my level best by him.”
“That man has been making trouble for us ever since he come,” answered the hotel proprietor. “I am going to ask him to go elsewhere when his week is up.”
The insults that Joe had received that day from Wilberforce Chaster rankled in his mind, and he determined to square accounts with the boarder if he possibly could.
Towards evening he met a bell boy named Harry Ross who had also had trouble with Chaster, and the two talked the matter over.
“We ought to get square,” said Harry Ross. “I wish I could souse him with a pitcher of ice water.”
“I've got a plan,” said Joe.
Stopping at the hotel was a traveling doctor, who came to Riverside twice a year, for a stay of two weeks each time. He sold some patent medicines, and had in his room several skulls and also a skeleton strung on wires.
“That doctor is away,” said our hero. “I wonder if we can't smuggle the skulls and the skeleton into Mr. Chaster's room?”
“Just the cheese!” cried the bell boy, enthusiastically. “And let us rub the bones with some of those matches that glow in the dark!”
The plan was talked over, and watching their chance the two transferred the skeleton and the skulls to the apartment occupied by Wilberforce Chaster. Then they rubbed phosphorus on the bones, and hung them upon long strings, running over a doorway into the next room.
That evening Wilberforce Chaster remained in the hotel parlor until ten o 'clock. Then he marched off to his room in his usual ill humor. The gas was lit and he went to bed without delay.
As soon as the light went out and they heard the man retire, Joe and the bell boy began to groan in an ominous manner. As they did so, they worked the strings to which the skulls and the skeleton were attached, causing them to dance up and down in the center of the old man's room.
Hearing the groans, Wilberforce Chaster sat up in bed and listened. Then he peered around in the darkness.
“Ha! what is that?” he gasped, as he caught sight of the skulls. “Am I dreaming--or is that--Oh!”
He started and began to shake from head to foot, for directly in front of him was the skeleton, moving up and down in a jerky fashion and glowing with a dull fire. His hair seemed to stand on end. He dove under the coverings of the bed.
“The room is haunted!” he moaned. “Was ever such a thing seen before! This is wretched! Whatever shall I do?”
The groans continued, and presently he gave another look from under the bed clothes. The skeleton appeared to be coming nearer. He gave a loud yell of anguish.
“Go away! Go away! Oh, I am haunted by a ghost! This is awful! I cannot stand it!”
He fairly tumbled out of bed and caught up his clothing in a heap. Then, wrapped in some comfortables, he burst out of the room and ran down the hallway like a person possessed of the evil spirits.
“Come be quick, or we'll get caught!” whispered Joe, and ran into the room, followed by the bell boy. In a trice they pulled loose the strings that held the skulls and the skeleton, and restored the things to the doctor's room from which they had been taken. Then they went below by a back stairs.
The whole hotel was in an alarm, and soon Mr. Mallison came upon the scene.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, severely, of Wilberforce Chaster.
“The meaning is, sir, that your hotel is haunted,” was the answer, which startled all who heard it.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
12
|
THE PARTICULARS OF A SWINDLE.
|
“This hotel haunted?” gasped the proprietor. “Sir, you are mistaken. Such a thing is impossible.”
“It is true,” insisted Mr. Wilberforce Chaster. “I shall not stay here another night.”
“What makes you think it is haunted?”
“There is a ghost in my room.”
“Oh!” shrieked a maid who had come on the scene. “A ghost! I shall not stay either!”
“What kind of a ghost?” demanded Andrew Mallison.
“A--er--a skeleton--and some skulls! I saw them with my own eyes,” went on the victim. “Come and see them for yourself.”
“This is nonsense,” said the hotel proprietor. “I will go and convince you that you are mistaken.”
He led the way and half a dozen followed, including Wilberforce Chaster, who kept well to the rear. Just as the party reached the door of the apartment Joe and the bell boy came up.
Without hesitation Andrew Mallison threw open the door of the room and looked inside. Of course he saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Where is your ghost?” he demanded. “I see nothing of it.”
“Don't--don't you see--er--a skeleton?” demanded the man who had been victimized.
“I do not.”
Trembling in every limb Wilberforce Chaster came forward and peered into the room.
“Well?” demanded the hotel proprietor, after a pause.
“I--I certainly saw them.”
“Then where are they now?”
“I--I don't know.”
By this time others were crowding into the apartment. All gazed around, and into the clothes closet, but found nothing unusual.
“You must be the victim of some hallucination, sir,” said the hotel proprietor, severely.
He hated to have anything occur which might give his establishment a bad reputation.
“No, sir, I saw the things with my own eyes.”
The matter was talked over for several minutes longer and then the hired help was ordered away.
“I shall not stay in this room,” insisted Wilberforce Chaster.
“You need not remain in the hotel,” answered Andrew Mallison, quickly. “You can leave at once. You have alarmed the whole establishment needlessly.”
Some warm words followed, and the upshot of the matter was that the fussy old boarder had to pack his things and seek another hotel that very night.
“I am glad to get rid of him,” said the hotel proprietor, after Wilberforce Chaster had departed. “He was making trouble all the time.”
“We fixed him, didn't we?” said the bell boy to Joe.
“I hope it teaches him a lesson to be more considerate in the future,” answered our hero.
Several days passed and Joe had quite a few parties to take out on the lake. The season was now drawing to a close, and our hero began to wonder what he had best do when boating was over.
“I wonder if I couldn't strike something pretty good in Philadelphia?” he asked himself. The idea of going to one of the big cities appealed to him strongly.
One afternoon, on coming in from a trip across the lake, Joe found Andrew Mallison in conversation with Mr. Maurice Vane, who had arrived at the hotel scarcely an hour before. The city man was evidently both excited and disappointed.
“Here is the boy now,” said the hotel proprietor, and called Joe up.
“Well, young man, I guess you have hit the truth,” were Maurice Vane's first words.
“About those other fellows?” asked our hero, quickly.
“That's it.”
“Did they swindle you?”
“They did.”
“By selling you some worthless mining stocks?”
“Yes. If you will, I'd like you to tell me all you can about those two men.”
“I will,” answered Joe, and told of the strange meeting at the old lodge and of what had followed. Maurice Vane drew a long breath and shook his head sadly.
“I was certainly a green one, to be taken in so slyly,” said he.
“How did they happen to hear of you?” questioned Joe, curiously.
“I answered an advertisement in the daily paper,” said Maurice Vane. “Then this man, Caven, or whatever his right name may be, came to me and said he had a certain plan for making a good deal of money. All I had to do was to invest a certain amount and inside of a few days I could clear fifteen or twenty thousand dollars.”
“That was surely a nice proposition,” said Joe, with a smile.
“I agreed to go into the scheme if it was all plain sailing and then this Caven gave me some of the details. He said there was a demand for a certain kind of mining shares. He knew an old miner who was sick and who was willing to sell the shares he possessed for a reasonable sum of money. The plan was to buy the shares and then sell them to another party--a broker--at a big advance in price.”
“That was simple enough,” put in Andrew Mallison.
“Caven took me to see a man who called himself a broker. He had an elegant office and looked prosperous. He told us he would be glad to buy certain mining shares at a certain figure if he could get them in the near future. He said a client was red-hot after the shares. I questioned him closely and he appeared to be a truthful man. He said some folks wanted to buy out the mine and consolidate it with another mine close by.”
“And then you came here and bought the stock of Malone?” queried Joe.
“Yes. Caven made me promise to give him half the profits and I agreed. I came here, and as you know, Malone, or Ball, or whatever his name is, pretended to be very sick and in need of money. He set his price, and I came back with the cash and took the mining stock. I was to meet Caven, alias Anderson, the next day and go to the broker with him, but Caven did not appear. Then I grew suspicious and went to see the broker alone. The man was gone and the office locked up. After that I asked some other brokers about the stock, and they told me it was not worth five cents on the dollar.”
“Isn't there any such mine at all?” asked Joe.
“Oh, yes, there is such a mine, but it was abandoned two years ago, after ten thousand dollars had been sunk in it. They said it paid so little that it was not worth considering.”
“That is certainly too bad for you,” said Joe. “And you can't find any trace of Caven or Malone?”
“No, both of the rascals have disappeared completely. I tried to trace Caven and his broker friend in Philadelphia but it was of no use. More than likely they have gone to some place thousands of miles away.”
“Yes, and probably this Ball, or Malone, has joined them,” put in Andrew Mallison. “Mr. Vane, I am exceedingly sorry for you.”
“I am sorry for myself, but I deserve my loss, for being such a fool,” went on the victim.
“Have you notified the police?” asked Joe.
“Oh, yes, and I have hired a private detective to do what he can, too. But I am afraid my money is gone for good.”
“You might go and reopen the mine, Mr. Vane.”
“Thank you, but I have lost enough already, without throwing good money after bad, as the saying is.”
“It may be that that detective will find the swindlers, sooner or later.”
“Such a thing is, of course, possible, but I am not over sanguine.”
“I am afraid your money is gone for good,” broke in Andrew Mallison. “I wish I could help you, but I don't see how I can.”
The matter was talked over for a good hour, and all three visited the room Malone had occupied, which had been vacant ever since. But a hunt around revealed nothing of value, and they returned to the office.
“I can do nothing more for you, Mr. Vane,” said Andrew Mallison.
“I wish I could do something,” said Joe. Something about Maurice Vane was very attractive to him.
“If you ever hear of these rascals let me know,” continued the hotel proprietor.
“I will do so,” was the reply.
With that the conversation on the subject closed. Maurice Vane remained at the hotel overnight and left by the early train on the following morning.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
13
|
OFF FOR THE CITY.
|
“Joe, our season ends next Saturday.”
“I know it, Mr. Mallison.”
“We are going to close the house on Tuesday. It won't pay to keep open after our summer boarders leave.”
“I know that, too.”
“Have you any idea what you intend to do?” went on the hotel proprietor. He was standing down by the dock watching Joe clean out one of the boats.
“I'm thinking of going to Philadelphia.”
“On a visit?”
“No, sir, to try my luck.”
“Oh, I see. It's a big city, my lad.”
“I know it, but, somehow, I feel I might do better there than in such a town as this,--and I am getting tired of hanging around the lake.”
“There is more money in Philadelphia than there is here, that is certain, Joe. But you can't always get hold of it. The big cities are crowded with people trying to obtain situations.”
“I'm sure I can find something to do, Mr. Mallison. And, by the way, when I leave, will you give me a written recommendation?”
“Certainly. You have done well since you came here. But you had better think twice before going to Philadelphia.”
“I've thought it over more than twice. I don't expect the earth, but I feel that I can get something to do before my money runs out.”
“How much money have you saved up?”
“I've got fifty-six dollars, and I'm going to sell my boat for four dollars.”
“Well, sixty dollars isn't such a bad capital. I have known men to start out with a good deal less. When I left home I had but twenty dollars and an extra suit of clothes.”
“Did you come from a country place?”
“No, I came from New York. Times were hard and I couldn't get a single thing to do. I went to Paterson, New Jersey, and got work in a silk mill. From there I went to Camden, and then to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia I came here and have been here ever since.”
“You have been prosperous.”
“Fairly so, although I don't make as much money as some of the hotel men in the big cities. But then they take larger risks. A few years ago a hotel friend of mine opened a big hotel in Atlantic City. He hoped to make a small fortune, but he was not located in the right part of the town and at the end of the season he found himself just fifteen thousand dollars out of pocket. Now he has sold out and is running a country hotel fifty miles west of here. He doesn't hope to make so much, but his business is much safer.”
“I'm afraid it will be a long time before I get money enough to run a hotel,” laughed our hero.
“Would you like to run one?”
“I don't know. I'd like to educate myself first.”
“Don't you study some now? I have seen you with some arithmetics and histories.”
“Yes, sir, I study a little every day. You see, I never had much schooling, and I don't want to grow up ignorant, if I can help it.”
“That is the proper spirit, lad,” answered Andrew Mallison, warmly. “Learn all you possibly can. It will always be the means of doing you good.”
The conversation took place on Thursday and two days later the season at the summer hotel came to an end and the last of the boarders took their departure. Monday was spent in putting things in order, and by Tuesday afternoon work around the place came to an end, and all the help was paid off.
In the meantime Joe had sold his boat. With all of his money in his pocket he called at the Talmadge house to see if Ned had returned from the trip to the west.
“Just got back yesterday,” said Ned, who came to greet him. “Had a glorious trip. I wish you had been along. I like traveling better than staying at home all the time.”
“I am going to do a bit of traveling myself, Ned.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Philadelphia--to try my luck in that city.”
“Going to leave Mr. Mallison?”
“Yes,--the season is at an end.”
“Oh, I see. So you are going to the Quaker City, as pa calls it. I wish you luck. You'll have to write to me, Joe, and let me know how you are getting along.”
“I will,--and you must write to me.”
“Of course.”
On the following day Joe rowed along the lake to where his old home dock had been located and made a trip to what was left of the cabin. He spent another hour in hunting for the blue box, but without success.
“I suppose I'll never find that box,” he sighed. “I may as well give up thinking about it.”
From Andrew Mallison our hero had obtained his letter of recommendation and also a good pocket map of Philadelphia. The hotel man had also made him a present of a neat suit case, in which he packed his few belongings.
Ned Talmadge came to see him off at the depot. The day was cool and clear, and Joe felt in excellent spirits.
Soon the train came along and our hero got aboard, along with a dozen or fifteen others. He waved a hand to Ned and his friend shouted out a good-bye. Then the train moved on, and the town was soon left in the distance.
The car that Joe had entered was not more than quarter filled and he easily found a seat for himself by a window. He placed his suit case at his feet and then gave himself up to looking at the scenery as it rushed past.
Joe had never spent much of his time on the railroad, so the long ride had much of novelty in it. The scenery was grand, as they wound in and out among the hills and mountains, or crossed brooks and rivers and well-kept farms. Numerous stops were made, and long before Philadelphia was gained the train became crowded.
“Nice day for riding,” said a man who sat down beside our hero. He looked to be what he was, a prosperous farmer.
“It is,” answered Joe.
“Goin' to Philadelphy, I reckon,” went on the farmer.
“Yes, sir.”
“That's where I'm going, too. Got a little business to attend to.”
“I am going there to try my luck,” said Joe, he felt he could talk to the old man with confidence.
“Goin' to look fer a job, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wot kin ye do, if I might ask?”
“Oh, I'm willing to do most anything. I've been taking care of rowboats and working around a summer hotel, at Lake Tandy.”
“Well, ye won't git many boats to look at down to Philadelphy!” and the old farmer chuckled.
“I suppose not. Maybe I'll strike a job at one of the hotels.”
“Perhaps. They tell me some hotels down there is monsterous--ten an' twelve stories high. Ye don't catch me goin' to no sech place. In case o' fire, it's all up with ye, if you're on the twelfth story.”
“Are you going to Philadelphia to stay, Mr.----” “Bean is my name--Josiah Bean. I'm from Haydown Center, I am. Got a farm there o' a hundred acres.”
“Oh, is that so!”
“Wot's your handle, young man?”
“My name is Joe Bodley. I came from Riverside.”
“Proud to know you.” And Josiah Bean shook hands. “No, I ain't going to stay in Philadelphy. I'm a-going on business fer my wife. A relative left her some property an' I'm a-goin' to collect on it.”
“That's a pleasant trip to be on,” was our hero's comment.
“I'll feel better when I have the six hundred dollars in my fist. I'm afraid it ain't goin' to be no easy matter to git it.”
“What's the trouble!”
“I ain't known in Philadelphy an' they tell me a feller has got to be identified or somethin' like thet--somebody has got to speak for ye wot knows ye.”
“I see. Perhaps you'll meet some friend.”
“Thet's wot I'm hopin' fer.”
The train rolled on and presently Joe got out his map and began to study it, so that he might know something of the great city when he arrived there.
“Guess I'll git a drink o' water,” said Josiah Bean, and walked to the end of the car to do so. Immediately a slick looking man who had been seated behind the farmer arose and followed him.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
14
|
A SCENE ON THE TRAIN.
|
The slick-looking individual had listened attentively to all that passed between our hero and the farmer.
He waited until the latter had procured his drink of water and then rushed up with a smile on his face.
“I declare!” he exclaimed. “How do you do?” And he extended his hand.
“How do you do?” repeated the farmer, shaking hands slowly. He felt much perplexed, for he could not remember having met the other man before.
“How are matters up on the farm?” went on the stranger.
“Thank you, very good.”
“I--er--I don't think you remember me, Mr. Bean,” went on the slick-looking individual.
“Well, somehow I think I know your face,” answered the old farmer, lamely. He did not wish to appear wanting in politeness.
“You ought to remember me. I spent some time in Haydown Center year before last, selling machines.”
“Oh, you had them patent reapers, is that it?”
“You've struck it.”
“I remember you now. You're a nephew of Judge Davis.”
“Exactly.”
“O' course! O' course! But I can't remember your name nohow.”
“It's Davis, too--Henry Davis.”
“Oh, yes. I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Davis.”
“I saw you in the seat with that boy,” went on the man we shall call Henry Davis. “I thought I knew you from the start, but I wasn't dead sure. Going to Philadelphia with us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good enough. Mr. Bean, won't you smoke with me? I was just going into the smoker.”
“Thanks, but I--er--I don't smoke much.”
“Just one mild cigar. That won't hurt you, I'm sure. I love to meet old friends,” continued Henry Davis.
In the end the old farmer was persuaded to walk into the smoking car and here the slick-looking individual found a corner seat where they would be undisturbed.
“I expect to spend a week or more in Philadelphia, Mr. Bean,” said the stranger; “if I can be of service to you during that time, command me.”
“Well, perhaps ye can be of service to me. Do ye know many folks in the city?”
“Oh, yes, a great many. Some are business friends and some are folks in high society.”
“I don't care for no high society. But I've got to collect six hundred dollars an' I want somebody to identify me.”
“Oh, I can do that easily, Mr. Bean.”
“Kin ye?” The farmer grew interested at once. “If ye kin I'll be much obliged to ye.”
“Where must you be identified?”
“Down to the office of Barwell & Cameron, on Broad street. Do ye know 'em?”
“I know of them, and I can find somebody who does know them, so there will not be the least trouble.”
“It's a load off my mind,” said Josiah Bean, with a sigh. “Ye see, the money is comin' to my wife. She writ to 'em that I was comin' to collect an' they writ back it would be all right, only I would have to be identified. Jest as if everybody in Haydown Center don't know I'm Josiah Bean an' a piller in the Union Church down there, an' a cousin to Jedge Bean o' Lassindale.”
“Well, they have to be mighty particular when they pay out any money in the city. There are so many sharpers around.”
“I ain't no sharper.”
“To be sure you are not, and neither am I. But I once had trouble getting money.”
“Is thet so?”
“Yes. But after I proved who I was the folks were pretty well ashamed of themselves,” went on Henry Davis, smoothly.
So the talk ran on and at the end of half an hour the old farmer and the slick-looking individual were on exceedingly friendly terms. Henry Davis asked much about the old man and gathered in a good stock of information.
When Philadelphia was gained it was dark, and coming out of the big railroad station Joe at first knew not which way to turn. The noise and the crowd of people confused him.
“Have a cab? Carriage?” bawled the hackmen.
“Paper!” yelled a newsboy. “All the evenin' papers!”
“Smash yer baggage!” called out a luggage boy, not near as tall as our hero.
Looking ahead, Joe saw Josiah Bean and the slick-looking individual moving down the street and without realizing it, our hero began to follow the pair.
“He must be some friend,” said our hero to himself.
He wondered where they were going and his curiosity getting the better of him he continued to follow them for half a dozen blocks. At last they came to a halt in front of a building displaying the sign: JOHNSON'S QUAKER HOTEL MODERATE TERMS FOR ALL.
“This hotel is all right and the prices are right, too,” Joe heard the slick-looking man tell the old farmer.
“Then thet suits me,” answered Josiah Bean. “I'll go in an' git a room fer the night.”
“I think I might as well do the same,” said Henry Davis. “I don't care to go away over to my boarding house at Fairmount Park.”
The pair walked into the hotel, and Joe saw them register and pass down the corridor in the company of a bell boy. Then our hero entered the place.
“Can I get a room here for the night?” he asked of the clerk behind the desk.
“Certainly.”
“What is the charge?”
“Seventy-five cents.”
“That suits me.”
The register was shoved forward and Joe wrote down his name. Then he was shown to a small room on the third floor. The building was but four stories high.
Joe was tired and soon went to bed. In the next room he heard a murmur of voices and made out that the old farmer and his friend were talking earnestly.
“They must be very friendly,” was his comment, and thinking the matter over he fell asleep.
Bright and early in the morning our hero arose, dressed himself, and went below. He had breakfast in the restaurant attached to the hotel and was just finishing up when the old farmer and the slick-looking individual came in.
“Hullo!” cried Josiah Bean. “What are you doin' here?”
“I got a room overnight,” answered our hero.
“We're stopping here, too. This is my friend, Mr. Henry Davis.”
“Good morning,” said the slick-looking man. He did not seem to fancy meeting Joe.
They sat down close at hand and, while eating, the farmer asked Joe half a dozen questions.
He spoke about his own business until Henry Davis nudged him in the side.
“I wouldn't tell that boy too much,” he said in a low tone.
“Oh, he's all right,” answered the old farmer.
Joe heard the slick-looking individual's words and they made his face burn. He looked at the man narrowly and made up his mind he was not a fellow to be desired for an acquaintance.
Having finished, our hero paid his bill and left the restaurant. He scarcely knew which way to turn, but resolved to look over the newspapers first and see if any positions were offered.
While in the reading room he saw Josiah Bean and his acquaintance leave the hotel and walk in the direction of Broad street.
A little later Joe took from the paper he was reading the addresses of several people who wanted help, and then he, too, left the hotel.
The first place he called at was a florist's establishment, but the pay was so small he declined the position.
“I could not live on three dollars per week,” he said.
“That is all we care to pay,” answered the proprietor, coldly. “It is more than other establishments pay.”
“Then I pity those who work at the other places,” returned Joe, and walked out.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
15
|
WHAT HAPPENED TO JOSIAH BEAN.
|
In the meantime Josiah Bean and the slick-looking individual turned into Broad street and made their way to a certain establishment known as the Eagle's Club.
Here Henry Davis called another man aside.
“Say, Foxy, do you know anybody down to Barwell & Cameron's?” he asked, in a low tone, so that the old farmer could not hear.
“Yes--a clerk named Chase.”
“Then come down and introduce me.”
“What's the game?”
“Never mind--there's a tenner in it for you if it works.”
“Then I'm on, Bill.”
“Hush--my name is Henry Davis.”
“All right, Hank,” returned Foxy, carelessly.
He came forward and was introduced to the old farmer in the following fashion: “Mr. Richard Barlow--of Barlow & Small, manufacturers.”
All three made their way to the establishment of Barwell & Cameron, and then Henry Davis was introduced under that name to a clerk.
As soon as Foxy had departed the slick-looking individual turned to the clerk and called the old farmer forward.
“This is my esteemed friend, Mr. Josiah Bean, of Haydown Center. He has business with Mr. Cameron, I believe.”
“I'm here to collect six hundred dollars,” said Josiah Bean. “Mr. Cameron writ me some letters about it.”
“Very well, sir. Sit down, gentlemen, and I'll tell Mr. Cameron.”
The two were kept waiting for a few minutes and were then ushered into a private office. Through Chase, the clerk, Henry Davis was introduced and then Josiah Bean. All the papers proved to be correct, and after the old farmer had signed his name he was given a check.
“See here, I want the cash,” he demanded.
“Very well,” said Mr. Cameron. “Indorse the check and I'll have the money drawn for you across the street.”
The farmer wrote down his name once more, and a few minutes later received his six hundred dollars in twelve brand-new fifty-dollar bills.
“Gosh! Them will be nice fer Mirandy to look at,” was his comment, as he surveyed the bills.
“Be careful that you don't lose them, Mr. Bean,” cautioned Henry Davis, as the two left the establishment.
“Reckon the best thing I can do is to git back to hum this afternoon,” remarked Josiah Bean, when he was on the street.
“Oh, now you are in town you'll have to look around a bit,” said the slick-looking individual. “You can take a train back to-morrow just as well. Let me show you a few of the sights.”
This tickled the old farmer and he agreed to remain over until the next noon. Then Henry Davis dragged the old man around to various points of interest and grew more familiar than ever.
While they were at the top of one of the big office buildings Henry Davis pretended to drop his pocketbook.
“How careless of me!” he cried.
“Got much in it?” queried Josiah Bean.
“Three thousand dollars.”
“Do tell! It's a powerful sight o' money to carry so careless like.”
“It is. Maybe you had better carry it for me, Mr. Bean.”
“Not me! I ain't goin' to be responsible fer nobody's money but my own--an' Mirandy's.”
“Better see if your own money is safe.”
Josiah Bean got out his wallet and counted the bills.
“Safe enough.”
“Are you sure? I thought there was only five hundred and fifty.”
“No, six hundred.”
“I'll bet you ten dollars on it.”
“What! can't I count straight,” gasped the old farmer, much disturbed. “Six hundred I tell you,” he added, after he had gone over the amount once more.
“If there is I'll give you the ten dollars,” answered the slick one. “Let me count the bills.”
“All right, there ye be, Mr. Davis.”
Henry Davis took the wallet and pretended to count the bills.
“Hullo, what's that?” he cried, whirling around.
“What's wot?” demanded Josiah Bean, also looking around.
“I thought I heard somebody cry fire.”
“Don't say thet! Say, let's git out o' here--I don't want to look at the sights.”
“All right--here's your money. I guess it's six hundred after all,” answered the slick-looking individual, passing over the wallet.
They hurried to the elevator and got into quite a crowd of people.
“Wait for me here,” said Henry Davis, as they walked past the side corridor. “I want to step in yonder office and send a message to a friend.”
He ran off, leaving the old farmer by himself. Josiah Bean looked around him nervously.
“I guess that wasn't no cry o' fire after all,” he mused. “Well, if there's a fire I kin git out from here quick enough.”
The office building was a large one, running from one street to the next. On the street in the rear was a bookstore, the proprietor of which had advertised for a clerk.
Joe had applied for the position and was waiting for the proprietor to address him when, on chancing to look up, he saw Henry Davis rush past as if in a tremendous hurry.
“Hullo, that's the fellow who was with the old farmer,” he told himself.
“What can I do for you, young man?” asked the proprietor of the bookshop, approaching at that instant.
“I believe you wish a clerk,” answered our hero.
“Have you had experience in this line?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you won't do. I must have someone who is experienced.”
“I am willing to learn.”
“It won't do. I want an experienced clerk or none at all,” was the sharp answer.
Leaving the bookstore, Joe stood out on the sidewalk for a moment and then walked around the corner.
A moment later he caught sight of Josiah Bean, gazing up and down the thoroughfare and acting like one demented.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Matter?” bawled the old farmer. “I've been took in! Robbed! Swindled! Oh, wot will Mirandy say!”
“Who robbed you?”
“Thet Mr. Davis I reckon! He counted the money last, an' now it's gone!”
“I saw Mr. Davis a minute ago.”
“Where?”
“Around the corner, walking as fast as he could.”
“He's got my money! Oh, I must catch him!”
“I'll help you,” answered Joe, with vigor. “I thought he looked like a slick one,” he added.
He led the way and Josiah Bean came behind. The old farmer looked as if he was ready to drop with fright. The thought of losing his wife's money was truly horrifying.
“Mirandy won't never forgive me!” he groaned. “Oh, say, boy, we've got to catch that rascal!”
“If we can,” added our hero.
He had noted the direction taken by the swindler, and now ran across the street and into a side thoroughfare leading to where a new building was being put up.
Here, from a workman, he learned that the sharper had boarded a street car going south. He hailed the next car and both he and the old farmer got aboard.
“This ain't much use,” said Josiah Bean, with quivering lips. “We dunno how far he took himself to.”
“Let us trust to luck to meet him,” said Joe.
They rode for a distance of a dozen blocks and then the car came to a halt, for there was a blockade ahead.
“We may as well get off,” said our hero. “He may be in one of the forward cars.”
They alighted and walked on, past half a dozen cars. Then our hero gave a cry of triumph.
“There he is!” he said, and pointed to the swindler, who stood on a car platform, gazing anxiously ahead.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
16
|
A MATTER OF SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.
|
“Say, you, give me my money!”
Such were Josiah Bean's words, as he rushed up to Henry Davis and grabbed the swindler by the shoulder.
The slick-looking individual was thoroughly startled, for he had not dreamed that the countryman would get on his track so soon. He turned and looked at the man and also at Joe, and his face fell.
“Wha--what are you talking about?” he stammered.
“You know well enough what I am talking about,” answered Josiah Bean, wrathfully. “I want my money, every cent o' it,--an' you are a-goin' to jail!”
“Sir, you are making a sad mistake,” said the swindler, slowly. “I know nothing of you or your money.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Make him get off the car,” put in Joe.
“Boy, what have you to do with this?” asked the swindler, turning bitterly to our hero.
“Not much perhaps,” answered Joe. “But I'd like to see justice done.”
“I want that money,” went on the countryman, doggedly. “Come off the car.”
He caught the swindler tighter than ever and made him walk to the sidewalk. By this time a crowd of people began to collect.
“What's the trouble here?” asked one gentleman.
“He's robbed me, that's what's the matter,” answered the countryman. “He has got six hundred dollars o' mine!”
“Six hundred dollars!” cried several and began to take a deeper interest.
“Gentleman this man must be crazy. I never saw him before,” came loudly from the swindler.
“That is not true!” cried Joe. “He was with the man who lost the money. I saw them together yesterday.”
“I am a respectable merchant from Pittsburg,” went on the swindler. “It is outrageous to be accused in this fashion.”
“Somebody had better call a policeman,” said Joe.
“I'll do dat,” answered a newsboy, and ran off to execute the errand.
As the crowd began to collect the swindler saw that he was going to have difficulty in clearing himself or getting away. He looked around, and seeing an opening made a dash for it.
He might have gotten away had it not been for Joe. But our hero was watching him with the eyes of a hawk, and quick as a flash he caught the rascal by the coat sleeve.
“No, you don't!” he exclaimed. “Come back here!”
“Let go!” cried the man and hit Joe in the ear. But the blow did not stop Joe from detaining him and in a second more Josiah Bean caught hold also.
“Ain't goin' to git away nohow!” exclaimed the countryman, and took hold of the swindler's throat.
“Le--let go!” came back in a gasp. “Don't--don't strangle me!”
When a policeman arrived the swindler was thoroughly cowed and he turned reproachfully to Josiah Bean.
“This isn't fair,” he said. “It was all a joke. I haven't got your money.”
“Yes, you have.”
“He is right, Mr. Bean,” put in Joe. “The money, I think, is in your side pocket.”
The countryman searched the pocket quickly and brought out a flat pocketbook.
“Hullo! this ain't mine!” he ejaculated.
He opened the pocketbook and inside were the twelve fifty-dollar bills.
“My money sure enough! How in the world did it git there?”
“This man just slipped the pocketbook into your pocket,” answered Joe.
“I did not!” put in the swindler, hotly.
“You did.”
“Dat's right!” piped up the newsboy who had brought the policeman. “I see him do de trick jest a minit ago!”
“This is a plot against me!” fumed the swindler.
“Dat feller is a bad egg!” went on the newsboy. “His name is Bill Butts. He's a slick one, he is. Hits de country jays strong, he does!”
At the mention of the name, Bill Butts, the policeman became more interested than ever.
“You'll come to the station house with me,” he said, sternly. “We can straighten out the matter there.”
“All right,” answered Bill Butts, for such was his real name.
In a few minutes more the party, including Joe, was off in the direction of the police station.
“Better keep a good eye on your money, Mr. Bean,” said our hero, as they walked along.
“I've got it tucked away safe in an inside pocket,” answered the old countryman.
The station house was several squares away, and while walking beside the policeman the eyes of Bill Butts were wide open, looking for some means of escape. He had “done time” twice and he did not wish to be sent up again if it could possibly be avoided.
His opportunity came in an unexpected manner. In a show window on a corner a man was exhibiting some new athletic appliances and a crowd had collected to witness the exhibition. The policeman had to force his way through.
“Hi, quit shovin' me!” growled a burly fellow in the crowd, not knowing he was addressing a guardian of the law.
“Make way here!” ordered the policeman, sternly, and then the fellow fell back.
It gave Bill Butts the chance he wanted and as quick as a flash he dove into the crowd and out of sight.
“He is running away!” cried Joe.
“Catch him!” put in Josiah Bean.
Both went after the swindler and so did the policeman. But the crowd was too dense for them, and inside of five minutes Bill Butts had made good his escape.
“What did ye want to let him slip ye fer?” growled the old countryman, angrily.
“Don't talk to me,” growled the policeman.
“He ought to be reported for this,” put in our hero.
“Say another word and I'll run you both in,” said the bluecoat.
“Come away,” whispered Josiah Bean. “Anyway, it ain't so bad. I've got my money.”
“I'm willing to go,” answered Joe. “But, just the same, that policeman is a pudding head,” he added, loudly.
“I'll pudding head you!” cried the bluecoat, but made no attempt to molest Joe, whose general style he did not fancy.
Side by side Josiah Bean and our hero walked away, until the crowd was left behind and they were practically alone.
“I'm goin' to count thet money again,” said the old countryman, and did so, to make certain that it was all there.
“We were lucky to spot the rascal, Mr. Bean.”
“I didn't spot him--it was you. I'm much obliged to ye.”
“Oh, that's all right.”
“Seems to me you are entitled to a reward, Joe,” went on the old farmer.
“I don't want any reward.”
“But you're a-goin' to take it. How would five dollars strike you?”
“Not at all, sir. I don't want a cent.”
“Then, maybe, ye won't even come an' take dinner with me,” continued the old man, in disappointed tones.
“Yes, I'll do that, for this chase has made me tremendously hungry.”
“If ye ever come down my way, Joe, ye must stop an' call on me.”
“I will, Mr. Bean.”
“Nuthin' on my farm will be too good for ye, Joe. I'm goin' to tell my wife Mirandy o' this happenin' an' she'll thank you jest as I've done.”
A good restaurant was found not far away and there the two procured a fine meal and took their time eating it.
“Have ye found work yet?” asked the old man.
“Not yet. I was looking for a job when I met you.”
“Well, I hope ye strike wot ye want, lad. But it's hard to git a place in the city, some times.”
“I shall try my level best.”
“Wish I could git a job fer ye. But I don't know nubuddy.”
“I am going to try the hotels next. I have a strong letter of recommendation from a hotel man.”
“If ye don't git no work in Philadelphy come out on my farm. I'll board ye all winter fer nuthin',” went on Josiah Bean, generously.
“Thank you, Mr. Bean; you are very kind.”
“I mean it. We don't live very high-falutin', but we have plenty o' plain, good victuals.”
“I'll remember what you say,” answered our hero.
An hour later he saw the countryman on a train bound for home, and then he started once more to look for a situation.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
17
|
JOE'S NEW POSITION.
|
All of that afternoon Joe looked for a position among the various hotels of the Quaker City. But at each place he visited he received the same answer, that there was no help needed just then.
“This is discouraging,” he told himself, as he retired that night. “Perhaps I'll have to go to the country or back to Riverside after all.”
Yet he was up bright and early the next day and just as eager as ever to obtain a situation.
He had heard of a new hotel called the Grandon House and visited it directly after breakfast.
As he entered the corridor he heard his name called and turning around saw Andrew Mallison.
“How do you do, Mr. Mallison,” said our hero, shaking hands. “I didn't expect to meet you here.”
“I've got a little special business in Philadelphia,” said the hotel man. “I came in last night and I am going back this afternoon. How are you making out?”
“It's all out so far,” and Joe smiled faintly at his own joke.
“No situation, eh?”
“That's it.”
“Why don't you strike the people here. It's a new place and the proprietor may need help.”
“That is what I came for.”
“I'll put in a good word for you, Joe. Come on.”
Andrew Mallison led the way to the office and called up a stout, pleasant looking man.
“Mr. Drew, this is a young friend of mine, Joe Bodley. He worked for me this summer,--around the boats and also in the hotel. Now that the season is at an end he is trying to find something to do in the city. If you have an opening I can recommend him.”
Mr. Arthur Drew surveyed Joe critically. The new hotel was to be run in first-class style and he wanted his help to be of the best. He rather liked Joe's appearance and he took note of the fact that our hero's hands were scrupulously clean and that his shoes were blacked.
“I've got almost all the help I need, but I might take him on,” he said, slowly. “One of my present boys does not suit me at all. He is too impudent.”
“Well, Joe is never impudent and he is very reliable,” answered Andrew Mallison.
“I'll give you a trial.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“The wages will depend upon whether you board here or outside.”
“How much will you give me if I stay at the hotel?”
“Four dollars a week.”
“And what if I board outside?”
“Nine dollars a week.”
“Can you give the boy a pretty fair room?” asked Andrew Mallison. “I know yo'll like him after he has been here a while.”
“He can have a room with another boy. That lad yonder,” and the proprietor of the Grandon House pointed with his hand.
Joe looked and saw that the other lad was gentlemanly looking and rather pleasant.
“It will suit me to stay here, I think,” he said. “Anyway, I am willing to try it.”
“When can you come to work?”
“Right away--or at least, as soon as I can get my suit case from where I have been stopping.”
“Then come in after dinner and I'll tell you what to do and turn you over to my head man. Randolph, come here!”
At the call a bell boy came up.
“This is another boy who is to work here,” said Arthur Drew. “He will room with you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Drew, I'll be glad to get rid of Jack Sagger,” said Frank Randolph.
“What's your name?” he went on to our hero.
“Joe Bodley.”
“Mine is Frank Randolph. I guess we'll get along all right.”
“I hope so, Frank,” said Joe, and shook hands.
There was a little more talk and then Joe left, to get his dress suit case and a few other things which belonged to him. By one o'clock he was back to the Grandon House, and just in time to see Andrew Mallison going away.
“I am much obliged, Mr. Mallison, for what you have done,” said our hero, warmly.
“You're welcome, Joe,” answered the hotel man. “I take an interest in you and I trust you do well here.”
“I shall do my best.”
After Andrew Mallison had gone Joe was shown around the hotel and instructed in his various duties. Occasionally he was to do bell-boy duty, but usually he was to be an all-around helper for the office.
“I think you'll like it here,” said Frank Randolph. “It's the best hotel I've ever worked in. Mr. Drew is a perfect gentleman.”
“I am glad to hear it, Frank,” answered our hero.
The room assigned to the two boys was a small one on the top floor of the hotel. But it was clean, contained two nice cots, and Joe felt it would suit him very well. Frank had hung up a few pictures and had a shelf full of books and this made the apartment look quite home-like.
“I'm going to buy some books myself, this winter,” said Joe. “And when I get time I am going to do some studying.”
“I'm studying myself, Joe. I never had much schooling,” returned Frank.
“Are you alone in the world?”
“No, my father is living. But he is rather sickly and lives with an uncle of mine, over in Camden. He can't work very much, and that is why I have to support myself. Are you alone?”
“Yes. I think my father is living but I can't locate him.”
The next day and for several days following Joe pitched into work in earnest. Many things were strange to him, but he determined to master them as speedily as possible, and this pleased Arthur Drew.
“That boy is all right,” he said to his cashier. “I am glad that Andrew Mallison brought him to me.”
“Jack Sagger was awfully angry at being discharged,” said the cashier.
“It was his own fault. I cannot afford to have a boy around who is impudent.”
What the cashier said about the discharged lad was true. Jack Sagger was “mad clear through,” and he attributed his discharge solely to Joe.
“I'll fix dat pill,” he said to one of his chums. “He ain't going to do me out of my job an' not suffer fer it.”
“What are you going to do, Jack?” asked the companion.
“I'll mash him, dat's wot I'll do,” answered Jack Sagger.
He was a big, rawboned lad, several inches taller than Joe. His face was freckled, and his lips discolored by cigarette smoking. He was a thoroughly tough boy and it was a wonder that he had ever been allowed to work in the hotel at all. He had a fairly good home, but only went there to sleep and to get his meals.
“Joe, I hear that Jack Sagger is going to make it warm for you,” said Frank, one Monday afternoon.
“I suppose he is angry because I got his position, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“What is he going to do?”
“I don't know exactly, but he'll hurt you if he can.”
“If he attacks me I'll do what I can to take care of myself,” answered our hero.
That afternoon he was sent out by Mr. Drew on an errand that took him to a neighborhood occupied largely by wholesale provision houses. As Joe left the hotel Jack Sagger saw him.
“Dere's dat country jay now,” said Sagger.
“Now's your time to git square on him, Jack,” said Nick Sammel, his crony.
“Right you are, Nick. Come on.”
“Going to follow him?”
“Yes, till I git him where I want him.”
“Going to mash him?”
“Sure. When I git through wid him his own mother won't know him,” went on Jack Sagger, boastfully.
“Maybe he'll git the cops after you, Jack.”
“I'll watch out fer dat, Nick, an' you must watch out too,” answered Jack Sagger.
“Are you sure you kin best him? He looks putty strong.”
“Huh! Can't I fight? Didn't I best Sam Nolan, and Jerry Dibble?”
“That's right, Jack.”
“Just let me git one chanct at him an' he'll run away, you see if he don't. But he shan't git away until I give him a black eye an' knock out a couple of his front teeth fer him,” concluded the boaster.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
18
|
JOE SHOWS HIS MUSCLE.
|
All unconscious that he was being followed, our hero went on his errand to a wholesale provision house that supplied the Grandon Hotel with meats and poultry. He felt in good spirits and so whistled lightly as he walked.
Arriving at the place of business he transacted his errand as speedily as possible and then started to return to the hotel.
He was just passing the entrance to a factory yard when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and wheeling around found himself confronted by Jack Sagger, Nick Sammel, and half a dozen others, who had gathered to see their leader “polish off” the country boy.
“What do you want?” demanded Joe, sharply.
“You know well enough wot I want, country!” exclaimed Jack Sagger.
“I do not.”
“You took my job away from me, an' I'm goin' to pay you fer doing it.”
“Mr. Drew had a perfect right to discharge you, Jack Sagger. He said you were impudent and he didn't want you around any more.”
“You can't preach to me, country! Do you know wot I'm goin' ter do?”
“No.”
“I'm going to make you promise to leave dat job. Will yer promise?”
“No.”
“Den you have got to fight,” and Jack Sagger began to pull up his rather dirty coat sleeves.
“Supposing I don't want to fight?” went on our hero, as calmly as he could.
“Yer got ter do it, country--or else make dat promise.”
“I'll make no promise to you.”
“Den take dat!”
As Jack Sagger uttered the last words he launched a blow at Joe's nose. But our hero ducked and the blow went wide of its mark.
“Give it to him, Jack!”
“Show him what you can do!”
“Keep off,” came from Joe. “If you don't, you'll get hurt!”
“Hear dat now! Jack, pitch in, quick, before anybody comes!”
Thus urged Jack Sagger struck out once more, landing on Joe's chest. Then our hero drew back and sent in a blow with all his force. It took the other boy squarely on the chin and sent him staggering against a friend.
If ever there was a surprised boy that boy was Jack Sagger. He had expected that to “polish off” Joe would be easy and he had not anticipated such a defense as had been made. He righted himself and gazed stupidly at our hero.
“Wot did yer hit me fer?” he gasped.
“You keep off or I'll hit you again,” answered Joe.
There was a pause and Sagger sprang forward, trying to catch Joe around the arms. But our hero was too quick for him and ducked once more. Then he hit the bully in the ear and gave him another blow in the left eye.
“Ouch!” roared Jack Sagger. “Don't! Oh, my eye!”
“Have you had enough?” demanded Joe, who was commencing to warm up.
“Pitch in, fellers!” came from Jack Sagger. “Throw him down!”
“Ain't you going to do it alone?” queried Nick Sammel, in wonder, not unmingled with a suspicion that Joe would not be as easy to handle as anticipated.
“I--I've got a--a heartburn,” came lamely from Sagger. “It come on me all at onct. If it wasn't fer that I'd do him up all alone.”
“You're a fraud, and you haven't any heart-burn!” cried Joe. “You're afraid, that's all. If you want to fight, stand up, and we'll have it out.”
“Don't you call me afraid,” said Sagger, but his voice had lost much of its bullying tone.
“You're a big coward, Jack Sagger. After this I want you to leave me alone.”
“Ain't you fellers going to pitch in?” demanded Sagger, turning to his cohorts.
“The first boy to hit me will get paid back with interest,” said Joe, sharply. “I don't like to fight but I can do it if I have to.”
One or two had edged forward but when they saw his determined air they slunk back.
“Go on and fight him, Jack,” said one. “This is your mix-up, not ours.”
“You said you was going to do him up brown,” put in another.
“Ain't I got the heartburn?” blustered the bully. “I can't do nuthin' when I git that. Wait till I'm well; then I'll show him.”
“If you ever touch me again, Jack Sagger, I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had,” said Joe, loudly. “Remember, I am not the least bit afraid of you. The best thing you can do is to keep your distance.”
“Humph!”
“I don't want to quarrel with anybody, but I am always ready to stick up for my rights, just you remember that.”
So speaking Joe backed out of the crowd, that opened to let him pass. Several of the boys wanted to detain him, but not one had the courage to do so. As soon as he was clear of his tormentors, he hurried back to the hotel.
“How did you make out?” asked Mr. Drew.
“It's all right, sir, and they'll send the things to-night, sure,” answered Joe. He hesitated for a moment. “I had a little excitement on the way.”
“How was that?”
“Jack Sagger and some other boys followed me up and wanted to polish me off.”
“You don't look as if they had done much polishing.” And the hotel man smiled.
“No, Jack Sagger got the worst of it. I guess he'll leave me alone in the future.”
“You mustn't fight around the hotel, Joe.”
“This was on the way to Jackson & Bell's, sir. I was bound to defend myself.”
“To be sure. Sagger came to me yesterday and wanted to be taken back, but I told him no--that I wouldn't have such an impudent fellow around.”
As the winter season came on the hotel began to fill up and Joe was kept busy from early in the morning until late at night, and so was Frank Randolph. The two boys were firm friends, and on Sunday went to Sunday School together and also to church, when their hotel duties permitted of it.
In the corridor of the hotel Joe, one day, met the timid Felix Gussing, the young man who had once had so much trouble in driving a horse.
“How do you do, Mr. Gussing,” said our hero politely.
“Why if it isn't Joe!” cried the young man, and smiled. “What are you doing here?”
“I work at this hotel now.”
“Is it possible! Didn't you like it at Riverside?”
“Yes, but the place is shut up for the winter.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Are you stopping here, sir?”
“Yes, I came in an hour ago. I have business in Philadelphia.”
“Maybe you're buying horses,” said Joe, slyly.
“No! no! No more horses for me,” ejaculated the dude. “I--er--this is of more importance.”
No more was said just then, but later our hero met Felix Gussing again, and on the day following had an errand that took him to the young man's room.
“Joe, you are quite a wise boy, perhaps I can confide in you,” said Felix Gussing, after some talk on other subjects.
“I'll be glad to be of service to you, Mr. Gussing.”
“I have a delicate problem to solve. Sometimes a young man can give better advice than an older person,” went on the dude.
“Don't flatter me, Mr. Gussing.”
“I am in love,” went on the young man, flatly.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am quite sure the young lady loves me.”
“Then I suppose you are going to get married.”
“There is an obstacle in the way.”
“Oh!”
“Perhaps I had better tell you the whole story--if you'll listen to me,” went on the dude.
“Certainly I'll listen,” said Joe. “I've got a little time off.”
And then Felix Gussing told his tale of woe, as will be found in the next chapter.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
19
|
ONE KIND OF A DUEL.
|
“Her name is Clara, and she is the daughter of Major Thomas Botts Sampson, of the regular army,” began Felix Gussing.
“Then her father is a military man.”
“Exactly, and that is the trouble,” and the dude gave a groan. “It is this way: When I went to see Major Sampson he greeted me very cordially, until I disclosed the object of my visit.
“'Sir,' said he 'This is a matter which requires consideration. Have you gained my daughter's consent?'
“'I have,' I answered.
“'So far so good,' said he. 'But there is one thing more. Have you served in the army?'
“'No,' said I. “'Or fought a duel?'
“'No.'
“Then he told me to remember that he had served in the army and that his daughter was the daughter of an army man, one who had gone through many battles. After that he said he was resolved that his daughter should marry only somebody who had proved himself a man of courage.”
“What did you do then?” asked Joe, becoming interested.
“What could I do? I am--er--no army man--no fighter. Evidently the major wants a fighter for a son-in-law,” and Felix Gussing groaned once more.
“You'll have to become a fighter,” said Joe.
“No! no! I am a er--a man of peace!” cried the dude, in alarm.
“Mr. Gussing, I think I can arrange matters for you,” said Joe, struck by a certain idea.
“What can you mean, Joe?”
“I mean that I can prove to Major Sampson that you are a brave man.”
“Do that, Joe, and I shall be your friend for life!” gasped the dude.
“Will you wait until to-morrow, Mr. Gussing?”
“Certainly, but do not keep me in suspense too long.”
“This may cost you a little money.”
“I don't care if it costs a hundred dollars.”
“Then I am sure I can fix it up for you,” answered Joe.
There was stopping at the hotel a man named Montgomery. He had at different times been an auctioneer, a book-agent, a schoolmaster, and a traveling salesman. He was just now selling curiosities and Joe felt that he would be only too glad to do Felix Gussing a good turn if he were paid for it.
Our hero had a talk with this man, and the upshot of the matter was that Montgomery and the dude were introduced on the following morning.
“I think I can help you, Mr. Gussing,” said the curiosity man, who, it may be mentioned here, was a tall and important-looking personage. “I was once in the army.”
“What can you do?” questioned the dude, hopefully.
“Will it be worth fifty dollars to you if I aid you in winning the consent of Major Sampson to wed his daughter?”
“Decidedly.”
“This is also Joe's plan, so you will have to pay him, too.”
“I don't want any money,” put in our hero.
“Joe shall have ten dollars--if your plan wins out. But how is all this to be accomplished?” continued Felix Gussing.
“We will take the earliest possible opportunity to visit Major Sampson,” said Ulmer Montgomery.
“Well?”
“When we are all together, we'll get into some sort of an argument. You shall call me a fool and I'll slap you in the face. Then you shall challenge me to a duel.”
“A duel! Why, sir, I--er--I never could shoot you, and I don't want to be shot myself.”
“My dear Mr. Gussing, you don't understand me. Don't you comprehend, the pistols shall be loaded with powder only.”
“Ah, that's the idea!” exclaimed the dude, much relieved.
“Yes. You see it will only be a sham duel so far as we are concerned, but will, in the most harmless fashion possible, prove you to be a man of honor and courage. Major Sampson's scruples will vanish, and you will have the pleasure of gaining his daughter's hand in marriage.
“I agree, Mr. Montgomery--the plan is a famous one. Is it yours or is it Joe's?”
“Joe's--but it will fall to me to help carry it out,” said the Jack-of-all-trades, who did not lose sight of the fifty dollars that had been promised to him.
On the following day Felix Gussing and Mr. Montgomery took themselves to Major Sampson's residence, where the stranger was introduced as a curiosity hunter from Chicago.
“He wishes to look at your collection of swords,” said the dude.
“I shall be delighted to show them,” said the major, who was a person of great self-importance.
“Ah, this is a fine sword from the Holy Land,” said Mr. Montgomery, handling one of the blades.
“I don't know where it came from,” said the major. “It was presented to me by a friend from Boston.”
“That is a Russian sword,” said the dude. “I know it by its handle.”
“That sword is from the Holy Land,” insisted Mr. Montgomery.
“Anybody is a fool to talk that way,” cried Felix Gussing.
“Ha! do you call me a fool, sir!” stormed Montgomery.
“Gentlemen!” put in the major. “I think----” “I am not a fool, sir, and I want you to know it!” bellowed Ulmer Montgomery. “It's an outrage to call me such. Take that, sir!” and he slapped Felix Gussing lightly on the cheek.
“Gentlemen, this must cease!” cried the major, coming between them. “In my house, too! Disgraceful!”
“He has got to apologize to me!” roared the dude, acting his part to perfection.
“Never!” shouted Montgomery.
“If you will not, I demand satisfaction. I--I will fight you in a duel.”
“A duel!”
“Yes, a duel. Pistols, at ten paces,” went on Felix Gussing.
“Well! well!” came from the major in amazement.
“Can I do less?” demanded the would-be son-in-law. “My honor is at stake.”
“Then stand by your honor by all means,” cried the military man, who, at times, was as hot-blooded as anybody.
During the talk the major's daughter had come upon the scene.
“Oh, Felix, what does this mean?” she demanded.
“I am going to fight this--this fellow a duel, pistols at ten paces,” answered Felix, firmly.
“Felix!” she gasped. “You will not, you cannot fight. For my sake, do not.”
“Clara,” answered the dude, smiling affectionately upon her. “For your sake I would forego any personal gratification, but I must not suffer a stain upon the honor.”
“Well said!” exclaimed the major. “Felix is behaving well. I couldn't have done better myself. I admire his courage and I give him free permission to wed you after the--the--” “But father, if he should be killed?” faltered the fair Clara.
“Never fear, Clara; all will go well,” interposed Felix.
More words followed, but the dude pretended to be stubborn and so did Ulmer Montgomery. Both went off to arrange about the duel, and the major insisted upon it that he must be on hand to see the affair come off.
Matters were hurried along with all speed, and it was arranged that the duel should take place on the following morning at ten o'clock, in a country spot just outside of the city. Joe was invited to go along, and carried the pistols, and two others were let into the secret, including a doctor, who went fully prepared to attend to any wounds that might be inflicted.
It did not take long to load the pistols, with powder only. Great care was taken so that Major Sampson should not suspect the truth.
“Major,” said Felix, in a trembling voice. “If I--if anything serious happens to me tell Clara that--that I died like a man.”
“Noble boy! I will! I will!” answered the military man.
“When I give the word, gentlemen, you will both fire!” said one of the seconds.
“Very well,” answered both of the duelists.
“Ready? One--two--three--fire!”
Both pistols were simultaneously discharged. When the smoke cleared away it was ascertained that both parties were unharmed.
“Gentlemen, are you satisfied?” asked the seconds.
“I am,” answered Ulmer Montgomery, quickly.
“Then I shall be,” put in Felix Gussing. “And now that this affair is at an end, Mr. Montgomery will you shake hands?” he added.
“With pleasure, Mr. Gussing!” was the reply. “I must say in all frankness I am sorry we quarrelled in the first place. Perhaps I was wrong about the sword.”
“And perhaps I was wrong.”
“Both of you were wrong,” put in the major. “I hunted up the letter that came with the blade. It is an old Spanish weapon. Let us all call the affair off, and Mr. Montgomery shall come to Clara's wedding to Mr. Gussing.”
“With all my heart,” cried Montgomery, and there the little plot came to a finish.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
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20
|
ATTACKED IN THE DARK.
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“Joe, the plot worked to perfection!” said Felix Gussing, on the day following. “I have to thank you, and here are twenty dollars for your trouble.”
“I don't want a cent, Mr. Gussing,” answered our hero. “I did it only out of friendliness to you. I hope you have no further trouble in your courtship.”
“Oh, that was all settled last night. Clara and I are to be married next week. We are going to send out the cards to-day. You see,” went on the young man in a lower tone. “I don't want to give the major a chance to change his mind, or to suspect that that duel was not just what it ought to have been.”
“Does he suspect anything as yet?”
“Not a thing.”
“Then you are wise to have the wedding as quickly as possible.”
“When we are married I am going to let Clara into the secret. I know she'll enjoy it as much as anybody.”
“Well, you had better warn her to keep mum before her father. He looks as if he could get pretty angry if he wanted to.”
“As you won't take any money for this, Joe, wouldn't you like to come to the wedding?”
“I'm afraid it will be too high-toned for me, Mr. Gussing.”
“No, it is to be a plain, homelike affair--Clara wants it that way. The major has some country cousins who will be there, and they are very plain folks.”
“Then I'll come--if Miss Sampson wishes it.”
So it was arranged that Joe should attend the wedding, and as he was in need of a new Sunday suit he purchased it at once, so that he could use it at the wedding.
“You're in luck, Joe,” remarked Frank, when he heard the news. “And that suit looks very well on you.”
In some manner it leaked out among the boys that Joe was going to the wedding, and two days before the affair came off Jack Sagger learned of it. He immediately consulted with some of his cronies, and it was unanimously resolved to watch for Joe after the wedding was over and chastise him severely for the manner in which he had treated “the gang.”
“We'll fix him,” said Sagger, suggestively.
At the proper time Joe took a car to the Sampson home and was there introduced to a dozen or more people. The wedding proved an enjoyable affair and the elegant supper that was served was one long to be remembered.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Joe started for the hotel again. He had thought to take a car, but afterwards concluded to walk.
“A walk will do me good--after such a hearty supper,” he told himself. “If I ride home I won't be able to sleep.”
At the corner the Sagger crowd was waiting for him. One gave a low whistle, and all slunk out of sight until Joe had passed.
Several blocks had been covered when our hero came to a spot where several new buildings were in the course of construction. It was rather dark and the street lights cast long and uncertain shadows along the walk.
Joe had just started to cross a wooden bridge over an excavation when he heard a rush behind him. Before he could turn he was given a violent shove.
“Push him into de cellar hole!” came, in Jack Sagger's voice.
“Stop!” cried Joe, and it must be admitted that he was greatly alarmed. But no attention was paid to his words, and over the side of the bridge he went, to fall a distance of a dozen feet and land in a pile of dirt, with one lower limb in a puddle of dirty water.
“Down he goes!” he heard, in the voice of Nick Sammel. “Wonder how he likes it?”
“You're a mean, low crowd!” cried Joe, as he stood up. He was covered with dirt and the cold water felt anything but agreeable on such a frosty night as it chanced to be.
“Don't you dare to crawl out of dat!” said Sagger. “If yer do we'll pitch yer in ag'in, won't we, fellers?”
“Sure we will!” was the cry.
“De next time we'll dump him in on his head!”
Growing somewhat accustomed to the semi-darkness, Joe counted seven of his tormentors, all standing on the edge of the cellar hole into which he had so unceremoniously been thrown. Several of the youths had heavy sticks.
“I suppose I'll have to retreat,” he reasoned “I can't fight seven of them.”
He turned to the rear of the cellar hole and felt his way along into the deepest shadows. Presently he reached a partly finished building and crawled up some planks leading to one of the floors.
“He is running away!” he heard Jack Sagger cry.
“Come on after him!” said another of the crowd.
“Let's take his new coat and vest away from him!” added a third.
The entire party dropped down into the hole and ran to the rear, in a hunt after our hero. In the meantime Joe was feeling his way along a scaffolding where some masons had been at work.
As it happened the entire party under Jack Sagger walked toward the unfinished building and came to a halt directly under the scaffolding. Joe saw them and crouched back out of sight.
“Where is de country jay?” he heard one of the crowd ask.
“He's back here somewhere,” answered Jack Sagger. “We must find him an' thump him good.”
“You'll not thump me if I can help it,” said our hero to himself.
Joe put out his hand and felt a cask near by. It was half filled with dirty water, being used for the purposes of making mortar. A tub of water was beside the cask.
“Tit for tat!” he thought, and as quickly as it could be done he overturned the cask and the tub followed.
Joe's aim was perfect, and down came the shower of dirty water, directly on the heads of the boys below. Every one was saturated and each set up a yell of dismay.
“Oh, say, I'm soaked!”
“He trun water all over me!”
“Ugh! but dat's a regular ice bath, dat is!”
“That's what you get for throwing me into the hole!” cried Joe. “After this you had better leave me alone.”
“I've got some mortar in me eye!” screamed Jack Sagger, dancing around in pain. “Oh, me eye is burned out!”
“I'm wet to de skin!” said Nick Sammel, with a shiver. “Oh, say, but it's dead cold, ain't it?”
Waiting to hear no more, Joe ran along the scaffolding and then leaped through a window of the unfinished building. A street light now guided him and he came out through the back of the structure and into an alleyway. From this he made his way to the street.
“I'll have to hurry,” he reasoned. “If they catch me now they will want to half kill me!”
“Don't let him git away!” he heard Sagger roar. “Catch him! Catch him!”
“Hold on there, you young rascals!” came a voice out of the darkness. “What are you doing around these buildings?”
A watchman had come on the scene, with a lantern in one hand and a heavy club in the other.
“We ain't doin' nuthin,” said one of the boys.
“Maybe you're the gang that stole that lumber a couple of nights ago,” went on the watchman, coming closer.
“Ain't touched yer lumber,” growled Jack Sagger.
“We're after anudder feller wot hid in here,” said Sammel.
“That's a likely story. I believe you are nothing but a crowd of young thieves,” grumbled the watchman. “Every night somebody is trying to steal lumber or bricks, or something. I've a good mind to make an example of you and have you all locked up.”
“We ain't touched a thing!” cried a small boy, and began to back away in alarm. At once several followed him.
“Here's a barrel of water knocked over and everything in a mess. You've been skylarking, too. I'm going to have you locked up!”
The watchman made a dash after the boys and the crowd scattered in all directions. Sagger received a crack on the shoulder that lamed him for a week, and Sammel tripped and went down, taking the skin off of the end of his nose.
“Oh, me nose!” he moaned. “It's busted entirely!”
“Run!” cried Sagger. “If you don't you'll be nabbed sure!” And then the crowd ran with all their speed, scrambling out of the hole as best they could. They did not stop until they were half a dozen blocks away and on their way home.
“We made a fizzle of it dat trip,” said Sagger, dolefully.
“It's all your fault,” growled one of the boys. “I ain't goin' out wid you again. You promise big things but you never do 'em.”
“Oh, Jack 's a gas-bag, dat's wot he is,” was the comment of another, and he walked off by himself. Presently one after another of the boys followed suit, leaving Jack Sagger to sneak home, a sadder if not a wiser lad.
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{
"id": "528"
}
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21
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DAYS AT THE HOTEL.
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“Perhaps those fellows have learned a lesson they won't forget in a hurry,” remarked Frank to Joe, after he learned the particulars of the attack in the dark.
“I hope they don't molest me further,” answered our hero. “If they'll only let me alone I'll let them alone.”
“That Sagger is certainly on the downward path,” said Frank. “If he doesn't look out he'll land in jail.”
What Frank said was true, and less than a week later they heard through another hotel boy that Jack Sagger had been arrested for stealing some lead pipe out of a vacant residence. The pipe had been sold to a junkman for thirty cents and the boy had spent the proceeds on a ticket for a cheap theater and some cigarettes. He was sent to the House of Correction, and that was the last Joe heard of him.
With the coming of winter the hotel filled up and Joe was kept busy from morning to night, so that he had little time for studying. He performed his duties faithfully and the hotel proprietor was much pleased in consequence.
“Joe is all right,” he said to his cashier, “I can trust him with anything.”
“That's so, and he is very gentlemanly, too,” replied the cashier.
Ulmer Montgomery was still at the hotel. He was now selling antiquaries, and our hero often watched the fellow with interest. He suspected that Montgomery was a good deal of a humbug, but could not prove it.
At length Montgomery told Joe that he was going to the far West to try his fortunes. The man seemed to like our hero, and the night before he left the hotel he called Joe into his room.
“I want to make you a present of some books I own,” said Ulmer Montgomery. “Perhaps you'll like to read them. They are historical works.”
“Thank you, Mr. Montgomery, you are very kind.”
“I used to be a book agent, but I gave that up as it didn't pay me as well as some other things.”
“And you had these books left over?”
“Yes. The firm I worked for wouldn't take them back so I had to keep them.”
“And now you are selling curiosities.”
At this Ulmer Montgomery smiled blandly.
“Not exactly, Joe--I only sell curiosities, or antiquities, when I am hard up. On other occasions I do like other folks, work for a living.”
“I don't quite understand.”
“I dropped into selling curiosities when I was in the South and hard up for cash. I wanted money the worst way, and I--well, I set to work to raise it. Maybe you'd like to hear my story.”
“I would.”
“Mind you, I don't pose as a model of goodness and I shouldn't advise you to follow in my footsteps. But I wanted money and wanted in badly. So I put on my thinking cap, and I soon learned of a very zealous antiquary living about five miles from where I was stopping. He was wealthy and a bachelor, and spent no inconsiderable portion of his income on curiosities.”
“And you went to him?” said Joe, becoming interested.
“I at once determined to take advantage of this gentleman's antiquarian zeal. I will own that I had some qualms of conscience--about imposing upon the old gentleman, but I didn't know of any other way to procure the money I absolutely needed.
“Having made all of my preparations, I set off for Mr. Leland's house. To disguise myself I put on a pair of big goggles and an old-fashioned collar and tie.
“'I understand, Mr. Leland, that you are in the habit of collecting curiosities,' I said.
“'Quite right, sir,' said he. 'I have got together some few,' and he gazed with an air of pride at the nondescript medley which surrounded him.
“'I have in my possession,' I proceeded, 'two or three of great value, which I had hoped to retain, but, well, I need money, and so I must part with them, much as I wish to call them mine. But I wish to see that they get into the proper hands, and I have been told that you are a great antiquarian, understanding the true value of such things, and so--' “'Pray, show them to me at once!' cried the old man, eagerly.
“'I have traveled a good deal, and been a pilgrim in many climes,' I went on. 'I have wandered along the banks of the Euphrates and dipped my feet in the currents of the Nile. I have gazed upon ruined cities--' “'Yes! yes! show me what you have!' he cried, eagerly.
“'Here is a curiosity of the highest order', I said, opening a paper and showing a bit of salt about the size of a walnut. 'This is a portion of the statue of salt into which Lot's wife was turned.'
“'Is it possible?' cried the antiquary, taking the salt and gazing at it in deep veneration. 'Are you quite certain of this?'
“'I am,' I answered. 'It is a portion of the wrist. I broke it off myself. The hand was already gone.'”
“And did he buy it?” questioned Joe, in astonishment.
“He did, and gave me fifty dollars in cash for it.”
“But that wasn't fair, Mr. Montgomery.”
The seller of bogus curiosities shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps not. But I was hard up and had to do something.”
“Did you sell him anything else?”
“I did--a walking stick, which I had procured in Connecticut. It was covered with strange carvings and he mistook them for hieroglyphics, and gave me ten dollars for the thing.”
“I don't see how you could have the nerve to do such things, Mr. Montgomery.”
“Well, a man can do lots of things when he is driven to do them. I admit the deals were rather barefaced, but, as I said before, I had to do something. Some day, when I am rich, I'll return the money to the old fellow,” added the impostor.
He left the hotel that morning, and it may be said here that Joe did not meet him again for several years.
Christmas came and went at the hotel, and our hero received several presents from his friends, including a pair of gloves from Ned Talmadge and a five-dollar gold piece from Felix Gussing. Some of the regular boarders at the hotel also remembered him.
“And how do you like married life?” asked Joe, of Felix Gussing.
“We are getting along very nicely,” said the dude.
“Have you told your wife about the duel yet?”
“No,--and I don't think I shall,” added Felix Gussing. “You see she--er--she thinks me a very brave man and--” “And you don't want her to change her opinion,” finished Joe, with a smile!
“Why should I, Joe.”
“Oh, I don't know as there is any reason, excepting that they usually say men and their wives should have no secrets from each other.”
“Mr. Montgomery is gone, I see,” said the dude, changing the subject.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you are the only one who knows of this secret. You won't tell, will you?”
“No, sir.”
“We are having troubles enough as it is,” went on the dude. “Both my wife and I find housekeeping rather troublesome. It is hard to obtain proper servants, and she does not care to do the work herself.”
“Why don't you go to boarding?”
“Perhaps we will, later on.”
With the new year came a heavy fall of snow and soon sleighs big and little were in demand. Then came a slight fall of rain which made the sidewalks a glare of ice.
“Got to be careful,” announced Frank to Joe. “If you don't you'll go down on your back.”
“I intend to be careful,” answered our hero. “I have no wish to break any bones.”
That afternoon Joe was sent on an errand to a place of business half a mile away. On returning he chanced to stop at a street corner, to watch a number of children who had made a long slide for themselves.
As he stood watching, a man came along bundled up in a great coat and wearing a slouch hat and blue glasses. The man was walking rapidly, as if in a hurry.
“That fellow looks familiar to me,” thought Joe. “Wonder who he can be?”
He watched the stranger cross the street. Then the fellow happened to step on the icy slide and in a twinkling he went down on his back, his hat flying in one direction and a bundle he carried in another.
“Hurrah! Down goes the gent!” sang out a newsboy standing near.
“Come here an' I'll pick yer up!” said another street urchin.
“You rascals, you fixed this on purpose so I should fall!” cried the man, starting to get up.
“Can I help you?” questioned Joe, coming up, and then he gave a start, as he recognized the fellow.
It was Pat Malone, alias David Ball, from Montana!
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{
"id": "528"
}
|
22
|
ABOUT SOME MINING SHARES.
|
“How do you do, Mr. Ball?” said our hero, coolly.
“Eh, what's that?” questioned Malone, in amazement. Then he recognized Joe, and his face fell.
“I have often wondered what became of you,” went on our hero. “Let me help you up.”
“I--that is--who are you, boy?” demanded Malone, getting to his feet and picking up his hat and his bundle.
“You ought to remember me. I am Joe Bodley. I used to work for Mr. Mallison, at Riverside.”
“Don't know the man or the place,” said Pat Malone, coolly. “You have made a mistake.”
“Then perhaps I had better call you Malone.”
“Not at all. My name is Fry--John Fry.”
“How often do you change your name, Mr. Fry.”
“Don't get impudent!”
“I am not impudent,--I am only asking a plain question.”
“I never change my name.”
At that moment Joe saw a policeman on the opposite side of the street and beckoned for the officer to come over.
“Hi! what's the meaning of this!” ejaculated Pat Malone.
“Officer, I want this man locked up,” said Joe, and caught the rascal by the arm, that he might not run away.
“What's the charge?” asked the bluecoat.
“He is wanted for swindling.”
“Boy, are you really crazy?”
“No, I am not.”
“Who are you?” asked the policeman, eyeing Joe sharply.
“My name is Joe Bodley. I work at the Grandon House. I will make a charge against this man, and I'll bring the man who was swindled, too.”
“That's fair talk,” said the policeman. “I guess you'll both have to go to the station with me.”
“I'm willing,” said Joe, promptly.
“I--I cannot go--I have a sick wife--I must get a doctor,” stammered Pat Malone. “Let me go. The boy is mistaken.”
“You'll have to go with me.”
“But my sick wife?”
“You can send for your friends and they can take care of her.”
“I have no friends--we are strangers in Philadelphia. I don't want to go.”
Pat Malone tried to move on, but the policeman and Joe detained him, and in the end he was marched off to the police station. Here Joe told what he knew and Malone's record was looked up in the Rogues' Gallery.
“You've got the right man, that's sure,” said the desk sergeant to our hero. “Now where can you find this Mr. Maurice Vane?”
“I have his address at the hotel,” answered our hero. “If I can go I'll get it and send Mr. Vane a telegram.”
“Bring the address here and we'll communicate with Mr. Vane.”
Our hero agreed, and inside of half an hour a message was sent to Maurice Vane, notifying him of the fact that Pat Malone had been caught. Mr. Vane had gone to New York on business, but came back to Philadelphia the next day.
When he saw that he was caught Pat Malone broke down utterly and made a full confession, telling in detail how the plot against Maurice Vane had been carried out.
“It was not my plan,” said he. “Gaff Caven got the mining shares and he arranged the whole thing.”
“Where did you get the shares--steal them?” demanded Maurice Vane, sharply.
“No, we didn't steal them. We bought them from an old miner for fifty dollars. The miner is dead now.”
“Can you prove this?”
“Yes.”
“Then do so.”
“Why?”
“I don't care to answer that question. But if you can prove to me that you and Caven came by those shares honestly I won't prosecute you, Malone.”
“I will prove it!” was the quick answer, and that very afternoon Pat Malone proved beyond a doubt that the shares had belonged to himself and Gaff Caven when they sold them to Maurice Vane.
“That is all I want of you,” said Maurice Vane. “I shan't appear against you, Malone.”
“Then those shares must be valuable after all?” queried the swindler.
“Perhaps they are. I am having them looked up. I am glad of this opportunity of proving that they are now my absolute property.”
“If Caven and I sold you good stocks we ought to be kicked full of holes,” grumbled Malone.
“That was your lookout, not mine,” returned Maurice Vane. “Mind, I don't say the shares are valuable. But they may be, and if so I shall be satisfied with my bargain.”
“Humph! where do I come in?”
“You don't come in at all--and you don't deserve to.”
“If I didn't swindle you, you can't have me held for swindling.”
“I don't intend to have you held. You can go for all I care.”
Maurice Vane explained the situation to the police authorities and that evening Pat Malone was allowed to go. He threatened to have somebody sued for false imprisonment but the police laughed at him.
“Better not try it on, Malone,” said one officer. “Remember, your picture is in our Rogues' Gallery,” and then the rascal was glad enough to sneak away. The next day he took a train to Baltimore, where, after an hour's hunt, he found Gaff Caven.
“We made a fine mess of things,” he said, bitterly. “A fine mess!”
“What are you talking about, Pat?” asked Caven.
“Do you remember the mining stocks we sold to Maurice Vane?”
“Certainly I do.”
“Well, he has got 'em yet.”
“All right, he can keep them. We have his money too,” and Gaff Caven chuckled.
“I'd rather have the shares.”
“Eh?”
“I said I'd rather have the shares, Gaff. We put our foot into it when we sold 'em.”
“Do you mean to say the shares are valuable?” demanded Gaff Caven.
“That's the size of it.”
“Who told you this?”
“Nobody told me, but I can put two and two together as quick as anybody.”
“Well, explain.”
“I was in Philadelphia when I ran into that hotel boy, Joe Bodley.”
“What of that?”
“He had me arrested. Then they sent for Mr. Maurice Vane, and Vane made me prove that the shares were really ours when we sold them to him. I thought I'd go clear if I could prove that, so I went and did it. Then Vane said he wouldn't prosecute me, for the shares might be valuable after all.”
“But the mine is abandoned.”
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I guess Mr. Maurice Vane knows what he is doing, and we were fools to sell out to him.”
“If that mine is valuable I'm going to have it!” cried Gaff Caven. “He can have his money back!” and the rascal who had overreached himself began to pace the floor.
“Maybe he won't take his money back.”
“Then I'll claim the mine anyway, Pat--and you must help me.”
“What can you do?”
“Go out to Montana, just as soon as the weather is fit, and relocate the mine. If it's any good we can find some fellows to help us hold it somehow. I'm not going to let this slip into Maurice Vane's hands without a struggle.”
“Talk is cheap, but it takes money to pay for railroad tickets,” went on Malone.
“I've got the dust, Pat.”
“Enough to fight Vane off if he should come West?”
“I think so. I met a rich fellow last week and I got a loan of four thousand dollars.”
“Without security?” and Malone winked suggestively.
“Exactly. Oh, he was a rich find,” answered Gaff Caven, and gave a short laugh.
“I'm willing to go anywhere. I'm tired of things here. It's getting too warm for comfort.”
“Then let us start West next week--after I can finish up a little business here.”
“I am willing.”
And so the two rascals arranged to do Maurice Vane out of what had become his lawful property.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
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23
|
THE FIRE AT THE HOTEL.
|
On the day following the scene at the police station Maurice Vane stopped at the Grandon House to interview our hero.
“I must thank you for the interest you have taken in this matter, Joe,” said he. “It is not every lad who would put himself out to such an extent.”
“I wanted to see justice done, Mr. Vane,” answered our hero, modestly.
“Things have taken a sudden change since I saw you last summer,” went on Maurice Vane. “Perhaps it will be as well if I tell my whole story.”
“I'd like first rate to hear it.”
“After I got those shares of stock I felt that I had been swindled, and I was very anxious to get hold of the rascals. But as time went on and I could not locate them I resolved to look into the deal a little more minutely and see if there was any chance of getting my money, or a portion of it, back.”
“I should have done the same.”
“I wrote to a friend out West and he put me in communication with a mining expert who set to work to find out all about the mine. The expert sent me word, late in the fall, that the mine was, in his opinion, located on a vein of gold well worth working.”
“What did you do then?”
“I wanted to go West at once and look into the matter personally, but an aunt died and I had to settle up her estate and see to the care of her two children, and that held me back. Then winter came on, and I knew I'd have to let matters rest until spring.”
“Are you going out there in the spring?”
“Yes,--as early as possible, too.”
“I hope you find the mine a valuable one, Mr. Vane.”
“I place great reliance on what the mining expert said, for he is known as a man who makes no mistakes.”
“Then, if the mine proves of value, you'll have gotten a cheap piece of property after all.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Won't those swindlers be mad when they hear of this!”
“Most likely, my lad; but they have nobody to blame but themselves. I bought their shares in good faith, while they sold them in bad faith.”
“Is your title perfectly clear now?”
“Absolutely so.”
“Then I hope the mine proves to be worth millions.”
“Thank you, my boy.”
“I'd like to own a mine like that myself.”
“Would you? Well, perhaps you will some day.”
“It's not likely. A hotel boy doesn't earn enough to buy a mine,” and our hero laughed.
“If I find the mine worth working and open up for business, how would you like to go out there and work for me?”
“I'd like it very much, Mr. Vane.”
“Very well, I'll bear that in mind,” answered the possessor of the mining shares.
“Why don't you buy up the rest of the mining shares first?”
“I am going to do so--if I can locate them.”
“Perhaps the owners will sell cheap.”
“I shall explain the situation and make a fair offer. I do not believe in any underhand work,” was the ready answer.
“Then you are not like some men I have met,” said Joe, and told about Ulmer Montgomery and his so-called antiquities.
“That man will never amount to anything, Joe--mark my words. He will always be a hanger-on as we call them, in the business world.”
“I believe you, sir.”
“Honesty pays in the long run. A rogue may make something at the start but sooner or later he will find himself exposed.”
Maurice Vane remained at the hotel for a week and then left to go to Chicago on business. From that point he was going to Montana as soon as the weather permitted.
After that several weeks slipped by without anything unusual happening. During those days Joe fell in again with Felix Gussing.
“We are going to move to Riverside,” said the dude, if such he may still be called, although he was a good business man. “I have rented a house there--the old Martin place--and if you ever come to the town you must visit us.”
“Thank you, I will,” answered our hero.
“My wife thinks a great deal of you and you must stop at the house during your stay at Riverside,” went on Felix Gussing.
A change came for Joe much quicker than was anticipated. One night, late in the winter, he was just preparing to retire, when he smelt smoke. He ran out of his room and to an air shaft and saw the smoke coming up thickly.
“The hotel must be on fire!” he thought. “If it is, I'll have to notify the management!”
He jumped rather than ran down the several stairways to the hotel office. Here he told the proprietor and the cashier. An examination was made and the fire was located in the laundry.
“Go and awaken all the guests,” said Mr. Drew, and Joe ran off to do as bidden. Other boys did the same, and before long the guests were hurrying through the hallways and down the elevators and stairs.
By this time the smoke was coming thickly, and presently a sheet of flame burst through at the rear of the hotel. The fire alarm had been given and several engines and a hook-and-ladder company dashed on the scene.
“Are your guests all out?” demanded a police officer.
“I believe so,” answered Mr. Drew.
“I'm going to take a look around,” said Joe, and darted upstairs once more.
He visited room after room, only to find them empty. From the rear of the hotel came the crackling of flames and down in the street the fire engines were pounding away, sending their streams of water into the structure.
On the third floor of the building our hero came across an old lady who was rather queer in her mind. The lady was also lame and walked with great difficulty.
“Oh, Joseph! what is the trouble?” she cried.
“The hotel is on fire, Mrs. Dalley. Come, let me help you out.”
“On fire! Oh, I must save my canary!” And the old lady started back for her room.
“You haven't got time, Mrs. Dalley. Come with me.”
“I cannot let my dear Dick perish!” answered the old lady, firmly.
Joe looked along the hall and saw that the flames were moving swiftly toward the room the old lady had occupied. To enter the apartment would be highly dangerous.
“You simply can't go after the bird, madam,” he said. “Come with me!”
“My bird! my bird!” screamed Mrs. Dalley, and tried to run, or rather hobble, towards her room, despite the smoke that was now rolling over her head.
“You must come with me!” exclaimed Joe, and drew her back. She tried to struggle and then, without warning, fainted in his arms.
The burden was a heavy one, but our hero did not shirk the task before him. He half dragged and half carried the unconscious lady to the nearest staircase and almost fell to the bottom.
The smoke on the second floor was so thick he could scarcely see.
But he kept on and went down another flight and reached the office. He could hardly breathe and the tears were running down both cheeks.
“Hullo there, boy!” came the call of a fireman, as he appeared through the smoke. “Better get out of here!”
“Help me with this lady,” answered Joe.
“A lady! Oh, all right!” And in a moment more the fireman had Mrs. Dalley over his shoulder and was carrying her out. Joe came close behind. The lady was taken to a nearby drug store where she speedily revived.
By the prompt efforts of the fire department only a small portion of the hotel was burnt. But the whole building was water-soaked, and all of the boarders had to move out, and then the place was closed up.
“Out of a place once again,” thought our hero, rather dismally. “What's to do next?”
This was not an easy question to answer. He looked around for another opening but, finding none, resolved to pay a visit to Riverside.
“I can call on the Gussings, and on Ned,” he thought. “I know all of them will be glad to see me. And maybe Mr. Mallison will be wanting to make some arrangements for next summer. I suppose he'll run the boats as usual.”
“Going to leave Philadelphia, eh?” said Frank. “Do you intend to come back, Joe?”
“I don't know yet, Frank.”
“Well, I wish you luck.”
“I wish you the same.”
“If you go to work for Mallison this summer, maybe you can get me a job too.”
“I'll remember that,” answered our hero.
His preparations were soon made, and then he boarded a train for Riverside. He did not dream of the surprises in store for him.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
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24
|
THE BLUE BOX AT LAST.
|
After calling on the Gussings and being invited to remain there for several days, Joe took himself to Ned Talmadge's residence.
Ned was very glad to see him and had to give all the particulars of another trip he had made to the West.
“I had a splendid time,” said Ned. “I wish you had been along.”
“Then you like the West, Ned?”
“Indeed I do,--better than the East.”
“Perhaps I'll go West some day,” went on our hero, and told his friend of what Maurice Vane had said.
“I saw some mines while I was out there,” continued Ned. “I went to the very bottom of one mine. I can tell you I felt a bit shivery, being so far underground.”
“I suppose the miners get used to it.”
“It would be a joke on those swindlers if that mine should prove of value,” went on Ned, after a pause.
“I hope, for Mr. Vane's sake, it does prove valuable.”
“Now your hotel is burnt out, what are you going to do?”
“I haven't made up my mind, Ned. Perhaps I'll come back here, to work for Mr. Mallison.”
“Then we'll be together again next summer. That will suit me.”
The boys had a good time together and then Joe said he would like to pay a visit to his old home on the mountain side. Ned readily consented to go along.
“But I don't imagine you'll find much of the old cabin left,” he added.
There was still a little ice in the lake, but they rowed to the spot without great difficulty and made their way to the tumble-down cabin.
It was not an inviting sight and it made Joe feel sober to view the locality.
“Joe, you never heard anything of that blue box, did you?” asked Ned, after several minutes of silence.
“No.”
“It ought to be somewhere in this vicinity.”
“It's gone, and that is all there is to it,” said our hero, and gave a long sigh.
The boys tramped around the vicinity for a good half hour, and then sat down on a hollow log to eat a lunch they had brought along.
“Let us build a fire beside the old log,” said Ned. “It will help to keep us warm.”
Joe was willing and the two boys soon had some leaves and twigs gathered, and placed some good-sized branches on top to make the blaze last. Then they began to eat and to warm themselves at the same time.
“This log would make a good hiding-place for some wild animal,” remarked Ned. “Can anything be inside?”
“It's not likely, Ned. The smoke would drive out any living creature.”
“I'm going to get a stick and poke into the log.”
Both boys procured sticks and began to poke at the log. Presently they felt something move and a half-dazed snake came into view.
“There's your animal, Ned!” exclaimed Joe.
“Oh, a snake! Keep him away!” roared Ned, badly frightened.
“He can't hurt you--he is too stiff from the cold,” answered our hero, and quickly dispatched the snake with a stone.
“Do you suppose there are any more in the tree?” asked the rich boy, still keeping at a distance.
“More than likely. I'll poke around with my stick and see.”
“Be careful!”
“I am not afraid.”
Joe's stick had something of a crotch on the end of it and with this he began to rake among the dead leaves that had blown into the hollow log. He brought out a great quantity but no more snakes showed themselves.
“I reckon he was the only one after all, Ned.”
“The log is burning!” said Ned, an instant later. “See, the smoke is coming out of the hollow.”
“My stick is caught,” said Joe, pulling hard on something. “I guess--well, I declare!”
He gave a jerk, and from the hollow came a square object, covered with smoking dirt and leaves.
“What is it?”
“Unless I am mistaken, it is a tin box.”
“Oh, Joe, the blue box?”
Joe did not answer for he was brushing the smoking leaves and dirt from the object. As he cleaned it off he caught sight of some blue paint. On one end the box was badly charred from the fire.
“It's the blue box, sure enough,” said Joe.
“And we came close to burning it up!” groaned Ned. “Oh, Joe, I am so sorry!”
“It's not your fault, Ned, I was as much to blame as anybody. But who would look for the box out here?”
“Perhaps some wild animal carried it off.”
“That may be.”
Joe had the box cleaned off by this time. It was still hot at one end and smoking. He tried to pull it open, but found it locked.
“The contents will burn up before I can open it!” cried Joe.
He did not know what to do, and in desperation began to pry at the box with his stick and his jackknife. Then the box broke open, scattering some half-burnt papers in all directions.
The boys picked the papers up and also a small bag of buckskin. When Joe opened the bag he found it contained exactly a hundred dollars in gold.
“That's a nice find,” said Ned. “Anyway, you are a hundred dollars richer than you were.”
Joe began to peruse the half-burnt documents but could make little or nothing out of them. He saw his own name and also that of a certain William A. Bodley, and an estate in Iowa was mentioned.
“What do you find, Joe?”
“I can't tell you, Ned. The papers are too badly burnt.”
“Let me look at them.”
Our hero was willing, and the two boys spent an hour in trying to decipher the documents.
“It is certainly a puzzle,” said the rich boy. “Why not let my father look over them?”
Joe was willing, and after wrapping up the documents with care, and pocketing the hundred dollars in gold, Joe led the way back to the boat. The wreck of the blue box was left behind, for it was rusty and worthless.
That evening Mr. Talmadge, Ned and Joe spent two hours in going over the documents and trying to supply the parts which had been rotted or burnt away. They were only successful in part.
“I do not wish to say much about this, Joe,” said Ned's father. “But it would seem from these papers that you are the son of one William A. Bodley, who at one time owned a farm in Iowa, in the township of Millville. Did you ever hear Hiram Bodley speak of this?”
“Never.”
“We might write to the authorities at Millville and see what they have to say.”
“I wish you'd do it. They may pay more attention to you than to a boy.”
“I'll write at once.”
“Father, hadn't Joe better stay here until we get a reply?” put in Ned.
“He may do so and welcome,” answered Mr. Talmadge.
The letter was dispatched the next day and our hero waited anxiously for the reply. It came five days later and was as follows: “Your letter of inquiry received. There was a William A. Bodley in this township twelve years ago. He sold his farm to a man named Augustus Greggs and then disappeared. Before he sold out he lost his wife and several children by sickness. Nobody here seems to know what became of him.
“Joseph Korn.”
“That is short and to the point,” said Mr. Talmadge, “but it is not satisfying. It does not state if this William A. Bodley had any relatives so far as known.”
“I guess the authorities did not want to bother about the matter,” said Joe.
“Why don't you visit Millville, Joe?” questioned Ned.
“I was thinking I could do that. It wouldn't cost a fortune, and I've got that hundred dollars in gold to fall back on, besides my regular savings.”
“You might learn something to your advantage,” came from Mr. Talmadge. “I think it would be money well spent.”
“Father, can't I go with Joe?” asked Ned.
“No, Ned, you must attend to your school duties.”
“Then, Joe, you must send me full particulars by mail,” said the rich boy.
“Of course I'll do that, Ned,” replied our hero.
It was arranged that Joe should leave Riverside on Monday and Ned went to the depot to see him off.
“I wish you the best of luck, Joe!” called out Ned, as the train left the station. “I don't know of a fellow who deserves better luck than you do!”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
25
|
JOE VISITS CHICAGO.
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Joe found Millville a sleepy town of three or four hundred inhabitants. There was one main street containing two blocks of stores, a blacksmith shop, a creamery and two churches.
When he stepped off the train our hero was eyed sharply by the loungers about the platform.
“Anything I can' do for you?” asked one of the men, the driver of the local stage.
“Will you tell me where Mr. Joseph Korn lives?”
“Joe lives up in the brown house yonder. But he ain't home now. He's doing a job of carpentering.”
“Can you tell me where?”
“Up to the Widow Fallow's place. Take you there for ten cents.”
“Very well,” and our hero jumped into the rickety turnout which went by the name of the Millville stage.
The drive was not a long one and soon they came to a halt in front of a residence where a man wearing a carpenter's apron was mending a broken-down porch.
“There's Joe,” said the stage driver, laconically.
The man looked up in wonder when Joe approached him. He dropped his hammer and stood with his arms on his hips.
“This is Mr. Joseph Korn, I believe?”
“That's me, young man.”
“I am Joe Bodley. You wrote to Mr. Talmadge, of Riverside, a few days ago. I came on to find out what I could about a Mr. William A. Bodley who used to live here.”
“Oh, yes! Well, young man, I can't tell you much more 'n I did in that letter. Bodley sold out, house, goods and everything, and left for parts unknown.”
“Did he have any relatives around here?”
“Not when he left. He had a wife and three children--a girl and two boys--but they died.”
“Did you ever hear of any relatives coming to see him--a man named Hiram Bodley?”
“Not me--but Augustus Greggs--who bought his farm--might know about it.”
“I'll take you to the Greggs' farm for ten cents,” put in the stage driver.
Again a bargain was struck, and a drive of ten minutes brought them to the farm, located on the outskirts of Millville. They found the farm owner at work by his wood pile, sawing wood. He was a pleasant appearing individual.
“Come into the house,” he said putting down his saw. “I'm glad to see you,” and when our hero had entered the little farmhouse he was introduced to Mrs. Greggs and two grown-up sons, all of whom made him feel thoroughly at home.
“To tell the truth,” said Mr. Greggs, “I did not know William Bodley very well. I came here looking for a farm and heard this was for sale, and struck a bargain with him.”
“Was he alone at that time?” questioned Joe.
“He was, and his trouble seemed to have made him a bit queer--not but what he knew what he was doing.”
“Did you learn anything about his family?”
“He had lost his wife and two children by disease. What had happened to the other child was something of a mystery. I rather supposed it had died while away from home, but I was not sure.”
“Have you any idea at all what became of William Bodley?”
“Not exactly. Once I met a man in Pittsburg who had met a man of that name in Idaho, among the mines. Both of us wondered if that William A. Bodley was the same that I had bought my farm from.”
“Did he say what part of Idaho?”
“He did, but I have forgotten now. Do you think he was a relative of yours?”
“I don't know what to think. It may be that he was my father.
“Your father?”
“Yes,” and Joe told his story and mentioned the documents found in the blue tin box.
“It does look as if he might be your father,” said Augustus Greggs. “Maybe you're the child that was away from home at the time his other children and his wife died.”
“Do you think anybody else in this village would know anything more about this William Bodley?”
“No, I don't. But it won't do any harm to ask around. That stage driver knows all the old inhabitants. Perhaps some of them can tell you something worth while.”
Upon urgent invitation, Joe took dinner at the Greggs' farm and then set out to visit a number of folks who had lived in Millville and vicinity for many years. All remembered William A. Bodley and his family, but not one could tell what had become of the man after he had sold out and gone away.
“Maybe you had better advertise for him,” suggested one man.
“It will cost a good deal to advertise all over the United States,” replied Joe; “and for all I know he may be dead or out of the country.”
Joe remained in Millville two days and then took the train back to the East. Ned was the first to greet him on his return to Riverside.
“What luck?” he asked, anxiously.
“None whatever,” was the sober answer.
“Oh, Joe, that's too bad!”
“I am afraid I am stumped, Ned.”
They walked to the Talmadge mansion, and that evening talked the matter over with Ned's father.
“I will arrange to have an advertisement inserted in a leading paper of each of our big cities,” said Mr. Talmadge. “That will cost something, but not a fortune.”
“You must let me pay for it,” said our hero.
“No, Joe, you can put this down to Ned's credit--you two are such good chums,” and Mr. Talmadge smiled quietly.
The advertisements were sent out the following day, through an advertising agent, and all waited for over two weeks for some reply, but none came.
“It's no use,” said Joe, and it must be admitted that he was much downcast.
In the meantime he had seen Andrew Mallison and the hotel man said he would willingly hire him for the summer as soon as the season opened, and also give Frank Randolph a situation.
“You had better be my guest until that time,” said Ned to our hero, when he heard of this.
“Thank you, Ned, but I don't wish to remain idle so long.”
The very next mail after this talk brought news for our hero. A letter came from Maurice Vane, asking him if he wished to go to Montana.
“I am now certain that that mine is valuable,” wrote the gentleman. “I am going to start West next Monday. If you wish to go with me I will pay your fare and allow you a salary of ten dollars per week to start on. I think later on, I will have a good opening for you.”
“That settles it, I am going West!” cried Joe, as he showed the letter to his chum.
“Well, I don't blame you,” was the reply. “I know just how nice it is out there. You'll be sure to get along.”
Before going to bed Joe wired his acceptance of the offer, and in the morning received a telegram from Maurice Vane, asking him to go to Chicago, to the Palmer House.
“That settles it, I'm off,” said our hero, and bought a ticket for the great city by the lakes without delay. Then he said good-bye to the Talmadges and the Gussings, and boarded the train at sundown.
Joe was now getting used to traveling and no longer felt green and out of place. He had engaged a berth, and took his ease until it was time to go to bed. Arriving at Chicago he made his way without delay to the Palmer House.
He found the hotel crowded and had some difficulty in getting a room. Mr. Maurice Vane had not yet arrived.
“I guess I'll leave a note for him,” thought our hero, and sauntered into the reading-room to pen the communication.
While Joe was writing, two men came into the room and sat down behind a pillar that was close at hand. They were in earnest conversation and he could not help but catch what was said.
“You say he is coming West?” said one of the pair.
“Yes,--he started yesterday.”
“And he has found out that the mine is really valuable?”
“I think so. Anyway he is quite excited about it. He sent a telegram to that boy, too.”
“The hotel boy you mean?”
“Yes.”
So the talk ran on and Joe at length got up to take a look at the two men. They were Gaff Caven and Pat Malone. At once our hero drew out of sight again.
“How can you get the best of Vane, Gaff?” asked Malone, after a pause.
“There is but one way, Malone.”
“And that is?”
“Can I trust you?”
“Haven't you trusted me before?”
“We must--” Caven paused. “We won't talk about it in this public place. Come to my room and I'll lay my plan before you.”
Then the two arose and left the reading-room as rapidly as they had entered it.
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{
"id": "528"
}
|
26
|
HOW A SATCHEL DISAPPEARED.
|
“They certainly mean mischief,” Joe told himself, after the two men had vanished. He saw them enter an elevator, but did not know at what floor they alighted.
Looking over the hotel register he was unable to find the names of either Caven or Malone, or even Ball. Evidently the rascals were traveling under other names now.
“They'll bear watching,” he concluded. “I must put Mr. Vane on guard as soon as he comes in.”
He gave up the idea of leaving a note and took his station in the corridor of the hotel. After waiting about two hours he saw a well-known form approaching, dress-suit case in hand.
“Mr. Vane!”
“Oh, Joe, so you're here already! I'm glad I won't have to wait for you.”
“I'm afraid you won't be able to get a room, Mr. Vane. But you can have mine.”
“I telegraphed ahead for a room, Joe.”
“Do you know that your enemies are here?” went on our hero.
“My enemies?”
“Gaff Caven and Pat Malone. But they are traveling under other names.”
“Have they seen you?”
“I think not, sir.”
Mr. Vane soon had his room assigned to him and he and our hero passed up in the elevator. As soon as they were in the apartment by themselves, Joe related what he had seen and heard.
“They are certainly on my trail,” mused Maurice Vane. “And they must have kept pretty close or they wouldn't know that I had asked you to accompany me.”
“They have some plot, Mr. Vane.”
“Have you any idea what it is?”
“No, sir, excepting that they are going to try to do you out of your interest in that mine.”
Maurice Vane and Joe talked the matter over for an hour, but without satisfaction. Then they went to the dining room for something to eat.
“We start for Montana in the morning,” said the gentleman. “I think the quicker I get on the ground the better it will be for me.”
Although Maurice Vane and Joe did not know it, both were shadowed by Caven and Malone. The two rascals had disguised themselves by donning false beards and putting on spectacles.
“They leave in the morning,” said Caven. “Malone, we must get tickets for the same train, and, if possible, the same sleeping car.”
“It's dangerous work,” grumbled Pat Malone.
“If you want to back out, say so, and I'll go it alone.”
“I don't want to back out. But we must be careful.”
“I'll be careful, don't fear,” answered the leader of the evil pair.
At the ticket office of the hotel, Maurice Vane procured the necessary tickets and sleeper accommodations to the town of Golden Pass, Idaho. He did not notice that he was watched. A moment later Gaff Caven stepped up to the desk.
“I want a couple of tickets to Golden Pass, too,” he said, carelessly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me see, what sleeper did that other gentleman take?”
“Number 2, sir--berths 7 and 8.”
“Then give me 9 and 10 or 5 and 6,” went on Caven.
“9 and 10--here you are, sir,” said the clerk, and made out the berth checks. Without delay Caven hurried away, followed by Malone.
“We'll be in the sleeping compartment right next to that used by Vane and the boy,” chuckled Gaff Caven. “Pat, it ought to be dead easy.”
“Have you the chloroform?”
“Yes, twice as much as we'll need.”
“When can we leave the train?”
“At three o'clock, at a town called Snapwood. We can get another train two hours later,--on the northern route.”
All unconscious of being watched so closely, Maurice Vane and Joe rode to the depot and boarded the train when it came along. Joe had been looking for Caven and Malone, but without success.
“I cannot see those men anywhere,” he said.
“They are probably in hiding,” said his employer.
The train was only half full and for the time being Caven and Malone kept themselves either in the smoking compartment or in the dining car. It was dark when they took their seats, and soon the porter came through to make up the berths for the night.
“I must confess I am rather sleepy,” said Maurice Vane.
“So am I,” returned our hero. “I am sure I can sleep like a top, no matter how much the car shakes.”
“Then both of us may as well go to bed at once.”
So it was arranged, and they had the porter put up their berths a few minutes later. Maurice Vane took the lower resting place while our hero climbed to the top.
Although very tired it was some time before Joe could get to sleep. He heard Maurice Vane breathing heavily and knew that his employer must be fast in the land of dreams.
When Joe awoke it was with a peculiar, dizzy feeling in his head.
His eyes pained him not a little and for several minutes he could not remember where he was. Then came a faint recollection of having tried to arise during the night but of being held down.
“I must have been dreaming,” he thought. “But it was exactly as if somebody was keeping me down and holding something over my mouth and nose.”
He stretched himself and then pushed aside the berth curtain and gazed out into the aisle of the car. The porter was already at work, turning some of the berths into seats once more. Joe saw that it was daylight and consulted the nickel watch he carried.
“Eight o'clock!” he exclaimed. “I've overslept myself sure! Mr. Vane must be up long ago.”
He slipped into his clothing and then knocked on the lower berth.
He heard a deep sigh.
“Mr. Vane!”
“Eh? Oh, Joe, is that you? What time is it?”
“Eight o'clock.”
“What!” Maurice Vane started up. “I've certainly slept fast enough this trip. Are you getting hungry waiting for me?”
“I just woke up myself.”
“Oh!” Maurice Vane stretched himself. “My, how dizzy I am.”
“I am dizzy too, sir. It must be from the motion of the car.”
“Probably, although I rarely feel so, and I ride a great deal. I feel rather sick at my stomach, too,” went on the gentleman, as he began to dress.
Joe had just started to go to the lavatory to wash up when he heard his employer utter an exclamation.
“Joe!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Did you see anything of my satchel?”
“You took it into the berth with you.”
“I don't see it.”
“It must be somewhere around. I saw it when you went to bed.”
“Yes, I put it under my pillow.”
Both made a hasty search, but the satchel could not be found. The dress-suit case stood under the seat and Joe's was beside it.
“This is strange. Can I have been robbed?”
“Was there much in that satchel, Mr. Vane?”
“Yes, those mining shares and some other articles of value.”
“Then we must find the satchel by all means.”
“I'll question the porter about this.”
The colored man was called and questioned, but he denied having seen the bag. By this time quite a few passengers became interested.
“Has anybody left this car?” asked Maurice Vane.
“The gen'men that occupied Numbers 9 and 10, sah,” said the porter.
“When did they get off?”
“'Bout three o'clock, sah--when de train stopped at Snapwood.”
“I haven't any tickets for Snapwood,” said the conductor, who had appeared on the scene.
“Then they must have had tickets for some other point,” said Joe.
“That looks black for them.”
The porter was asked to describe the two men and did so, to the best of his ability. Then another search was made, and in a corner, under a seat, a bottle was found, half filled with chloroform.
“It's as plain as day to me,” said Maurice Vane. “Joe, I was chloroformed.”
“Perhaps I was, too. That's what gave us the dizzy feeling.”
“And those two men--” “Must have been Caven and Malone in disguise,” finished our hero.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
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27
|
JOE MAKES A DISCOVERY.
|
“Who are Caven and Malone?” asked the conductor of the train, while a number of passengers gathered around, to hear what Maurice Vane and our hero might have to say.
“They are two rascals who are trying to do me out of my share of a mine,” explained Maurice Vane. “I had my mining shares in that satchel.”
“If you wish I'll telegraph back to Snapwood for you,” went on the train official.
“How many miles is that?”
“A little over two hundred.”
“What is the next stop of this train?”
“Leadington.”
“When will we get there?”
“In ten minutes.”
A telegram was prepared and sent back to Snapwood as soon as Leadington was reached. The train was held for five minutes and it was learned that nobody had been seen at the station there at three in the morning, as the night operator and station master were away, there being no passengers to get on the train bound West.
Maurice Vane was much disturbed and did not know what to do.
“To go back and look for them at Snapwood may be a mere waste of time,” said he. “On the other hand, I don't feel much like going on while the shares are out of my possession.”
“If you wish it, Mr. Vane, I'll go back,” said Joe. “You can go ahead, and if anything turns up I will telegraph to you.”
This pleased the gentleman, and he said Joe could go back on the very next train. The conductor was again consulted, and our hero left the train bound West a quarter of an hour later.
“Here is some money,” said Maurice Vane on parting. “You'll need it.” And he handed over two hundred dollars.
“Oh, Mr. Vane! will I need as much as this?”
“Perhaps. If you see those rascals you may have a long chase to capture them. Do not hesitate to spend the money if it appears necessary to do so.”
Long before noon our hero was on the way East on a train scheduled to stop at Snapwood. He went without his dress-suit case and carried his money in four different pockets.
The train was almost empty and the riding proved decidedly lonely. In a seat he found an Omaha paper, but he was in no humor for reading. When noon came he took his time eating his dinner, so that the afternoon's ride might not appear so lasting.
About half-past two o'clock the train came to an unexpected halt.
Looking out of the window Joe saw that they were in something of a cut, close to the edge of a woods.
The delay continued, and presently one passenger after another alighted, to learn the meaning of the hold-up. Joe did likewise, and walked through the cut toward the locomotive.
The mystery was easily explained. On one side of the cut the bank had toppled over the tracks, carrying with it two trees of good size. A number of train hands were already at work, sawing the trees into pieces, so that they might be shifted clear of the tracks.
Joe watched the men laboring for a few minutes and then walked up the bank, to get a look at the surroundings. Then he heard a whistle and saw a train approaching from the opposite direction. It came to a halt a few hundred feet away.
As the delay continued our hero walked along the bank of the cut and up to the newly-arrived train. The latter was crowded with passengers, some of whom also got out.
“Did that train stop at Snapwood?” he asked of one of the passengers.
“It did,” was the answer.
“Did you see anybody get on?”
“No, but somebody might have gotten on. I wasn't looking.”
“Thank you.”
“Looking for a friend?”
“No,” said Joe, and moved on.
Without delay our hero ran to the front end of the newly-arrived train and got aboard. As he walked through he gave every grown passenger a close look.
At the end of the third car he came upon two suspicious-looking individuals, who were gazing at a bit of paper in the hands of one. Joe came closer and saw that the paper was a mining share.
“Caven and Malone, as sure as fate!” he murmured to himself. “What had I best do next?”
While Joe was trying to make up his mind, Caven chanced to glance up and his eyes fell upon our hero. He gave a cry of dismay and thrust the mining share out of sight.
“What's the matter?” asked Malone in a low tone.
“Look there, Pat! That boy!”
“No!”
“But it is!”
“How did he get on this train?”
“I don't know. But it's unpleasant enough for us.”
“Do you suppose Vane is around?” asked Malone, nervously.
“He may be.”
The two men stared around the car. Only some women and children were present, the men having gone out to learn the cause of the delay.
“Perhaps we had better get out,” went on Malone.
“All right.”
They arose, and, satchel in hand, started to leave the train.
“Stop!” cried Joe, and caught Caven by the arm.
“Let go of me, boy!” ejaculated the rascal, and tried to pull himself loose.
“I won't let go, Gaff Caven.”
“If you don't, it will be the worse for you! I am not to be trifled with!”
“You must give up that satchel.”
“Bah!”
“If you don't, I'm going to have you arrested.”
“Who is going to arrest me here?” sneered the man who had robbed Maurice Vane. “Don't you know we are miles away from any town?”
“I don't care. Give up the satchel, or I'll call the train hands.”
“I'll give up nothing, boy! Stand out of my way!”
Gaff Caven gave Joe a violent shove which sent our hero up against a seat. Then he turned and ran from the car, with Pat Malone ahead of him.
“Stop them!” cried Joe, as soon as he could recover. “Stop the thieves!”
Others took up the cry, but before anything could be done Caven and Malone were out of the car and on to the tracks. Both stared around in perplexity for a second.
“Come on, we can't afford to waste time here!” cried Caven, and ran for the bank of the cut, up which he scrambled hastily, with his confederate at his side.
Joe saw them make the move and was not slow to follow. Near at hand was a tall, western young man, with bronzed features and a general outdoor manner.
“Say!” cried our hero. “Will you help me to catch those two men? They are thieves and I want them arrested. If you'll help me catch them I'll pay you well for your trouble.”
“I'll go you, stranger!” answered the western young man, readily. “You are certain of your game?”
“Yes. That satchel has their plunder in it. They robbed a friend of mine.”
“This suits me then, friend. We'll round 'em up in short order.”
By this time Caven and Malone had gained the woods. Looking back they saw Joe coming behind, accompanied by the westerner.
“He's after us, and he has got somebody to help him,” ejaculated Malone.
“Well, I reckon we can run as fast as they can,” answered Gaff Caven. “Come ahead!”
He led the way along a trail that ran through the woods and came out on a winding country road. Beyond was another patch of timber.
“This way, Pat,” said he. “We'll have to take to the woods again. They are too close for comfort.”
“Can't we climb a tree, or hide in a hollow?” questioned the confederate.
“We'll see,” said Caven.
They pushed on harder than ever, and passed in among some tall trees. Then they came to a tree that was bent over.
“Up you go,” cried Caven, and gave his confederate a boost into the tree. Then he hauled himself up.
“Now climb to the top,” he went on, and Malone did as requested. Caven followed suit, and both hid themselves among the thick branches.
“They won't find us here,” said Malone, after ten minutes had passed.
“Don't make a noise,” whispered Caven.
After that they remained silent. From a great distance came a shouting, and the whistling of locomotives. The trees were being hauled from the car tracks. A little later they heard more whistling and then the two trains passed on their way.
“The trains have gone,” whispered Malone. “Do you think the boy got aboard one of them?”
“No, I don't,” answered his companion. “He is too determined a lad to give up so easily. He must be still looking for us.”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
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28
|
FROM OUT OF A TREE.
|
Caven was right, Joe and his newly-made friend were still in the woods, doing their best to locate the two rascals.
They had found the trail but lost it in the patch of tall timber, and were gazing around when they heard the trains leaving the cut.
“There goes our outfit, friend,” said the westerner. “And there won't be another train along for several hours.”
“It's too bad, but it can't be helped,” answered our hero. “But I'll pay you for all time lost, Mr.--” “Plain Bill Badger is my handle, stranger.”
“My name is Joe Bodley.”
“What about these two varmin you are after?”
“They were trying to rob a friend of mine of some mining shares,” answered Joe, and gave a few details.
“Well, I vow!” cried Bill Badger “That mine is close to one my dad owns. They say it ain't of much account though.”
“Mr. Vane thinks it is valuable. He has had a mining expert go into the matter with great care.”
“Then that's a different thing. Were you bound for the mine?”
“Yes, and so was Mr. Vane. We were on the train together when he was robbed.”
“I see. I was going out to my dad's mine.”
“Then perhaps we can journey together--after we get through here,” said Joe.
“I'm willing. I like your looks. Shake.” And the pair shook hands.
Although a westerner, Bill Badger knew no more about following a trail than did our hero, consequently they proceeded on their hunt with difficulty.
“Reckon we've missed 'em,” said Bill Badger, a while later. “Don't see hide nor hair of 'em anywhere.”
“It's too bad if they got away,” answered Joe. “Perhaps--What was that?”
The cracking of a tree limb had reached their ears, followed by a cry of alarm. A limb upon which Pat Malone was standing had broken, causing the fellow to slip to another branch below.
“Hush! don't make so much noise!” said Caven, in alarm.
“Gosh! I thought I was going to tumble, out of the tree to the ground,” gasped Malone, when he could catch his breath.
“They are coming--I can see them,” whispered Gaff Caven. “Be as quiet as a mouse.”
In a moment more Joe and Bill Badger stood directly under the tree.
“I think the noise came from near here,” said Joe.
“I agree,” answered the westerner.
At that moment our hero looked up and saw a man's arm circling a tree limb far over his head.
“They are up there!” he shouted.
“Sure?”
“Yes, I just saw one of them.”
“Then we've got 'em treed,” came with a broad grin from Bill Badger. “What's the next turn of the game?”
“We have got to make them both prisoners.”
“All right. Have you got a shooting iron?”
“No, but I can get a club.”
“Then do it, and I'll use this, if it's necessary,” and the young westerner pulled a pistol from his hip pocket.
“I wish we had some ropes, with which to tie them,” continued Joe.
“Here's a good big handkerchief.”
“That's an idea. My handkerchief is also good and strong.”
“You do the pow-wowing and I'll do the shooting, if it's necessary,” said Bill Badger.
Joe looked up into the tree again but could see nobody.
“Caven!” he called out. “I know you are up there and I want you to come down.”
To this remark and request there was no reply.
“If you don't come down we may begin to fire at you,” went on our hero.
“Oh, say, do you think he'll shoot?” whispered Malone, in sudden alarm.
“No; shut up!” returned Caven.
“Are you coming down or not?” went on Joe.
Still there was no reply.
“I'll give 'em a shot to warn 'em,” said Bill Badger, and fired into the air at random.
“Don't shoot me!” roared Pat Malone. “Please don't! I'll come down!”
“Well, you come down first. Caven, you stay up there for the present.”
After this there was a pause, and presently Pat Malone came down out of the tree looking sheepish enough.
“Up with your hands!” cried Bill Badger, and confronted by the firearms the hands of the rascal went up in a hurry.
Then Joe took his handkerchief and stepped up behind Malone. The hands were lowered and crossed and our hero tied them firmly together at the wrists.
“Now back up to that tree yonder,” said our hero. “And don't you dare to move.”
“I'll do just as you say,” whined Malone. “Only don't shoot me.” He was a coward at heart.
“Now, Caven, you come down!” shouted Joe.
“I don't think I care to,” answered that rascal, coolly.
“If you don't come down I'll come up after you with my pistol,” broke in Bill Badger.
“Maybe I can do a little shooting myself,” went on Gaff Caven.
“I'll risk that.”
More words followed, but in the end Caven thought it best to descend and did so. Yet his face still wore a look of defiance. He was compelled to turn around, and his hands were also tied behind him.
“Now I want those mining shares, Caven,” said Joe.
“I haven't got them.”
“Where is the satchel?”
“I threw it away when you started after me.”
“Down at the railroad tracks?”
“Yes.”
“Don't you believe that,” broke in Bill Badger. “At least, not unless he emptied the satchel first.”
“Show me the way you came,” said Joe.
“Make him point out the satchel, or make him suffer,” went on Bill Badger.
“I've got an idea!” cried our hero, suddenly. “Perhaps he left the satchel in the tree.”
“That's so. Well, if you want to climb up and look around, I'll watch the pair of 'em.”
“Don't let them get away.”
“If they try it, they'll go to the hospital or the graveyard,” replied the western young man, significantly.
“The satchel ain't in the tree,” growled Caven, but his tone lacked positiveness.
“I'll soon know for certain,” said our hero.
He climbed the tree with ease, having been used to such doings when living with the old hermit. As he went from branch to branch he kept his eyes open, and presently saw a bit of leather sticking out of a crotch. He worked his way over and soon had the satchel in his possession.
“How are you making out?” called up Bill Badger.
“I've got it!” shouted our hero, joyfully.
“Got the papers?”
“Yes,--everything,” said Joe, after a hasty examination.
“Hang the luck!” muttered Gaff Caven, much chagrined.
Our hero was soon on the ground once more. Here he examined the contents of the satchel with care. Everything was there, and, locking the bag, he slung the strap over his shoulder.
“Now, what's the next move?” queried Bill Badger.
“We ought to have these men locked up. How far is it to the nearest town?”
“Ten or twelve miles, I reckon. I don't know much about the roads.”
“Why can't you let us go?” asked Malone. “You've got what you want.”
“If I let you go you'll be trying to make more trouble for Mr. Vane and myself.”
“Don't talk to them,” growled Caven. “If you want to lock us up, do so!”
He was in an ugly humor and ready for a fight.
“We'll march 'em along,” said Bill Badger, and so it was agreed.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
29
|
THE FATE OF TWO EVILDOERS.
|
“Are you going to let them arrest us?” whispered Pat Malone, as the whole party moved through the woods towards a wagon road which ran nearly parallel to the railroad tracks.
“Not if I can help it,” Caven whispered back. “We must watch our chances.”
Half a mile was covered and they came out on the road. It was growing dark and there were signs of a storm in the air.
“It's going to rain,” said Joe, and he was right.
“See here, I don't want to get wet to the skin,” growled Caven. “I'll catch my death of cold.”
“There is a barn just ahead,” said Bill Badger. “Let us get inside.”
Joe was willing, and soon all were in the barn. It was now raining at a heavy rate and they were glad to be under shelter.
“With a barn there ought to be a house,” remarked our hero. “But I don't see any.”
It grew still darker, and the rain came down in perfect sheets. The roof of the barn leaked, and they had to move from one spot to another, to keep out of the drippings.
While this was going on Gaff Caven was working at the handkerchief that bound his wrists and soon had it loose. Pat Malone also liberated himself. Caven winked suggestively at his confederate.
“Watch me,” he whispered. “When I give the signal we'll knock 'em both down and run for it.”
“But the pistol--” began Malone.
“I'll take care of that.”
In moving around the old barn Caven spotted a club and moved close to it. Suddenly he snatched the weapon up and hit Bill Badger on the arm with it. The pistol flew into a corner and went off, sending a bullet into a board.
“Run!” yelled Caven, and leaped for the open doorway. Malone came beside him, and both ran off through the rain as fast as their legs could carry them.
Joe was startled and made after the pair. But at a groan from Bill Badger he paused.
“Are you badly hurt?” he asked.
“He gave me a stiff crack on the arm,” growled the young westerner.
Joe ran for the corner and caught up the pistol. Then he leaped for the open doorway.
“Stop, both of you!” he called out. “Stop, or I'll fire!”
“Don't you dare!” shrieked Pat Malone, and ran faster than ever, behind the nearest of the trees. Joe aimed the weapon, but before he could pull the trigger both of the bad men were out of sight.
“Go after them, if you want to,” said Bill Badger. “I'll go too.”
“You are not badly hurt?” queried our hero, sympathetically.
“No, but if I catch that fellow I'll give it to him good,” grumbled the young westerner.
Both now left the barn and made after Caven and Malone. Once they caught sight of the rascals, moving in the direction of the railroad tracks.
“They are going to catch a train if they can!” cried our hero. “I hear one coming.”
“It's a freight most likely,” was Bill Badger's answer.
He was right, and soon the long line of freight cars hove into sight around a bend and on an upgrade. Far in the distance they beheld Caven and Malone scooting for the train with all speed.
“They are going to make it,” sighed Joe. “Too bad!”
They continued to run, but before they could get anywhere near the tracks they saw Caven leap for the train and get between two of the cars. Then Malone got aboard also, and the freight train passed out of sight through the cut.
“That ends the chase,” said Joe, halting. “They were slick to get away.”
“If we only knew where they would get off we could send word ahead,” suggested his companion.
“Well, we don't know, and after this they will probably keep their eyes wide open and keep out of sight as much as possible. Anyway, I don't think they'll bother Mr. Vane any more.”
“It's not likely. I'm a witness to what they were up to,” answered the young westerner.
Both Joe and Bill Badger were soaked from the rain and resolved to strike out for the nearest farmhouse or village. They kept along the railroad tracks, and presently came to a shanty where there was a track-walker.
“How far to the nearest village?” asked our hero.
“Half a mile.”
“Thank you.”
“How is it you are out here in the rain?” went on the track-walker.
“We got off our train and it went off without us.”
“Oh, I see. Too bad.”
Again our hero and his companion hurried on, and soon came in sight of a small village. They inquired their way to a tavern, and there dried their clothing and procured a good, hot meal, which made both feel much better.
“I am going to send a telegram to Mr. Vane,” said Joe, and did so without further delay. He was careful of the satchel and did not leave it out of his sight.
They found they could get a train for the West that evening at seven o'clock and at the proper time hurried to the depot.
“I'm glad I met you,” said Joe, to his newly-made friend. “Now, what do you think I owe you for what you did?”
“As we didn't land the fellows in jail you don't owe me anything,” said Bill Badger, promptly.
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“Well then, you can pay the extra expense, and let that fill the bill.”
“I'll certainly do that,” said Joe, promptly.
As they rode along Bill Badger told something of himself and of the mine his father owned, and then Joe told something of his own story.
“Did you say your name is Joe Bodley?” asked the young westerner, with deep interest.
“Yes.”
“And you are looking for a man by the name of William A. Bodley?”
“I am.”
“It seems to me I know a man by that name, although the miners all call him Bill Bodley.”
“Where is this Bill Bodley?”
“Out in Montana somewhere. He worked for my father once, about three years ago. He was rather a strange man, about fifty years old. He had white hair and a white beard, and acted as if he had great trouble on his mind.”
“You do not know where he is now?”
“No, but perhaps my father knows.”
“Then I'm going to see your father as soon as I can,” said Joe, decidedly.
“Mind you, I don't say that this Bill Bodley is the man you are after, Joe. I don't want to raise any false hopes.”
“Did you ever hear where the man came from?”
“I think he told somebody that he once owned a farm in Kansas or Iowa.”
“This William A. Bodley once owned a farm at Millville, Iowa.”
“Is that so! Then he may be the same man after all. To tell the truth, he looked a little bit like you.”
“Was he a good man?” asked Joe, eagerly.
“Yes, indeed. But some of the men poked fun at him because he was so silent and strange at times. I liked him and so did father. He left us to go prospecting in the mountains.”
Thus the talk ran on for half an hour, when the train came to a sudden halt.
“Are we at a station?” asked Bill Badger.
“I don't know,” said Joe.
Both looked out of the window but could see nothing except hills and forests.
“We are in the foothills,” said the young westerner. “Something must be wrong on the tracks.”
“More fallen trees perhaps.”
“Or a landslide. They have them sometimes, when it rains as hard as it did to-day.”
They left the car with some others and soon learned that there had been a freight collision ahead and that half a dozen freight cars had been smashed to splinters.
“Do you think it can be the freight that Caven and Malone boarded?” came from our hero, on hearing this news.
“It might be,” answered Bill Badger. “Let us take a look. Our train won't move for hours now.”
They walked to the scene of the wreck. One of the cars had been burnt up but the conflagration was now under control and a wrecking crew was already at work clearing the tracks so that they might be used.
“Anybody hurt?” asked Joe of a train hand.
“Yes, two men killed. They were riding between the cars.”
“Tramps?”
“They didn't look like tramps. But they hadn't any right to ride on the freight.”
“Where are they?”
“Over in the shanty yonder.”
With a queer sensation in his heart Joe walked to the little building, accompanied by Bill Badger. A curious crowd was around and they had to force their way to the front.
One look was enough. Gaff Caven and Pat Malone lay there, cold in death. They had paid the penalty of their crimes on earth and gone to the final judgment.
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
30
|
CONCLUSION.
|
“Let us go away!” whispered Joe, and moved out of the gathering without delay.
“It was sure rough on 'em,” was Bill Badger's comment.
“Oh, it was awful!” cried our hero. “I--I didn't expect this, did you?”
“Nobody did. It must have come sudden like on to 'em.”
“It makes me sick at heart to think of it. I--I hope it wasn't our fault.”
“Not at all. If they hadn't broke away they'd be alive this minute. They'll never bother you or your friend again, Joe.”
Our hero felt weak at the knees and was glad enough to go back to the train, where he sank into his seat. He scarcely said another word until the wreck was cleared away and they were once more on their journey.
“I reckon you are glad you got the satchel before this happened,” remarked Bill Badger, when they were preparing to retire.
“Yes. But I--I wish they had gotten away. It's awful to think they are dead--and with such bad doings to their credit.”
Joe did not sleep very well and he was up early in the morning and out on the rear platform, drinking in the fresh air. He felt as if he had passed through some fearful nightmare.
“How do you like this climate?” asked Bill Badger, as he came out. “Ain't it just glorious?”
“It certainly is,” said Joe, and he remembered what Ned had told him. “I don't wonder some folks like it better than the East.”
“Oh, the East can't compare to it,” answered Bill Badger. “Why I was once down to New York and Boston, and the crowd and confusion and smoke and smells made me sick for a week! Give me the pure mountain air every time!”
The day proved a pleasant one and when he did not remember the tragedy that had occurred our hero enjoyed the ride and the wild scenery.
At last Golden Pass was reached, late at night, and they got off in a crowd of people.
“Joe!”
“Mr. Vane!” was the answering cry, and soon the two were shaking hands. “Let me introduce a new friend, Mr. Bill Badger.”
“Glad to know you.”
“Mr. Badger helped me get back your satchel,” went on our hero.
“Then I am deeply indebted to him.”
“In that case, just drop the mister from my name,” drawled the young westerner. “Joe tells me you have a mine up here. My father has one, too--the Mary Jennie, next to the Royal Flush.”
“Oh, yes, I know the mine, and I have met your father,” said Maurice Vane.
They walked to a hotel, and there Joe and his young western friend told their stories, to which Maurice Vane listened with keen interest. The gentleman was shocked to learn of the sudden death of Caven and Malone.
“It was certainly a sad ending for them,” said he. “But, as Badger says, they had nobody but themselves to blame for it.”
Maurice Vane was extremely glad to get back his mining shares and thanked Bill Badger warmly for what he had done.
“Don't you mention it,” said the young westerner. “I'm going to hunt up dad now. When you get time, call and see us.”
“I'm coming up soon, to find out about that Bill Bodley,” said Joe.
As late as it was Joe listened to what Maurice Vane had to tell.
“Now that Caven and Malone are gone I do not anticipate further trouble at the mine,” said the gentleman. “I am in practical possession of all the shares, and shall have a clear title to the whole property inside of a few weeks.”
When Joe told him what Bill Badger had had to say about a certain man called Bill Bodley he was much interested.
“Yes, you must find out about this man at once,” said he. “I will help you, as soon as certain matters are settled.”
The next morning proved a busy one and Joe got no time to call upon Bill Badger's father. He visited the mine and looked over it with interest.
During the middle of the afternoon he went back to town on an errand for Mr. Vane. He was passing a cabin on the outskirts when he heard loud words and a struggle.
“Let me go, you ruffian!” cried a weak voice. “Leave that money alone!”
“You shut up, old man!” was the answer. “The money is all right.”
“You are trying to rob me!”
Then there was another struggle, and suddenly a door burst open and a man leaped into the roadway. At sight of him Joe came to a halt. The fellow was Bill Butts, the man who had tried to swindle Josiah Bean.
“Stop him!” came from the cabin. “He has my gold!”
“Stop!” cried Joe, and ran up to Butts. The next moment man and boy tripped and fell, but, luckily, our hero was on top.
“Let me go!” growled the man.
“So we meet again, Butts!” cried Joe.
The man stared in amazement and then began to struggle. Seeing this, Joe doubled up his fists and gave him a blow in the nose and in the right eye, which caused him to roar with pain.
“That's right!” came from the doorway of the cabin. “Give it to him! Make him give me my gold!”
“Give up the gold,” ordered Joe.
“There it is!” growled Bill Butts, and threw a buckskin bag towards the cabin. The man from within caught it up and stowed it away in his pocket.
“Shall I call a policeman?” asked Joe.
“I don't know,” said the man from the cabin. He wore a troubled face and had white hair and a white beard. “It may be--Wha--where did you come from?” he gasped.
“Where did I come from?” asked Joe.
“Yes! yes! Answer me quickly! You are--you must be a ghost! I saw you in my dreams last week!”
“I don't understand you,” said Joe, and arose slowly to his feet, at which Bill Butts did likewise and began to retreat. “I never met you before.”
“No? It's queer.” The man brushed his hand over his forehead. “Yes, I must be dreaming. But I am glad I got my gold back.”
“So am I, but the rascal has run away.”
“Never mind, let him go.”
“What makes you think you've seen me before?” questioned Joe, and his breath came thick and fast.
“I--er--I don't know. You mustn't mind me--I have queer spells at times. You see, I had a whole lot of trouble once, and when I get to thinking about it--” The man did not finish.
“May I ask your name?” asked Joe, and his voice trembled in spite of his efforts at self-control.
“Sure you can. It's Bill Bodley.”
“William A. Bodley?”
“Yes. But how do you happen to know my full name?”
“Did you once own a farm in Millville, Iowa?”
“I had a farm in Iowa, yes. It was Millville Center in those days.”
Joe drew closer and looked at the man with care and emotion.
“Did you ever have a brother named Hiram Bodley?”
“I did--but he has been dead for years.”
“No, Hiram Bodley died only a short time ago,” answered Joe. “I used to live with him. My name is Joe Bodley. He told me I was his nephew.”
“You his nephew! Hiram Bodley's nephew! We didn't have any brothers or sisters, and he was a bachelor!”
“I know he was a bachelor. But I don't know--” Joe paused.
“He told me Joe died, at least I got a letter from somebody to that effect. But I was near crazy just then, and I can't remember exactly how it was. I lost my wife and two children and then I guess I about lost my mind for a spell. I sold out, and the next thing I knew I was roving around the mountains and in rags. Then I took to mining, and now I've got a mine of my own, up yonder in the mountains. Come in and talk this over.”
Joe entered the cabin and sat down, and William Bodley plied him with questions, all of which he answered to the best of his ability.
“There was a blue tin box I had,” said he, presently, “that contained some documents that were mine.”
“A blue tin box!” ejaculated Joe. “Hiram Bodley had it and it got lost. I found it a long time afterwards and some parts of the documents were destroyed. I have the rest in my suit case at the hotel.”
“Can I see those papers?”
“Certainly.”
“Perhaps you are my son, Joe?”
“Perhaps I am, sir.”
They went to the hotel, and the documents were produced. Then William Bodley brought out some letters he possessed. Man and boy went over everything with care.
“You must be my son!” cried William Bodley. “Thank heaven you are found!” And they shook hands warmly.
He told Joe to move over to the cabin, and our hero did so. It was a neat and clean place and soon Joe felt at home. Then he heard his father's tale in detail--an odd and wonderful story--of great trials and hardship.
“There will always be something of a mystery about this,” said William Bodley. “But, no matter, so long as I have you with me.”
“Uncle Hiram was a queer stick,” answered Joe. “I suppose if he was alive he could explain many things.” And in this Joe was correct.
Let us add a few words more and then draw our tale to a close.
When Joe told Maurice Vane how he had found a father the gentlemen was much astonished. So were the Badgers, but all were glad matters had ended so well.
It was found that William Bodley's mine was a valuable one. The ore in it was about equal to the ore in the mine owned by Maurice Vane, and this was likewise equal to that in the mine run by Mr. Badger.
After some conversation on the subject it was agreed by all the interested parties to form a new company, embracing all the mines. Of the shares of this new concern, one-third went to Maurice Vane, one-third to the Badgers, and one-third to William Bodley and Joe. The necessary machinery was duly installed, and to-day the new company is making money fast.
On the day after his trouble with Mr. Bodley, Bill Butts disappeared from town. But a week later he was arrested in Denver and sent to jail for two years for swindling a ranchman.
During the following summer Joe received a visit from his old friend Ned, and the two boys had a delightful time together. In the meantime Joe spent half of his time at the mine and half over his books, for he was determined to get a good education.
For a long time William Bodley had been in feeble health, but with the coming of Joe on the scene he began to mend rapidly, and was soon as hale and hearty as anybody. He was an expert miner, and was made general superintendent for the new company.
To-day Joe has a good education and is rich, but come what may, it is not likely that he will forget those days when he was known as “Joe the Hotel Boy.”
|
{
"id": "528"
}
|
1
|
-- IN THE MOSS
|
I can conduct you, lady, to a low But loyal cottage where you may be safe Till further quest. --MILTON.
On a moorland slope where sheep and goats were dispersed among the rocks, there lay a young lad on his back, in a stout canvas cassock over his leathern coat, and stout leathern leggings over wooden shoes. Twilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light rested on the top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading away, though the sky to the westward still preserved a little pale golden light by the help of the descending crescent moon.
‘Go away, horned moon,’ murmured the boy. ‘I want to see my stars come out before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting up already. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have longer time to-morrow--and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger, and thou mightst let me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high in the sunset, pale and fair, but not mine! That’s the evening star--one of the wanderers. Is it the same as comes in the morning betimes, when we do not have it at night? Like that it shines with steady light and twinkles not. I would that I knew! There! there’s mine, my own star, far up, only paling while the sun glaring blazes in the sky; mine own, he that from afar drives the stars in Charles’s Wain. There they come, the good old twinkling team of three, and the four of the Wain! Old Billy Goat knows them too! Up he gets, and all in his wake “Ha-ha-ha” he calls, and the Nannies answer. Ay, and the sheep are rising up too! How white they look in the moonshine! Piers--deaf as he is--waking at their music. Ba, they call the lambs! Nay, that’s no call of sheep or goat! ‘Tis some child crying, all astray! Ha! Hilloa, where beest thou? Tarry till I come! Move not, or thou mayst be in the bogs and mosses! Come, Watch’--to a great unwieldy collie puppy--‘let us find her.’
A feeble piteous sound answered him, and following the direction of the reply, he strode along, between the rocks and thorn-bushes that guarded the slope of the hill, to a valley covered with thick moss, veiling treacherously marshy ground in which it was easy to sink.
The cry came from the further side, where a mountain stream had force enough to struggle through the swamp. There were stepping-stones across the brook, which the boy knew, and he made his way from one to the other, calling out cheerily to the little figure that he began to discern in the fading light, and who answered him with tones evidently girlish, ‘O come, come, shepherd! Here I am! I am lost and lorn! They will reward thee! Oh, come fast!’
‘All in good time, lassie! Haste is no good here! I must look to my footing.’
Presently he was by the side of the wanderer, and could see that it was a maiden of ten or twelve years old, who somehow, even in the darkness, had not the air of one of the few inhabitants of that wild mountain district.
‘Lost art thou, maiden,’ he said, as he stood beside her; ‘where is thine home?’
‘I am at Greystone Priory,’ replied the girl. ‘I went out hawking to-day with the Mother Prioress and the rest. My pony fell with me when we were riding after a heron. No one saw me or heard me, and my pony galloped home. I saw none of them, and I have been wandering miles and miles! Oh take me back, good lad; the Mother Prioress will give thee--’ ‘’Tis too far to take thee back to-night,’ he said. ‘Thou must come with me to Hob Hogward, where Doll will give thee supper and bed, and we will have thee home in the morning.’
‘I never lay in a hogward’s house,’ she said primly.
‘Belike, but there be worse spots to be harboured in. Here, I must carry thee over the burn, it gets wider below! Nay, ‘tis no use trying to leap it in the dark, thou wouldst only sink in. There!’
And as he raised her in his arms, the touch of her garment was delicate, and she on her side felt that his speech, gestures and touch were not those of a rustic shepherd boy; but nothing was said till he had waded through the little narrow stream, and set her down on a fairly firm clump of grass on the other side. Then she asked, ‘What art thou, lad? --Who art thou?’
‘They call me Hal,’ was the answer; ‘but this is no time for questions. Look to thy feet, maid, or thou wilt be in a swamp-hole whence I may hardly drag thee out.’
He held her hand, for he could hardly carry her farther, since she was almost as tall as himself, and more plump; and the rest of the conversation for some little time consisted of, ‘There!’ ‘Where?’ ‘Oh, I was almost down!’ ‘Take heed; give me thy other hand! Thou must leap this!’ ‘Oh! what a place! Is there much more of it?’ ‘Not much! Come bravely on! There’s a good maid.’ ‘Oh, I must get my breath.’ ‘Don’t stand still. That means sinking. Leap! Leap! That’s right. No, not that way, turn to the big stair.’ ‘Oh--h!’ ‘That’s my brave wench! Not far now.’ ‘I’m down, I’m down!’ ‘Up! Here, this is safe! On that white stone! Now, here’s sound ground! Hark!’ Wherewith he emitted a strange wild whoop, and added, ‘That’s Hob come out to call me!’ He holloaed again. ‘We shall soon be at home now. There’s Mother Doll’s light! Her light below, the star above,’ he added to himself.
By this time it was too dark for the two young people to see more than dim shapes of one another, but the boy knew that the hand he still held was a soft and delicate one, and the girl that those which had grasped and lifted her were rough with country labours. She began to assert her dignity and say again, ‘Who art thou, lad? We will guerdon thee well for aiding me. The Lord St. John is my father. And who art thou?’
‘I? Oh, I am Hob Hogward’s lad,’ he answered in an odd off-hand tone, before whooping again his answer to the shouts of Hob, which were coming nearer.
‘I am so hungry!’ said the little lady, in a weak, famished tone. ‘Hast aught to eat?’
‘I have finished my wallet, more’s the pity!’ said the boy, ‘but never fear! Hold out but a few steps more, and Mother Doll will give thee bite and sup and bed.’
‘Alack! Is it much further! My feet! they are so sore and weary--’ ‘Poor maiden, let me bear thee on!’
Hal took her up again, but they went more slowly, and were glad to see a tall figure before them, and hear the cry, ‘How now, Hal boy, where hast been? What hast thou there?’
‘A sorely weary little lady, Daddy Hob, lost from the hawking folk from the Priory,’ responded Hal, panting a little as he set his burthen down, and Hob’s stronger arms received her.
Hal next asked whether the flock had come back under charge of Piers, and was answered that all were safely at home, and after ‘telling the tale’ Hob had set out to find him. ‘Thou shouldst not stray so far,’ he said.
‘I heard the maid cry, and went after her,’ said Hal, ‘all the way to the Blackreed Moss, and the springs, and ‘twas hard getting over the swamp.’
‘Well indeed ye were not both swallowed in it,’ said Hob; ‘God be praised for bringing you through! Poor wee bairn! Thou hast come far! From whence didst say?’
‘From Greystone Priory,’ wearily said the girl, who had her head down on Hob’s shoulder, and seemed ready to fall asleep there.
‘Her horse fell with her, and they were too bent on their sport to heed her,’ explained the boy, as he trudged along beside Hob and his charge, ‘so she wandered on foot till by good hap I heard her moan.’
‘Ay, there will be a rare coil to-night for having missed her,’ said Hob; ‘but I’ve heard tell, my Lady Prioress heeds her hawks more than her nuns! But be she who she may, we’ll have her home, and Mother Doll shall see to her, for she needs it sure, poor bairn. She is asleep already.’
So she was, with her head nestled into the shepherd’s neck, nor did she waken when after a tramp of more than a mile the bleatings of the folded sheep announced that they were nearly arrived, and in the low doorway there shone a light, and in the light stood a motherly form, in a white woollen hood and dark serge dress. Tired as he was, Hal ran on to her, exclaiming ‘All well, Mammy Doll?’
‘Ah well!’ she answered, ‘thank the good God! I was in fear for thee, my boy! What’s that Daddy hath? A strayed lamb?’
‘Nay, Mammy, but a strayed maiden! ‘Twas that kept me so long. I had to bear her through the burn at Blackreed, and drag her on as best I might, and she is worn out and weary.’
‘Ay,’ said Hob, as he came up. ‘How now, my bit lassie?’ as he put her into the outstretched arms of his wife, who sat down on the settle to receive her, still not half awake.
‘She is well-nigh clemmed,’ said Hal. ‘She has had no bite nor sup all day, since her pony fell with her out a-hawking, and all were so hot on the chase that none heeded her.’
Mother Doll’s exclamations of pity were profuse. There was a kettle of broth on the peat fire, and after placing the girl in a corner of the settle, she filled three wooden bowls, two of which she placed before Hal and the shepherd, making signs to the heavy-browed Piers to wait; and getting no reply from her worn-out guest, she took her in her arms, and fed her from a wooden spoon. Though without clear waking, mouthfuls were swallowed down, till the bowl was filled again and set before Piers.
‘There, that will be enough this day!’ said the good dame. ‘Poor bairn! ‘Twas scurvy treatment. Now will we put her to bed, and in the morn we will see how to deal with her.’
Hal insisted that the little lady should have his own bed--a chaff-stuffed mattress, covered with a woollen rug, in the recess behind the projecting hearth--a strange luxury for a farm boy; and Doll yielded very unwillingly when he spoke in a tone that savoured of command. The shaggy Piers had already curled himself up in a corner and gone to sleep.
|
{
"id": "5313"
}
|
2
|
-- THE SNOW-STORM
|
Yet stay, fair lady, rest awhile Beneath the cottage wall; See, through the hawthorns blows the cold wind, And drizzling rain doth fall. --OLD BALLAD.
Though Hal had gone to sleep very tired the night before, and only on a pile of hay, curled up with Watch, having yielded his own bed to the strange guest, he was awake before the sun, for it was the decline of the year, and the dawn was not early.
He was not the first awake--Hob and Piers were already busy on the outside, and Mother Doll had emerged from the box bed which made almost a separate apartment, and was raking together the peat, so as to revive the slumbering fire. The hovel, for it was hardly more, was built of rough stone and thatched with reeds, with large stones to keep the roof down in the high mountain blasts. There was only one room, earthen floored, and with no furniture save a big chest, a rude table, a settle and a few stools, besides the big kettle and a few crocks and wooden bowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an air of comfort and civilisation beyond any of the cabins in the neighbourhood, more especially as there was even a rude chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and in the niche behind this lay the little girl in her clothes, fast asleep.
Very young and childish she looked as she lay, her lips partly unclosed, her dark hair straying beyond her hand, and her black lashes resting on her delicate brunette cheeks, slightly flushed with sleep. Hal could not help standing for a minute gazing at her in a sort of wondering curiosity, till roused by the voice of Mother Doll.
‘Go thy ways, my bairn, to wash in the burn. Here’s thy comb. I must have the lassie up before the shepherd comes back, though ‘tis amost a pity to wake her! There, she is stirring! Best be off with thee, my bonnie lad.’
It was spoken more in the tone of nurse to nursling than of mother to son, still less that of mistress to farm boy; but Hal obeyed, only observing, ‘Take care of her.’
‘Ay, my pretty, will not I,’ murmured the old woman, as the child turned round on her pillow, put up a hand, rubbed her eyes, and disclosed a pair of sleepy brown orbs, gazed about, and demanded, ‘What’s this? Who’s this?’
‘’Tis Hob Hogward’s hut, my bonnie lamb, where you are full welcome! Here, take a sup of warm milk.’
‘I mind me now,’ said the girl, sitting up, and holding out her hands for the bowl. ‘They all left me, and the lad brought me--a great lubber lout--’ ‘Nay, nay, mistress, you’ll scarce say so when you see him by day--a well-grown youth as can bear himself with any.’
‘Where is he?’ asked the girl, gazing round; ‘I want him to take me back. This place is not one for me. The Sisters will be seeking me! Oh, what a coil they must be in!’
‘We will have you back, my bairn, so soon as my goodman can go with you, but now I would have you up and dressed, ay, and washed, ere he and Hal come in. Then after meat and prayer you will be ready to go.’
‘To Greystone Priory,’ returned the girl. ‘Yea, I would have thee to know,’ she added, with a little dignity that sat drolly on her bare feet and disordered hair and cap as she rose out of bed, ‘that the Sisters are accountable for me. I am the Lady Anne St. John. My father is a lord in Bedfordshire, but he is gone to the wars in Burgundy, and bestowed me in a convent at York while he was abroad, but the Mother thought her house would be safer if I were away at the cell at Greystone when Queen Margaret and the Red Rose came north.’
‘And is that the way they keep you safe?’ asked the hostess, who meanwhile was attending to her in a way that, if the Lady Anne had known it, was like the tendance of her own nurse at home, instead of that of a rough peasant woman.
‘Oh, we all like the chase, and the Mother had a new cast of hawks that she wanted to fly. There came out a heron, and she threw off the new one, and it went careering up--and up--and we all rode after, and just as the bird was about to pounce down, into a dyke went my pony, Imp, and not one of them saw! Not Bertram Selby, the Sisters, nor the groom, nor the rabble rout that had come out of Greystone; and before I could get free they were off; and the pony, Imp of Evil that he is, has not learnt to know me or my voice, and would not let me catch him, but cantered off--either after the other horses or to the Priory. I knew not where I was, and halloaed myself hoarse, but no one heard, and I went on and on, and lost my way!’
‘I did hear tell that the Lady Prioress minded her hawks more than her Hours,’ said Mother Doll.
‘And that’s sooth,’ said the Lady Anne, beginning to prove herself a chatterbox. ‘The merlins have better hoods than the Sisters; and as to the Hours, no one ever gets up in the night to say Nocturns or even Matins but old Sister Scholastica, and she is as strict and cross as may be.’
Here the flow of confidence was interrupted by the return of Hal, who gazed eagerly, though in a shamefaced way, at the guest as he set down a bowl of ewe milk. She was a well-grown girl of ten, slender, and bearing herself like one high bred and well trained in deportment; and her face was delicately tinted on an olive skin, with fine marked eyebrows, and dark bright eyes, and her little hunting dress of green, and the hood, set on far back, became the dark locks that curled in rings beneath.
She saw a slender lad, dark-haired and dark-eyed, ruddy and embrowned by mountain sun and air; and the bow with which he bent before her had something of the rustic lout, and there was a certain shyness over him that hindered him from addressing her.
‘So, shepherd,’ she said, ‘when wilt thou take me back to Greystone?’
‘Father will fix that,’ interposed the housewife; ‘meanwhile, ye had best eat your porridge. Here is Father, in good time with the cows’ milk.’
The rugged broad-shouldered shepherd made his salutation duly to the young lady, and uttered the information that there was a black cloud, like snow, coming up over the fells to the south-west.
‘But I must fare back to Greystone!’ said the damsel. ‘They will be in a mighty coil what has become of me.’
‘They would be in a worse coil if they found your bones under a snow wreath.’
Hal went to the door and spied out, as if the tidings were rather pleasant to him than otherwise. The goodwife shivered, and reached out to close the shutter, and there being no glass to the windows, all the light that came in was through the chinks.
‘It would serve them right for not minding me better,’ said the maiden composedly. ‘Nay, it is as merry here as at Greystone, with Sister Margaret picking out one’s broidery, and Father Cuthbert making one pore over his crabbed parchments.’
‘Oh, does this Father teach Latin?’ exclaimed Hal with eager interest.
‘Of course he doth! The Mother at York promised I should learn whatever became a damsel of high degree,’ said the girl, drawing herself up.
‘I would he would teach me!’ sighed the boy.
‘Better break thy fast and mind thy sheep,’ said the old woman, as if she feared his getting on dangerous ground; and placing the bowl of porridge on the rough table, she added, ‘Say the Benedicite, lad, and fall to.’ Then, as he uttered the blessing, she asked the guest whether she preferred ewes’ milk or cows’ milk, a luxury no one else was allowed, all eating their porridge contentedly with a pinch of salt, Hob showing scant courtesy, the less since his guest’s rank had been made known.
By the time they had finished, snowflakes--an early autumn storm--were drifting against the shutter, and a black cloud was lowering over the hills. Hob foretold a heavy fall of snow, and called on Hal to help him and Piers fold the flock more securely, sleepy Watch and his old long-haired collie mother rising at the same call. Lady Anne sprang up at the same time, insisting that she must go and help to feed the poor sheep, but she was withheld, much against her will, by Mother Dolly, though she persisted that snow was nothing to her, and it was a fine jest to be out of the reach of the Sisters, who mewed her up in a cell, like a messan dog. However, she was much amused by watching, and thinking she assisted in, Mother Dolly’s preparations for ewe milk cheese-making; and by-and-by Hal came in, shaking the snow off the sheepskin he had worn over his leathern coat. Hob had sent him in, as the weather was too bad for him, and he and Anne crouched on opposite sides of the wide hearth as he dried and warmed himself, and cosseted the cat which Anne had tried to caress, but which showed a decided preference for the older friend.
‘Our Baudrons at Greystone loves me better than that,’ said Anne. ‘She will come to me sooner than even to Sister Scholastica!’
‘My Tib came with us when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!’ as he held his fingers over her, and she rubbed her smooth head against him.
‘Can she leap? Baudrons leaps like a horse in the tilt-yard.’
‘Cannot she! There, my lady pussy, show what thou canst do to please the demoiselle,’ and he held his arms forward with clasped hands, so that the grey cat might spring over them, and Lady Anne cried out with delight.
Again and again the performance was repeated, and pussy was induced to dance after a string dangled before her, to roll over and play in apparent ecstasy with a flake of wool, as if it were a mouse, and Watch joined in the game in full amity. Mother Dolly, busy with her distaff, looked on, not displeased, except when she had to guard her spindle from the kitten’s pranks, but she was less happy when the children began to talk.
‘You have seen a tilt-yard?’
‘Yea, indeed,’ he answered dreamily. ‘The poor squire was hurt--I did not like it! It is gruesome.’
‘Oh, no! It is a noble sport! I loved our tilt-yard at Bletso. Two knights could gallop at one another in the lists, as if they were out hunting. Oh! to hear the lances ring against the shields made one’s heart leap up! Where was yours?’
Here Dolly interrupted hastily, ‘Hal, lad, gang out to the shed and bring in some more sods of turf. The fire is getting low.’
‘Here’s a store, mother--I need not go out,’ said Hal, passing to a pile in the corner. ‘It is too dark for thee to see it.’
‘But where was your castle?’ continued the girl. ‘I am sure you have lived in a castle.’
Insensibly the two children had in addressing one another changed the homely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical, second person plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said, ‘You are a little witch.’
‘No great witchcraft to hear that you speak as we do at home in Bedfordshire, not like these northern boors, that might as well be Scots!’
‘I am not from Bedfordshire,’ said the lad, looking much amused at her perplexity.
‘Who art thou then?’ she cried peremptorily.
‘I? I am Hal the shepherd boy, as I told thee before.’
‘No shepherd boy are you! Come, tell me true.’
Dolly thought it time to interfere. She heard an imaginary bleat, and ordered Hal out to see what was the matter, hindering the girl by force from running after him, for the snow was coming down in larger flakes than ever. Nevertheless, when her husband was heard outside she threw a cloak over her head and hurried out to speak with him. ‘That maid will make our lad betray himself ere another hour is over their heads!’
‘Doth she do it wittingly?’ asked the shepherd gravely.
‘Nay, ‘tis no guile, but each child sees that the other is of gentle blood, and women’s wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never rest till she has wormed out who he is.’
‘He promised me never to say, nor doth he know.’
‘Thee! Much do the hests of an old hogherd weigh against the wiles of a young maid!’
‘Lord Hal is a lad of his word. Peace with thy lords and ladies, woman, thou’lt have the archers after him at once.’
‘She makes no secret of being of gentle blood--a St. John of Bletso.’
‘A pestilent White Rose lot! We shall have them on the scent ere many days are over our head! An unlucky chance this same snow, or I should have had the wench off to Greystone ere they could exchange a word.’
‘Thou wouldst have been caught in the storm. Ill for the maid to have fallen into a drift!’
‘Well for the lad if she never came out of it!’ muttered the gruff old shepherd. ‘Then were her tongue stilled, and those of the clacking wenches at York--Yorkists every one of them.’
Mother Dolly’s eyes grew round. ‘Mind thee, Hob!’ she said; ‘I ken thy bark is worse than thy bite, but I would have thee to know that if aught befall the maid between this and Greystone, I shall hold thee--and so will my Lady--guilty of a foul deed.’
‘No fouler than was done on the stripling’s father,’ muttered the shepherd. ‘Get thee in, wife! Who knows what folly those two may be after while thou art away? Mind thee, if the maid gets an inkling of who the boy is, it will be the worse for her.’
‘Oh!’ murmured the goodwife, ‘I moaned once that our Piers there should be deaf and well-nigh dumb, but I thank God for it now! No fear of perilous word going out through him, or I durst not have kept my poor sister’s son!’
Mother Doll trusted that her husband would never have the heart to leave the pretty dark-haired girl in the snow, but she was relieved to find Hal marking down on the wide flat hearth-stone, with a bit of charcoal, all the stars he had observed. ‘Hob calls that the Plough--those seven!’ he said; ‘I call it Charles’s Wain!’
‘Methinks I have seen that!’ she said, ‘winter and summer both.’
‘Ay, he is a meuseful husbandman, that Charles! And see here! This middle mare of the team has a little foal running beside her’--he made a small spot beside the mark that stood for the central star of what we call the Bear’s Tail.
‘I never saw that!’
‘No, ‘tis only to be seen on a clear bright night. I have seen it, but Hob mocks at it. He thinks the only use of the Wain is to find the North Star, up beyond there, pointing by the back of the Plough, and go by it when you are lost.’
‘What good would finding the North Star do? It would not have helped me home if you had not found me!’
‘Look here, Lady Anne! Which way does Greystone lie?’
‘How should I tell?’
‘Which way did the sun lie when you crossed the moor?’
Anne could not remember at first, but by-and-by recollected that it dazzled her eyes just as she was looking for the runaway pony; and Hal declared that it proved that the convent must have been to the south of the spot of her fall; but his astronomy, though eagerly demonstrated, was not likely to have brought her back to Greystone. Still Doll was thankful for the safe subject, as he went on to mark out what he promised that she should see in the winter--the swarm of glow-worms, as he called the Pleiades; and ‘Our Lady’s Rock,’ namely, distaff, the northern name for Orion; and then he talked of the stars that so perplexed him, namely, the planets, that never stayed in their places.
By-and-by, when Mother Dolly’s work was over the kettle was on the fire, and she was able to take out her own spinning, she essayed to fill up the time by telling them lengthily the old stories and ballads handed down from minstrel to minstrel, from nurse to nurse, and they sat entranced, listening to the stories, more than even Hal knew she possessed, and holding one another by the hand as they listened.
Meantime the snow had ceased--it was but a scud of early autumn on the mountains--the sun came out with bright slanting beams before his setting, there was a soft south wind; and Hob, when he came in, growled out that the thaw had set in, and he should be able to take the maid back in the morning. He sat scowling and silent during supper, and ordered Hal about with sharp sternness, sending him out to attend to the litter of the cattle, before all had finished, and manifestly treated him as the shepherd’s boy, the drudge of the house, and threatening him with a staff if he lingered, soon following himself. Mother Dolly insisted on putting the little lady to bed before they should return, and convent-bred Anne had sufficient respect for proprieties to see that it was becoming. She heard no more that night.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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3
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-- OVER THE MOOR
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In humblest, simplest habit clad, But these were all to me. --GOLDSMITH.
‘Hal! What is your name?’
She stood at the door of the hovel, the rising sun lighting up her bright dark eyes, and smiling in the curly rings of her hair while Hal stood by, and Watch bounded round them.
‘You have heard,’ he said, half smiling, and half embarrassed.
‘Hal! That’s no name.’
‘Harry, an it like you better.’
‘Harry what?’ with a little stamp of her foot.
‘Harry Hogward, as you see, or Shepherd, so please you.’
‘You are no Hogward, nor shepherd! These folk be no kin to you, I can see. Come, an you love me, tell me true! I told you true who I am, Red Rose though I see you be! Why not trust me the same?’
‘Lady, I verily ken no name save Harry. I would trust you, verily I would, but I know not myself.’
‘I guess! I guess!’ she cried, clapping her hands, but at the moment Dolly laid a hand on her shoulder.
‘Do not guess, maiden,’ she said. ‘If thou wouldst not bring evil on the lad that found thee, and the roof that sheltered thee, guess not, yea, and utter not a word save that thou hast lain in a shepherd’s hut. Forget all, as though thou hadst slept in the castle on the hill that fades away with the day.’
She ended hastily, for her husband was coming up with a rough pony’s halter in his hand. He was in haste to be off, lest a search for the lost child might extend to his abode, and his gloomy displeasure and ill-masked uneasiness reduced every-one to silence in his presence.
‘Up and away, lady wench!’ he said. ‘No time to lose if you are to be at Greystone ere night! Thou Hal, thou lazy lubber, go with Piers and the sheep--’ ‘I shall go with you,’ replied Hal, in a grave tone of resolution. ‘I will only go within view of the convent, but go with you I will.’
He spoke with a decided tone of authority, and Hob Hogward muttered a little to himself, but yielded.
Hal assisted the young lady to mount, and they set off along the track of the moss, driving the cows, sheep, and goats before them--not a very considerable number--till they came to another hut, much smaller and more rude than that where they had left Mother Doll.
Piers was a wild, shaggy-haired lad, with a sheepskin over his shoulders, and legs bare below the knee, and to him the charge of the flock was committed, with signs which he evidently understood and replied to with a gruff ‘Ay, ay!’ The three went on the way, over the slope of a hill, partly clothed with heather, holly and birch trees, as it rose above the moss. Hob led the pony, and there was something in his grim air and manner that hindered any conversation between the two young people. Only Hal from time to time gathered a flower for the young lady, scabious and globe flowers, and once a very pink wild rose, mingled with white ones. Lady Anne took them with a meaning smile, and a merry gesture, as though she were going to brush Hal’s face with the petals. Hal laughed, and said, ‘You will make them shed.’
‘Well and good, so the disputes be shed,’ said Anne, with more meaning than perhaps Hal understood. ‘And the white overcomes the red.’
‘May be the red will have its way with spring--’ But there Hob looked round on them, and growled out, ‘Have done with that folly! What has a herd boy like thee to do with roses and frippery? Come away from the lady’s rein. Thou art over-held to thrust thyself upon her.’
Nevertheless, as Hal fell back, the dark eyes shot a meaning glance at him, and the party went on in silence, except that now and then Hob launched at Hal an order that he endeavoured to render savagely contemptuous and harsh, so that Lady Anne interfered to say, ‘Nay, the poor lad is doing no harm.’
‘Scathe enough,’ answered Hob. ‘He always will be doing ill if he can. Heed him not, lady, it only makes him the more malapert.’
‘Malapert,’ repeated Anne, not able to resist a little teasing of the grim escort; ‘that’s scarce a word of the dales. ‘Tis more like a man-at-arms.’
This Hob would not hear, and if he did, it produced a rough imprecation on the pony, and a sharp cut with his switch.
They had crossed another burn, travelled through the moss, and mounted to the brow of another hill, when, far away against the sky, on the top of yet another height, were to be seen moving figures, not cattle, but Anne recognised them at once. ‘Men-at-arms! archers! lances! A search party for me! The Prioress must have sent to the Warden’s tower.’
‘Off with thee, lad!’ said Hob, at once turning round upon Hal. ‘I’ll not have thee lingering to gape at the men-at-arms! Off I say, or--’ He raised his stout staff as though to beat the boy, who looked up in his face with a laugh, as if in very little alarm at his threat, smiled up in the young lady’s face, and as she held out her hand with ‘Farewell, Hal; I’ll keep your rose-leaves in my breviary,’ he bent over and kissed the fingers.
‘How now! This impudence passes! As if thou wert of the same blood as the damsel!’ exclaimed Hob in considerable anger, bringing down his stick. ‘Away with thee, ill-bred lubber! Back to thy sheep, thou lazy loiterer! Get thee gone and thy whelp with thee!’
Hal obeyed, though not without a parting grin at Anne, and had sped away down the side of the hill, among the hollies and birches, which entirely concealed him and the bounding puppy.
Hob went on in a gruff tone: ‘The insolence of these loutish lads! See you, lady, he is a stripling that I took up off the roadside out of mere charity, and for the love of Heaven--a mere foundling as you may say, and this is the way he presumes!’
‘A foundling, sayest thou?’ said Anne, unable to resist teasing him a little, and trying to gratify her own curiosity.
‘Ay, you may say so! There’s a whole sort of these orphans, after all the bad luck to the land, to be picked up on every wayside.’
‘On Towton Moor, mayhap,’ said Anne demurely, as she saw her surly guide start. But he was equal to the occasion, and answered: ‘Ay, ay, Towton Moor; ‘twas shame to see such bloody work; and there were motherless and fatherless children, stray lambs, to be met with, weeping their little hearts out, and starving all around unless some good Christian took pity on them.’
‘Was Hal one of these?’ asked Lady Anne.
‘I tell you, lady, I looked into a church that was full of weeping and wailing folk, women and children in deadly fear of the cruel, bloody-minded York folk, and the Lord of March that is himself King Edward now, a murrain on him!’
‘Don’t let those folk hear you say so!’ laughed Lady Anne. ‘They would think nothing of hauling thee off for a black traitor, or hanging thee up on the first tree stout enough to bear thee.’
She said it half mischievously, but the only effect was a grunt, and a stolid shrug of his shoulders, nor did he vouchsafe another word for the rest of the way before they came through the valley, and through the low brushwood on the bank, and were in sight of the search party, who set up a joyful halloo of welcome on perceiving her.
A young man, the best mounted and armed, evidently an esquire, rode forward, exclaiming, ‘Well met, fair Lady Anne! Great have been the Mother Prioress’s fears for you, and she has called up half the country side, lest you should be fallen into the hands of Robin of Redesdale, or some other Lancastrian rogue.’
‘Much she heeded me in comparison with hawk and heron!’ responded Anne. ‘Thanks for your heed, Master Bertram.’
‘I must part from thee and thy sturdy pony. Thanks for the use of it,’ added she, as the squire proceeded to take her from the pony. He would have lifted her down, but she only touched his hand lightly and sprang to the ground, then stood patting its neck. ‘Thanks again, good pony. I am much beholden to thee, Gaffer Hob! Stay a moment.’
‘Nay, lady, it would be well to mount you behind Archie. His beast is best to carry a lady.’
Archie was an elderly man, stout but active, attached to the service of the convent. He had leapt down, and was putting on a belt, and arranging a pad for the damsel, observing, ‘Ill hap we lost you, damsel! I saw you not fall.’
‘Ay,’ returned Anne, ‘your merlin charmed you far more. Master Bertram, the loan of your purse. I would reward the honest man who housed me.’
Bertram laughed and said, tossing up the little bag that hung to his girdle, ‘Do you think, fair damsel, that a poor Border squire carries about largesse in gold and silver? Let your clown come with us to Greystone, and thence have what meed the Prioress may bestow on him, for a find that your poor servant would have given worlds to make.’
‘Hearest thou, Hob?’ said Anne. ‘Come with us to the convent, and thou shalt have thy guerdon.’
Hob, however, scratched his head, with a more boorish air than he had before manifested, and muttered something about a cow that needed his attention, and that he could not spare the time from his herd for all that the Prioress was like to give him.
‘Take this, then,’ said Anne, disengaging a gold clasp from her neck, and giving it to him. ‘Bear it to the goodwife and bid her recollect me in her prayers.’
‘I shall come and redeem it from thee, sulky carle as thou art,’ said Bertram. ‘Such jewels are not for greasy porridge-fed housewives. Hark thee, have it ready for me! I shall be at thy hovel ere long’--as Anne waved to Hob when she was lifted to her seat.
But Hob had already turned away, and Anne, as she held on by Archie’s leathern belt, in her gay tone was beginning to defend him by declaring that porridge and grease did not go together, so the nickname was not rightly bestowed on the kindly goodwife.
‘Ay! Greasy from his lord’s red deer,’ said Bertram, ‘or his tainted mutton. Trust one of these herds, and a sheep is tainted whenever he wants a good supper. Beshrew me but that stout fellow looks lusty and hearty enough, as if he lived well.’
‘They were good and kind, and treated me well,’ said Anne. ‘I should be dead if they had not succoured me.’
‘The marvel is you are not dead with the stench of their hovel, and the foulness of their food.’
‘It was very good food--milk, meat, and oaten porridge,’ replied Anne.
‘Marvellous, I say!’ cried Bertram with a sudden thought. ‘Was it not said that there were some of those traitorous Lancastrian folk lurking about the mountains and fells? That rogue had the bearing of a man-at-arms, far more than of a mere herd. Deemedst thou not so, Archie?’ to the elderly man who rode before the young damsel.
‘Herdsmen here are good with the quarter-staff. They know how to stand against the Scots, and do not get bowed like our Midland serfs,’ put in Anne, before Archie could answer, which he did with something of a snarl, as Bertram laughed somewhat jeeringly, and declared that the Lady Anne had become soft-hearted. She looked down at her roses, but in the dismounting and mounting again the petals of the red rose had floated away, and nothing was left of it save a slender pink bud enclosed within a dark calyx.
Archie, hard pressed, declared, ‘There are poor fellows lurking about here and there, but bad blood is over among us. No need to ferret about for them.’
‘Eh! Not when there may be a lad among them for whose head the king and his brothers would give the weight of it in gold nobles?’
Anne shivered a little at this, but she cried out, ‘Shame on you, Master Bertram Selby, if you would take a price for the head of a brave foe! You, to aspire to be a knight!’
‘Nay, lady, I was but pointing out to Archie and the other grooms here, how they might fill their pouches if they would. I verily believe thou knowst of some lurking-place, thou art so prompt to argue! Did I not see another with thee, who made off when we came in view? Say! Was he a blood-stained Clifford? I heard of the mother having married in these parts.’
‘He was Hob Hogward’s herd boy,’ answered Anne, as composedly as she could. ‘He hied him back to mind his sheep.’
Nor would Anne allow another word to be extracted from her ere the grey walls of the Priory of Greystone rose before her, and the lay Sister at the gate shrieked for joy at seeing her riding behind Archie.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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4
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-- A SPORTING PRIORESS
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Yet nothing stern was she in cell, And the nuns loved their abbess well. --SCOTT.
The days of the Wars of the Roses were evil times for the discipline of convents, which, together with the entire Western Church, suffered from the feuds of the Popes with the Italian princes.
Small remote houses, used as daughters or auxiliaries to the large convents, were especially apt to fall into a lax state, and in truth the little priory of Greystone, with its half-dozen of Sisters, had been placed under the care of the Lady Agnes Selby because she was too highly connected to be dealt with sharply, and too turbulent and unmanageable for the soberminded house at York. So there she was sent, with the deeply devout and strict Sister Scholastica, to keep the establishment in order, and deal with the younger nuns and lay Sisters. Being not entirely out of reach of a raid from the Scottish border, it was hardly a place for the timid, although the better sort of moss troopers generally spared monastic houses. Anne St. John had been sent thither at the time when Queen Margaret was making her attempt in the north, where the city of York was Lancastrian, as the Mother Abbess feared that her presence might bring vengeance upon the Sisterhood.
There was no great harm in the Mother Agnes, only she was a maiden whom nothing but family difficulties could have forced into a monastic life--a lively, high-spirited, out-of-door creature, whom the close conventionalities of castle life and even whipping could not tame, and who had been the despair of her mother and of the discreet dames to whom her first childhood had been committed, to say nothing of a Lady Abbess or two. Indeed, from the Mother of Sopwell, Dame Julian Berners, she had imbibed nothing but a vehement taste for hawk, horse, and hound. The recluses of St. Mary, York, after being heartily scandalised by her habits, were far from sorry to have a good excuse for despatching her to their outlying cell, where, as they observed, she would know how to show a good face in case the Armstrongs came over the Border.
She came flying down on the first rumour of Lady Anne’s return, her veil turned back, her pace not at all accordant with the solemn gait of a Prioress, her arms outstretched, her face, not young nor handsome, but sunburnt, weather-beaten and healthy, and full of delight. ‘My child, my Nan, here thou art! I was just mounting to seek for thee to the west, while Bertram sought again over the mosses where we sent yester morn. Where hast thou been in the snow?’
‘A shepherd took me to his hut, Lady Mother,’ answered Anne rather coldly.
‘Little didst thou think of our woe and grief when thy palfrey was found standing riderless at the stable door, and Sister Scholastica told us that there he had been since nones! And she had none to send in quest but Cuddie, the neatherd.’
‘My palfrey fell with me when you were in full chase of hawk and heron, ‘and none ever turned a head towards me nor heard me call.’
‘Poor maid! But it was such a chase as never you did watch. On and on went the heron, the falcon ever mounting higher and higher, till she was but a speck in the clouds, and Tam Falconer shouting and galloping, mad lest she should go down the wind. Methought she would have been back to Norroway, the foul jade!’
‘Did you capture her, Mother?’ asked Anne.
‘Ay, she pounced at last, and well-nigh staked herself on the heron’s beak! But we had a long ride, and were well-nigh at the Tyne before we had caught her. Full of pranks, but a noble hawk, as I shall write to my brother by the next messenger that comes our way. I call it a hawk worth her meat that leads one such a gallop.’
‘What would you have done, reverend Mother, if she had crossed the Border?’ asked Bertram.
‘Ridden after her. No Scot would touch a Lady Prioress on the chase,’ responded Mother Agnes, looking not at all like a reverend Mother. ‘Now, poor Anne, thou must be hungered. Thou shalt eat with Master Bertram and me in the refectory anon. Take her, Sister Joan, and make her ready to break her fast with us.’
Anne quickly went to her chamber. It was not quite a cell, the bare stone walls being hung with faded woollen tapestry, the floor covered with a deerskin, the small window filled with dark green glass, a chest serving the double purpose of seat and wardrobe, and further, a bed hung with thick curtains, in which she slept with the lay Sister, Joan, who further fetched a wooden bowl of water from the fountain in the court that she might wash her face and hands. She changed her soiled riding-dress for a tight-fitting serge garment of dark green with long hanging sleeves, assisted by Joan, who also arranged her dark hair in two plaits, and put over it a white veil, fastened over a framework to keep it from hanging too closely.
All the time Joan talked, telling of the fright the Mother had been in when the loss of the Lady Anne had been discovered, and how it was feared that she had been seized by Scottish reivers, or lost in the snow on the hills, or captured by the Lancastrians.
‘For there be many of the Red Rose rogues about on the mosses--comrades, ‘tis said, of that noted thief Robin of Redesdale.’
‘I was with good folk, in a shepherd’s sheiling,’ replied Anne.
‘Ay, ay. Out on the north hill, methinks.’
‘Nay. Beyond Deadman’s Pool,’ said Anne. ‘By Blackreed Moss. That was where the pony fell.’
‘Blackreed Moss! That moor belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest Lancaster fellow of all! His daughter is the widow of the red-handed Clifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge. They say her young son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King holds him in deadly feud for his brother’s death.’
‘He was a babe, and had nought to do with it,’ said Anne.
‘He is of his father’s blood,’ returned Sister Joan, who in her convent was still a true north country woman. ‘Ay, Lady Anne, you from your shires know nought of how deep goes the blood feud in us of the Borderland! Ay, lady, was not mine own grandfather slain by the Musgrave of Leit Hill, and did not my father have his revenge on his son by Solway Firth? Yea, and now not a Graeme can meet a Musgrave but they come to blows.’
‘Nay, but that is not what the good Fathers teach,’ Anne interposed.
‘The Fathers have neither chick nor child to take up their quarrel. They know nought about blood crying for blood! If King Edward caught that brat of Clifford he would make him know what ‘tis to be born of a bloody house.’
Anne tried to say something, but the lay Sister pushed her along. ‘There, there, go you down--you know nothing about what honour requires of you! You are but a south country maid, and have no notion of what is due to them one came from.’
Joan Graeme was only a lay Sister, her father a small farmer when not a moss trooper; but all the Border, on both sides, had the strongest ideas of persistent vendetta, such as happily had never been held in the midland and southern counties, where there was less infusion of Celtic blood. Anne was a good deal shocked at the doctrine propounded by the attendant Sister, a mild, good-natured woman in daily life, but the conversation confirmed her suspicions, and put her on her guard as she remembered Hob’s warning. She had liked the shepherd lad far too much, and was far too grateful to him, to utter a word that might give him up to the revengers of blood.
At the foot of the stone stairs that led into the quadrangle she met the black-robed, heavily hooded Sister Scholastica on her way to the chapel. The old nun held out her arms. ‘Safely returned, my child! God be thanked! Art thou come to join thy thanksgiving with ours at this hour of nones?’
‘Nay, I am bound to break my fast with the Mother and Master Bertram.’
‘Ah! thou must needs be hungered! It is well! But do but utter thy thanks to Him Who kept thee safe from the storm and from foul doers.’
Anne did not break away from the good Sister, but went as far as the chapel porch, was touched with holy water, and bending her knee, uttered in a low voice her ‘Gratias ago,’ then hastened across the court to the refectory, where the Prioress received her with a laugh and, ‘So Sister Scholastica laid hands on thee; I thought I should have to come and rescue thee ere the grouse grew cold.’
Bertram, as a courteous squire of dames, came forward bowing low, and the party were soon seated at the board--literally a board, supported upon trestles, only large enough to receive the Prioress, the squire and the recovered girl, but daintily veiled in delicate white napery.
It was screened off from the rest of the refectory, where the few Sisters had already had their morning’s meal after Holy Communion; and from it there was a slight barrier, on the other side of which Bertram Selby ought to have been, but rules sat very lightly on the Prioress Selby. Bertram was of kin to her, and she had no demur as to admitting him to her private table. He was, in fact, a squire of the household of the Marquess of Montagu, brother of the Kingmaker and had been despatched with letters to the south. He had made a halt at his cousin’s priory, had been persuaded to join in flying the new hawks, and then had first been detained by the snow-storm, and then joined in the quest for the lost Lady Anne St. John.
No doubt had then arisen that the Nevils were firm in their attachment to Edward IV., and, as a consequence, in enmity to the House of Clifford, and both these scions of Selby had been excited at a rumour that the widow of the Baron who had slain young Edmund of York had married Sir Lancelot Threlkeld of Threlkeld, and that her eldest son, the heir of the line, might be hidden somewhere on the De Vesci estates.
Bertram had already told the Prioress that his men had spied a lad accompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought, had a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he carved for the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire, than the inquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she had been lodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast, sat meantime with the favourite hawk on her wrist and a large dog beside her, feeding them alternately with the bones of the grouse.
‘Come, tell us all, sweet Nan! Where wast thou in that untimely snow-storm? In a cave, starved with cold, eh?’
‘I was safe in a cabin with a kind old gammer.’
‘Eh! And how cam’st thou there? Wandering thither?’
‘Nay, the shepherd heard me call.’
‘The shepherd! What, the churl that came with thee?’
‘He carried me to the hut.’
Anne was on her guard, though Bertram probed her well. Was there only one shepherd? Was there not a boy with her on the hill-side where Bertram met her? The shepherd lad in sooth! What became of him? The shepherd sent him back, he had been too long away from his flock. What was his name? What was the shepherd’s name? Who was his master? Anne did not know--she had heard no names save Hob and Hal, she had seen no arms, she had heard nothing southland. The lad was a mere herd-boy, ordered out to milk ewes and tend the sheep. She answered briefly, and with a certain sullenness, and young Selby at last turned on her. ‘Look thee here, fair lady, there’s a saying abroad that the heir of the red-handed House of Clifford is lurking here, on the look-out to favour Queen Margaret and her son. Couldst thou put us on the scent, King Edward would favour thee and make thee a great dame, and have thee to his Court--nay, maybe give thee what is left of the barony of Clifford.’
‘I know nothing of young lords,’ sulkily growled Anne, who had been hitherto busy with her pets, striking her hand on the table.
‘And I tell thee, Bertram Selby,’ exclaimed the Prioress, ‘that if thou art ware of a poor fatherless lad lurking in hiding in these parts, it is not the part of an honest man to seek him out for his destruction, and still less to try to make the maid he rescued betray him. Well done, little Anne, thou knowest how to hold thy tongue.’
‘Reverend Mother,’ expostulated Bertram, ‘if you knew what some would give to be on the scent of the wolf-cub!’
‘I know not, nor do I wish to know, for what price a Selby would sell his honour and his bowels of mercy,’ said Mother Agnes. ‘Come away, Nan; thou hast done well.’
Bertram muttered something about having thought her a better Yorkist, women not understanding, and mischief that might be brewing; but the Prioress, taking Anne by the hand, went her way, leaving Bertram standing confused.
‘Oh, mother,’ sighed Anne, ‘do you think he will go after him? He will think I was treacherous!’
‘I doubt me whether he will dare,’ said the Prioress. ‘Moreover, it is too late in the day for a search, and another snow-shower seems coming up again. I cannot turn the youth, my kinsman, from my door, and he is safer here than on his quest, but he shall see no more of thee or me to-night. I may hold that Edward of March has the right, but that does not mean hunting down an orphan child.’
‘Mother, mother, you are good indeed!’ cried Anne, almost weeping for joy.
Bertram, though hurt and offended, was obliged by advance of evening to remain all night in the hospitium, with only the chaplain to bear him company, and it was reported that though he rode past Blackpool, no trace of shepherd or hovel was found.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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5
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-- MOTHER AND SON
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My own, my own, thy fellow-guest I may not be, but rest thee, rest-- The lowly shepherd’s life is best. --WORDSWORTH.
The Lady Threlkeld stood in the lower storey of her castle, a sort of rough-built hall or crypt, with a stone stair leading upward to the real castle hall above, while this served as a place where she met her husband’s retainers and the poor around, and administered to their wants with her own hands, assisted by the maidens of her household.
Among the various hungry and diseased there limped in a sturdy beggar with a wallet on his back, and a broad shady hat, as though on pilgrimage. He was evidently a stranger among the rest, and had his leg and foot bound up, leaning heavily on a stout staff.
‘Italy pilgrim, what ails thee?’ demanded the lady, as he approached her.
‘Alack, noble dame! we poor pilgrims must ever be moving on, however much it irks foot and limb, over these northern stones,’ he answered, and his accent and tone were such that a thrill seemed to pass over the lady’s whole person, but she controlled it, and only said, ‘Tarry till these have received their alms, then will I see to thee and thy maimed foot. Give him a stool, Alice, while he waits.’
The various patients who claimed the lady’s assistance were attended to, those who needed food were relieved, and in due time the hall was cleared, excepting of the lady, an old female servant, and Hob, who had sat all the time with his foot on a stool, and his back against the wall, more than half asleep after the toils and long journey of the night.
Then the Lady Threlkeld came to him, and making him a sign not to rise, said aloud, ‘Good Gaffer, let me see what ails thy leg.’ Then kneeling down and busying herself with the bandages, she looked up piteously in his face, with the partly breathed inquiry, ‘My son?’
‘Well, my lady, and grown into a stalwart lad,’ was Hob’s answer, with an eye on the door, and in a voice as low as his gruff tones would permit.
‘And wherefore? What is it?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Be they on the track of my poor boy?’
‘They may be,’ answered Hob, ‘wherefore I deemed it well to shift our quarters. As hap would have it, the lad fell upon a little wench lost in the mosses, and there was nothing for it but to bring her home for the night. I would have had her away as soon as day dawned, and no questions asked, but the witches, or the foul fiend himself, must needs bring up a snow-storm, and there was nothing for it but to let her bide in the cot all day, giving tongue as none but womenfolk can do; and behold she is the child of the Lord St. John of Bletso.’
‘Nay, what should bring her north?’
‘She wonnes at Greystone with the wild Prioress Selby, who lost her out hawking. Her father is a black Yorkist. I saw him up to his stirrups in blood at St. Albans!’
‘But sure my boy did not make himself known to her?’ exclaimed the lady.
‘I trow not. He has been well warned, and is a lad of his word; but the two bairns, left to themselves, could scarce help finding out that each was of gentle blood and breeding, and how much more my goodwife cannot tell. I took the maid back so soon as it was safe yester morn, and sent back my young lord, much against his will, half-way to Greystone. And well was it I did so, for he was scarce over the ridge when a plump of spears came in sight on the search for him, and led by the young squire of Selby.’
‘Ah! and if the damsel does but talk, even if she knows nought, the foe will draw their conclusions!’ said the lady, clasping her hands. ‘Oh, would that I had sent him abroad with his little brothers!’
‘Nay, then might he have fallen into the hands of Bletso himself, and they say Burgundy is all for the Yorkists now,’ said Hob. ‘This is what I have done, gracious lady. I bade my good woman carry off all she could from the homestead and burn the rest; and for him we wot on, I sent him and his flock off westward, appointing each of them the same trysting-place--on the slope beneath Derwent Hill, my lady--whence I thought, if it were your will and the good knight Sir Lancelot’s, we might go nigher to the sea and the firth, where the Selby clan have no call, being at deadly feud with the Ridleys. So if the maiden’s tongue goes fast, and the Prioress follows up the quest with young Selby, they will find nought for their pains.’
‘Thou art a good guardian, Hob! Ah! where would my boy be save for thee? And thou sayest he is even now at the very border of the forest ground! Sure, there can be no cause that I should not go and see him. My heart hungers for my children. Oh, let me go with thee!’
‘Sir Lancelot--’ began Hob.
‘He is away at the Warden’s summons. He will scarce be back for a week or more. I will, I must go with thee, good Hob.’
‘Not in your own person, good madam,’ stipulated Hob. ‘As thou knowest, there are those in Sir Lancelot’s following who might be too apt to report of secret visits, and that were as ill as the Priory folk.’
It was then decided that the lady should put on the disguise of a countrywoman bringing eggs and meat to sell at the castle, and meet Hob near the postern, whence a path led to Penrith.
Hob, having received a lump of oatcake and a draught of very small ale, limped out of the court, and, so soon as he could find a convenient spot behind the gorse bushes, divested himself of his bandages, and changed the side of his shepherd’s plaid to one much older and more weather-beaten; also his pilgrim’s hat for one in his pouch--a blue bonnet, more like the national Scottish head-gear, hiding the hat in the gorse.
Then he lay down and waited, where he could see a window, whence a red kerchief was to be fluttered to show when the lady would be ready for him to attend her. He waited long, for she had first to disarm suspicion by presiding at the general meal of the household, and showing no undue haste.
At last, though not till after he had more than once fallen asleep and feared that he had missed the signal, or that his wife and ‘Hal’ might be tempted to some imprudence while waiting, he beheld the kerchief waving in the sunset light of the afternoon, and presently, shrouded in such a black and white shepherd’s maud as his own, and in a russet gown with a basket on her arm, his lady came forth and joined him.
His first thought was how would she return again, when the darkness was begun, but her only answer was, ‘Heed not that! My child, I must see.’
Indeed, she was almost too breathless and eager with haste, as he guided her over the rough and difficult path, or rather track, to answer his inquiries as to what was to be done next. Her view, however, agreed with his, that they must lurk in the borders of the woodland for a day or two till Sir Lancelot’s return, when he would direct them to a place where he could put them under the protection of one of the tenants of his manor. It was a long walk, longer than Hob had perhaps felt when he had undertaken to conduct the lady through it, for ladies, though inured to many dangers in those days, were unaccustomed to travelling on their own feet; but the mother’s heart seemed to heed no obstacle, though moments came when she had to lean heavily on her companion, and he even had to lift her over brooks or pools; but happily the sun had not set when they made their way through the tangles of the wood, and at last saw before them the fitful glow of a fire of dead leaves, branches and twigs, while the bark of a dog greeted the rustling, they made.
‘Sweetheart, my faithful!’ then shouted Hob, and in another moment there was a cry, ‘Ha! Halloa! Master Hob--beest there?’
‘His voice! --my son’s!’ gasped the lady, and sank for a moment of overwhelming joy against the faithful retainer, while the shaggy dog leapt upon them both.
‘Ay, lad, here--and some one else.’
The boy crashed through the underwood, and stood on the path in a moment’s hesitation. Mother and son were face to face!
The years that had passed had changed the lad from almost a babe into a well-grown strong boy but the mother was little altered, and as she held out her arms no word was wasted ere he sprang into them, and his face was hidden on her neck as when he knew his way into her embrace of old!
When the intense rapturous hold was loosed they were aware of Goodwife Dolly looking on with clasped hands and streaming eyes, giving thanks for the meeting of her dear lady and the charge whom she and her husband had so faithfully kept.
When the mother and son had leisure to look round, and there was a pleased survey of the boy’s height and strength, Goodwife Dolly came forward to beg the lady to come to her fire, and rest under the gipsy tent which she and nephew Piers--her _real_ herd-boy, a rough, shaggy, almost dumb and imbecile lad--had raised with branches, skins and canvas, to protect their few articles of property. There was a smouldering fire, over which Doll had prepared a rabbit which the dog had caught, and which she had intended for Hal’s supper and that of her husband if he came home in time. While the lady lavished thanks upon her for all she had done for the boy she was intent on improving the rude meal, so as to strengthen her mistress after her long walk, and for the return. The lady, however, could see and think of nothing but her son, while he returned her tearful gaze with open eyes, gathering up his old recollections of her.
‘Mother!’ he said--with a half-wondering tone, as the recollections of six years old came back to him more fully, and then he nestled again in her arms as if she were far more real to him than at first--‘Mother!’ And then, as she sobbed over him, ‘The little one?’
‘The babe is well, when last I heard of her, in a convent at York. Thou rememberest her?’
‘Ay--my little sister! Ay,’ he said, with a considering interrogative sound, ‘I mind her well, and old Bunce too, that taught me to ride.’
But Hob interrupted the reminiscences by bringing up the pony on which Anne had ridden, and insisting that the lady should not tarry longer. ‘He,’ indicating Hal, might walk beside her through the wood, and thus prolong their interview, but, as she well knew, it was entirely unsafe to remain any longer away from the castle.
There were embraces and sobbing thanks exchanged between the lady and her son’s old nurse, and then Hal, at a growling hint from Hob, came forward, and awkwardly helped her to her saddle. He walked by her side through the wood, holding her rein, while Hob, going before, did his best in the twilight to clear away the tangled branches and brambles that fell across the path, and were near of striking the lady across the face as she rode.
On the way she talked to her son about his remembrances, anxious to know how far his dim recollections went of the old paternal castle in Bedfordshire, of his infant sister and brother, and his father. Of him he had little recollection, only of being lifted in his arms, kissed and blessed, and seeing him ride away with his troop, clanking in their armour. After that he remembered nothing, save the being put into a homelier dress, and travelling on Nurse Dolly’s lap in a wain, up and down, it seemed to him, for ever, till at last clearer recollections awoke in him, and he knew himself as Hal the shepherd’s boy, with the sheep around him, and the blue starry sky above him.
‘Dost thou remember what thou wast called in those times?’ asked his mother.
‘I was always Hal. The little one was Meg,’ he said.
‘Even so, my boy, my dear boy! But knowst thou no more than this?’
‘Methinks, methinks there were serving-men that called me the young Lord. Ay, so! But nurse said I must forget all that. Mother dear, when that maiden came and talked of tilts and lances, meseemed that I recollected somewhat. Was then my father a knight?’
‘Alack! alack! my child, that thou shouldst not know!’
‘Memories came back with that maiden’s voice and thine,’ said Hal, in a bewildered tone. ‘My father! Was he then slain when he rode farther?’
‘Ah! I may tell thee now thou art old enough to guard thyself,’ she said. ‘Thy father, whom our blessed Lord assoilzie, was the Lord Clifford, slain by savage hands on Towton field for his faith to King Harry! Thou, my poor boy, art the Baron of Clifford, though while this cruel House of York be in power thou must keep in hiding from them in this mean disguise. Woe worth the day!’
‘And am I then a baron--a lord?’ said the boy. ‘Great lords have books. Were there not some big ones on the hall window seats? Did not Brother Eldred begin to teach me my letters? I would that I could go on to learn more!’
‘Oh, I would that thou couldst have all knightly training, and learn to use sword and lance like thy gallant father!’
‘Nay, but I saw a poor man fall off his horse and lie hurt, I do not want those hard, cruel ways. And my father was slain. Must a lord go to battle?’
‘Boy, boy, thou wilt not belie thy Clifford blood,’ cried the lady in consternation, which was increased when he said, ‘I have no mind to go out and kill folks or be killed. I had rather mark the stars and tend my sheep.’
‘Alack! alack! This comes of keeping company with the sheep. That my son, and my lord’s son, should be infected with their sheepish nature!’
‘Never fear, madam,’ said Hob. ‘When occasion comes, and strength is grown, his blood will show itself.’
‘If I could only give him knightly breeding!’ sighed the lady. ‘Sir Lancelot may find the way. I cannot see him grow up a mere shepherd boy.’
‘Content you, madam,’ said Hob. ‘Never did I see a shepherd boy with the wisdom and the thought there is in that curly pate!’
‘Wisdom! thought!’ muttered the lady. ‘Those did not save our good King, only made him a saint. I had rather hear the boy talk of sword and lance than prate of books and stars! And that wench, whom to our misfortune thou didst find! What didst tell her?’
‘I told her nought, mother, for I had nought to tell.’
‘She scented mystery, though,’ said Hob. ‘She saw he was no herd boy.’
‘Nay? Though he holds himself like a lout untrained! Would that I could have thee in hand, my son, to make thee meet to tread in thy brave father’s steps! But now, comrade of sheep thou art, and I fear me thou wilt ever be! But that maid, I trust that she perceived nothing in thy bearing or speech?’
‘She will not betray whatever she perceived,’ said Hal stoutly.
The wood was by this time nearly past, and the moment of parting had come. The lady had decided on going on foot to the little grey stone church whose low square tower could be seen rising like another rock. Thither she could repair in her plaid, and by-and-by throw it off, and return in her own character to the castle, as though she had gone forth to worship there. When lifted off the shaggy pony she threw her arms round Hal, kissed him passionately, and bade him never breathe a word of it, but never to forget that a baron he was, and bound to be a good brave knight, fit to avenge his father’s death!
Hal came to understand from Dolly’s explanations that his recent abode had been on the estate of his grandfather, Baron de Vesci, at Londesborough, but his mother had since married Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, and had intimated that her boy should be removed thither as soon as might be expedient, and therefore the house on the Yorkshire moor had been broken up.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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6
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-- A CAUTIOUS STEPFATHER
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Thou tree of covert and of rest For this young bird that was distrest. --WORDSWORTH.
A baron--bound to be a good knight, and to avenge my father’s death! What does it all mean?’ murmured Hal to himself as he lay on his back in the morning sunshine, on the hill-side, the wood behind him, and before him a distance of undulating ground, ending in the straight mysterious blue-grey line that Hob Hogward had told him was the sea.
‘Baron! Lord Clifford, like my father! He was a man in steel armour; I remember how it rang, and how his gorget--yes, that was the thing round his throat--how it hurt me when he lifted me up to kiss me, and how they blamed me for crying out. Ay, and he lived in a castle with dark, dull, narrow chambers, all save the hall, where there was ever a tramping and a clamouring, and smells of hot burning meat, and horses, and all sorts of things, and they sat and sat over their meat and wine, and drank health to King Harry and the Red Rose. I mind now how they shouted and roared, and how I wanted to go and hide on the stairs, and my father would have me shout with them, and drink confusion to York out of his cup, and shook me and cuffed me when I cried. Oh! must one be like that to be a knight? I had rather live on these free green hills with the clear blue sky above me, and my good old ewe for my comrade’--and he fell to caressing the face of an old sheep which had come up to him, a white, mountain-bleached sheep with fine and delicate limbs. ‘Yes, I love thee, good, gentle, little ewe, and thee, faithful Watch,’ as a young collie pressed up to him, thrusting a long nose into his hand, ‘far better than those great baying hounds, or the fierce-eyed hawks that only want to kill. If I be a baron, must it be in that sort? Avenge! avenge! what does that mean? Is it, as in Goodwife Dolly’s ballads, going forth to kill? Why should I? I had rather let them be! Hark! Yea, Watch,’ as the dog pricked his ears and raised his graceful head, then sprang up and uttered a deep-mouthed bark. The sheep darted away to her companions, and Hal rose to his feet, as the dog began to wave his tail, and Hob came forward accompanied by a tall, grave-looking gentleman. ‘Here he be, sir. Hal, come thou and ask the blessing of thy knightly stepfather.’
Hal obeyed the summons, and coming forward put a knee to the ground, while Sir Lancelot Threlkeld uttered the conventional blessing, adding, ‘Fair son, I am glad to see thee. Would that we might be better acquainted, but I fear it is not safe for thee to come and be trained for knighthood in my poor house. Thou art a well grown lad, I rejoice to see, and strong and hearty I have no doubt.’
‘Ay, sir, he is strong enow, I wis; we have done our best for him,’ responded Hob, while Hal stood shy and shamefaced; but there was something about his bearing that made Sir Lancelot observe, ‘Ay, ay, he shows what he comes of more than his mother made me fear. Only thou must not slouch, my fair son. Raise thy head more. Put thy shoulders back. So! so! Nay.’
Poor Hal tried to obey, the colour mounting in his face, but he only became more and more stiff when he tried to be upright, and his expression was such that Sir Lancelot cried out, ‘Put not on the visage of one of thine own sheep! Ah! how shalt thou be trained to be a worthy knight? I cannot take thee to mine house, for I have men there who might inform King Edward that thy mother harboured thee. And unless I could first make interest with Montagu or Salisbury, that would be thy death, if not mine.’
The boy had nothing to say to this, and stood shy by, while his stepfather explained his designs to Hal. It was needful to remove the young Baron as far as possible from the suspicion of the greater part of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld’s household, and the present resting-place, within a walk of his castle, was therefore unsafe; besides that, freebooters might be another danger, so near the outskirts of the wood, since the northern districts of moor and wood were by no means clear of the remnants of the contending armies, people who were generally of the party opposite to that which they intended to rob.
But on the banks of the Derwent, not far from its fall into the sea, Sir Lancelot had granted a tenure to an old retainer of the De Vescis, who had followed his mistress in her misfortunes; and on his lands Hob Hogward might be established as a guardian of the herds with his family, which would excite no suspicion. Moreover, he could train the young Baron in martial exercises, the only other way of fitting him for his station unless he could be sent to France or Burgundy like his brother; but besides that the journey was a difficulty, it was always uncertain whether there would be revengeful exiles of one or other side in the service of their King, who might wreak the wrongs of their party on Clifford’s eldest son. There was reported to be a hermit on the coast, who, if he was a scholar, might teach the young gentleman. To Sir Lancelot’s surprise, his stepson’s face lighted up more at this suggestion than at that of being trained in arms.
Hob had done nothing in that way, not even begun to teach him the quarterstaff, though he avouched that when there was cause the young lord was no craven, no more than any Clifford ever was--witness when he drove off the great hound, which some said was a wolf, when it fell upon the flock, or when none could hold him from climbing down the Giant’s Cliff after the lamb that had fallen. No fear but he had heart enough to make his hand keep his own or other folks’ heads.
‘That is well,’ said Sir Lancelot, looking at the lad, who stood twisting his hands in the speechless silence induced by being the subject of discussion; ‘but it would be better, as my lady saith, if he could only learn not to bear himself so like a clown.’
However, there was no more time, for Simon Bunce, the old man-at-arms whom Sir Lancelot had appointed to meet him there, came in sight through the trees, riding an old grey war-horse, much resembling himself in the battered and yet strong and effective air of both. Springing down, the old man bent very low before the young Baron, raising his cap as he gave thanks to Heaven for permitting him to see his master’s son. Then, after obeisance to his present master, he and Hob eagerly shook hands as old comrades and fellow-soldiers who had thought never to meet again.
Then turning again to the young noble, he poured out his love, devotion and gratitude for being able to serve his beloved lord’s noble son; while poor Hal stood under the discomfort of being surrounded with friends who knew exactly what to say and do to him, their superior, while he himself was entirely at a loss how to show himself gracious or grateful as he knew he ought to do. It was a relief when Sir Lancelot said ‘Enough, good Simon! Forget his nobility for the present while he goes with thee to Derwentside as herd boy to Halbert Halstead here; only thou must forget both their names, and know them only as Hal and Hob.’
With a gesture of obedience, Simon listened to the further directions, and how he was to explain that these south country folks had been sent up in charge of an especial flock of my lady’s which she wished to have on the comparatively sheltered valley of the Derwent. Perhaps further directions as to the training of the young Baron were added later, but Hal did not hear them. He was glad to be dismissed to find Piers and gather the sheep together in preparation for the journey to their new quarters. Yet he did not fail to hear the sigh with which his stepfather noted that his parting salutation was far too much in the character of the herd boy.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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7
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-- ON DERWENT BANKS
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When under cloud of fear he lay A shepherd clad in homely grey. --WORDSWORTH.
Simon Bunce came himself to conduct his new tenants to their abode. It was a pleasant spot, a ravine, down which the clear stream rushed on its course to mingle its waters with those of the ocean. The rocks and brushwood veiled the approach to an open glade where stood a rude stone hovel, rough enough, but possessing two rooms, a hearth and a chimney, and thus superior to the hut that had been left on the moor. There were sheds for the cattle around, and the grass was fresh and green so that the sheep, the goat and the cow began eagerly feeding, as did the pony which Hal and Piers were unloading.
On one side stretched the open moor rising into the purple hills, just touched with snow. On the other was the wooded valley of the Derwent, growing wider ever before it debouched amid rocks into the sea. The goodwife at once discovered that there had been recent habitation, and asked what had become of the former dwellers there.
‘The woman fretted for company,’ said Simon, ‘and vowed she was in fear of the Scots, so I even let her have her way and go down to the town.’
The town in north country parlance only meant a small village, and Hob asked where it lay.
It was near the junction of the two streams, where Simon lived himself in a slightly fortified farmhouse, just high up enough to be fairly safe from flood tides. He did not advise his newly arrived tenants to be much seen at this place, where there were people who might talk. They were almost able to provide for their daily needs themselves, excepting for meal and for ale, and he would himself see to this being supplied from a more distant farm on the coast, which Hob and Piers might visit from time to time with the pony.
Goodwife Dolly inquired whether they might safely go to church, from which she had been debarred all the time they had been on the move. ‘So ill for both us and the lad,’ she said.
Simon looked doubtful. ‘If thou canst not save thy soul without,’ he said, ‘thou mightst go on some feast day, when there is such a concourse of folk that thou mightst not be noticed, and come away at once without halting for idle clavers, as they call them here.’
‘That’s what the women folk are keen for with their church-going,’ said Hob with a grin.
‘Now, husband, thou knowst,’ said Dolly, injured, though she was more than aware he spoke with intent to tease her. ‘Have I not lived all this while with none to speak to save thee and the blessed lads, and never murmured.’
‘Though thy tongue be sore for want of speech!’ laughed Hob, ‘thou beest a good wife, Dolly, and maybe thy faithfulness will tell as much in the saving of thy soul as going to church.’
‘Nay, but,’ said Hal with eagerness, ‘is there not a priest?’
‘The priest comes of a White Rose house--I trust not him. Ay, goodwife, beware of showing thyself to him. I give him my dues, that he may have no occasion against me or Sir Lancelot, but I would not have him pry into knowledge that concerns him not.’
‘Did not Sir Lancelot say somewhat of a scholarly hermit who might learn me in what I ought to know?’ asked the boy.
‘Never you fear, sir! Here are Hob Halstead and I, able to train any young noble in what behoves him most to know.’
‘Yea, in arms and sports. They must be learnt I know, but a noble needs booklore too,’ said the boy. ‘Cannot this same hermit help me? Sir Lancelot--’ Simon Bunce interrupted sharply. ‘Sir Lancelot knows nought of the hermit! He is--he is--a holy man.’
‘A priest,’ broke in Dolly, ‘a priest!’
‘No such thing, dame, no clerk at all, I tell thee. And ye lads had best not molest him! He is for ever busy with his prayers, and wants none near him.’
Hal was disappointed, for his mind was far less set on the exercises of a young knight than on the desire to acquire knowledge, that study which seemed to be thrown away on the unwilling ears of Anne St. John.
Hob had been awakened by contact with his lady and her husband, as well as with the old comrade, Simon Bunce, to perceive that if there were any chance of the young Lord Clifford’s recovering his true position he must not be allowed to lounge and slouch about like Piers, and he was continually calling him to order, making him sit and stand upright, as he had seen the young pages forced to do at the castle, learn how to handle a sword, and use the long stick which was the substitute for a lance, and to mount and sit on the old pony as a knight should do, till poor Hal had no peace, and was glad to get away upon the moor with Piers and the sheep, where there was no one to criticise him, or predict that nothing would ever make him do honour to his name if he were proved ten times a baron.
It was still worse when Bunce came over, and brought a taller horse, and such real weapons as he deemed that the young lord might be taught to use, and there were doleful auguries and sharp reproofs, designed in comically respectful phrases, till he was almost beside himself with being thus tormented, and ready to wish never to hear of being a baron.
His relief was to wander away upon the moors, watch the lights and shadows on the wondrous mountains, or dream on the banks of the river, by which he could make his way to the seashore, a place of endless wonder and contemplation, as he marvelled why the waters flowed in and retreated again, watched the white crests, and the glassy rolls of the waves, felt his mind and aspiration stretched as by something illimitable, even as when he looked up to the sky, and saw star beyond star, differing from one another in brightness. There were those white birds too, differing from all the night-jars and plovers he had seen on the moor, floating now over the waves, now up aloft and away, as if they were soaring into the very skies. Oh, would that he could follow them, and rise with them to know what were those great grey or white clouds, and what was above or below in those blue vastnesses! And whence came all those strange things that the water spread at his feet the long, brown, wet streamers, or the delicate red tracery that could be seen in the clear pools, where were sometimes those lumps like raw flesh when closed, but which opened into flowers? Or the things like the snails on the heath, yet not snails, and all the strange creatures that hopped and danced in the water?
Why would no one explain such things to him? Nay, what a pity everyone treated it as mere childish folly in him to be thus interested! They did not quite dare to beat him for it--that was one use of being a baron. Indeed, one day when Simon Bunce struck him sharply and hard over the shoulders for dragging home a great piece of sea-weed with numerous curious creatures upon it, Goodwife Dolly rushed out and made such an outcry that the esquire was fain to excuse himself by declaring that it was time that my lord should know how to bide a buffet, and answer it. He was ready and glad to meet the stroke in return! ‘Come on, sir!’
And Hob put a stout headless lance in the boy’s hand, while Simon stood up straight before him. Hob adjusted the weapon in his inert hand, and told him how and where to strike. But ‘It is not in sooth. I don’t want to hurt Master Simon,’ said the child, as they laughed, and yet with displeasure as his blow fell weak and uncertain.
‘Is it a mouse’s tail?’ cried Simon in derision.
‘Come, sir, try again,’ said Hob. ‘Strike as you did when the black bull came down. Why cannot you do the like now, when you are tingling from Bunce’s stroke?’
‘Ah! then I thought the bull would fall on Piers,’ said Hal.
‘Come on, think so now, sir. One blow to do my heart good, and show you have the arm of your forebears.’
Thus incited, with Hob calling out to him to take heart of grace, while Simon made a feint of trying to beat Mother Dolly, Hal started forward and dealt a blow sufficient to make Simon cry out, ‘Ha, well struck, sir, if you had had a better grip of your lance! I even feel it through my buff coat.’
He spoke as though it had been a kiss; but oh! and alack! why were these rough and dreary exercises all that these guardians--yea, and even Sir Lancelot and his mother--thought worth his learning, when there was so much more that awoke his delight and interest? Was it really childish to heed these things? Yet even to his young, undeveloped brain it seemed as if there must be mysteries in sky and sea, the unravelling of which would make life more worth having than the giving and taking of blows, which was all they heeded.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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8
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-- THE HERMIT
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No hermit e’er so welcome crost A child’s lone path in woodland lost. --KEBLE.
Hal had wandered farther than his wont, rather hoping to be out of call if Simon arrived to give him a lesson in chivalrous sports. He found himself on the slope of one of the gorges down which smaller streams rushed in wet weather to join the Derwent. There was a sound of tinkling water, and leaning forward, Hal saw that a tiny thread of water dropped between the ferns and the stones. Therewith a low, soft chant in a manly voice, mingling with the drip of the water.
The words were strange to him&& Lucis Creator optime, Lucem dierum proferens&& but they were very sweet, and in leaning forward to look between the rowan branches and hear and see more, his foot slipped, and with Watch barking round him, he rolled helplessly down the rock, and found himself before a tall light-haired man, in a dark dress, who gave a hand to raise him, asking kindly, ‘Art hurt, my child?’
‘Oh, no, sir! Off, off, Watch!’ as the dog was about to resent anyone’s touching his master. ‘Holy sir, thanks, great thanks,’ as a long fair hand helped him to his feet, and brushed his soiled garment.
‘Unhurt, I see,’ said that sweet voice. ‘Hast thou lost thy way? Good dog, thou lovest thy master! Art thou astray?’
‘No, sir, thank you, I know my way home.’
‘Thou art the boy who lives with the shepherd at Derwentside, on Bunce’s ground?’
‘Ay, Hob Hogward’s herd boy,’ said Hal. ‘Oh, sir, are you the holy hermit of the Derwent vale?’
‘A hermit for the nonce I am,’ was the answer, with something of a smile responsive to the eager face.
‘Oh, sir, if you be not too holy to look at me or speak to me! If you would help me to some better knowledge--not only of sword and single-stick!’
‘Better knowledge, my child! Of thy God?’ said the hermit, a sweet look of joy spreading over his face.
‘Goodwife Dolly has told me of Him, and taught me my Pater and Credo, but we have lived far off, and she has not been able to go to church for weeks and years. But what I long after is to tell me what means all this--yonder sea, and all the stars up above. And they will call me a simpleton for marking such as these, and only want me to heed how to shoot an arrow, or give a stroke hard enough to hurt another. Do such rude doings alone, fit for a bull or a ram as meseems, go to the making of a knight, fair sir?’
‘They go to the knight’s keeping of his own, for others whom he ought to defend,’ said the hermit sadly; ‘I would have thee learn and practise them. But for the rest, thou knowest, sure, who made the stars?’
‘Oh yes! Nurse Dolly told me. She saw it all in a mystery play long long ago--when a Hand came out, and put in the stars and sun and moon.’
‘Knowest thou whose Hand was figured there, my child?’
‘The Hand of God,’ said Hal, removing his cap. ‘They be sparks to show His glory! But why do some move about among the others--one big one moves from the Bull’s face one winter to half-way beyond it. And is the morning star the evening one?’
‘Ah! thou shouldst know Ptolemy and the Almagest,’ said the hermit smiling, ‘to understand the circuits of those wandering stars--Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.’
‘That is Latin,’ said the boy, startled. ‘Are you a priest, sir?’
‘No, not I--I am not worthy,’ was the answer, ‘but in some things I may aid thee, and I shall be blessed in so doing. Canst say thy prayers?’
‘Oh, yes! nurse makes me say them when I lie down and when I get up--Credo and Pater. She says the old parson used to teach them our own tongue for them, but she has well-nigh forgot. Can you tell me, holy man?’
‘That will I, with all my heart,’ responded the hermit, laying his long delicate hand on Hal’s head. ‘Blessed be He who has sent thee to me!’
The boy sat at the hermit’s feet, listening with the eagerness of one whose soul and mind had alike been under starvation, and how time went neither knew till there was a rustling and a step. Watch sprang up, but in another moment Simon Bunce, cap in hand, stood before the hut, beginning with ‘How now, sir?’
The hermit raised his hand, as if to make a sign, saying, ‘Thou seest I have a guest, good friend.’
Bunce started back with ‘Oh! the young Lord! Sworn to silence, I trust! I bade him not meddle with you, sir.’
‘It was against his will, I trow,’ said the hermit. ‘He fell over the rock by the waterfall, but since he is here, I will answer for him that he does no hurt by word or deed!’
‘Never, holy sir!’ eagerly exclaimed Hal. ‘Hob Hogward knows that I can keep my mouth shut. And may I come again?’
Simon was shaking his head, but the hermit took on him to say, ‘Gladly will I welcome thee, my fair child, whensoever thou canst find thy way to the weary old anchoret! Go thy way now! Or hast thou lost it?’
‘No, sir; I ken the woodland and can soon be at home,’ replied Hal; then, putting a knee to the ground, ‘May I have your blessing, holy man?’
‘Alack, I told thee I am no priest,’ said the hermit; ‘but for such as I am, I bless thee with all my soul, thou fatherless lad,’ and he laid his hand on the young lad’s wondering brow, then bade him begone, since Simon and himself had much to say to one another.
Hal summoned Watch, and turned to a path through the wood, leading towards the coast, wondering as he walked how the hermit seemed to know him--him whose presence had been so sedulously concealed. Could it be that so very holy a man had something of the spirit of prophecy?
He kept his promise of silence, and indeed his guardians were so much accustomed to his long wanderings that he encountered no questions, only one of Hob’s growls that he should always steal away whenever there was a chance of Master Bunce’s coming to try to make a man of him.
However, Bunce himself arrived shortly after, and informed Hob that since young folks always pried where they were least wanted, and my lord had stumbled incontinently on the anchoret’s den, it was the holy man’s will that he might come there whenever he chose. A pity and shame it was, but it would make him more than ever a mere priestling, ever hankering after books and trash!
‘Were it not better to ask my lady and Sir Lancelot if they would have it so? I could walk over to Threlkeld!’
‘No, no, no, on your life not,’ exclaimed Simon, striking his staff on the ground in his vehemence. ‘Never a word to the Threlkeld or any of his kin! Let well alone! I only wish the lad had never gone a-roaming there! But holy men must not be gainsaid, even if it does make a poor craven scholar out of his father’s son.’
And thus began a time of great contentment to the Lord Clifford. There were few days on which he did not visit the hermitage. It was a small log hut, but raised with some care, and made weatherproof with moss and clay in the crevices, and there was an inner apartment, with a little oil lamp burning before a rough wooden cross, where Hal, if the hermit were not outside, was certain to find him saying his prayers. Food was supplied by Simon himself, and, since Hal’s admission, was often carried by him, and the hermit seemed to spend his time either in prayer or in a gentle dreamy state of meditation, though he always lighted up into animation at the arrival of the boy whom he had made his friend. Hal had thought him old at first, on the presumption that all hermits must be aged, nor was it likely that age should be estimated by one living such a life, but the light hair, untouched with grey, the smooth cheeks and the graceful figure did not belong to more than a year or two above forty. And he had no air of ill health, yet this calm solitary residence in the wooded valley seemed to be infinite rest to him.
Hal had no knowledge nor experience to make him wonder, and accepted the great quiet and calm of the hermit as the token of his extreme holiness and power of meditation. He himself was always made welcome with Watch by his side, and encouraged to talk and ask questions, which the hermit answered with what seemed to the boy the utmost wisdom, but older heads would have seen not to be that of a clever man, but of one who had been fairly educated for the time, had had experience of courts and camps, and referred all the inquiries and wonderments which were far beyond him direct to Almighty Power.
The mind of the boy advanced much in this intercourse with the first cultivated person he had encountered, and who made a point of actually teaching and explaining to him all those mysteries of religion which poor old Dolly only blindly accepted and imparted as blindly to her nursling. Of actual instruction, nothing was attempted. A little portuary, or abbreviated manual of the service, was all that the hermit possessed, treasured with his small crucifix in his bosom, and of course it was in Latin. The Hours of the Church he knew by heart, and never failed to observe them, training his young pupil in the repetition and English meaning of such as occurred during his visits. He also told much of the history of the world, as he knew it, and of the Church and the saints, to the eager mind that absorbed everything and reflected on it, coming with fresh questions that would have been too deep and perplexing for his friend if he had not always determined everything with ‘Such is the will of God.’
Somewhat to the surprise of Simon Bunce and Hob Hogward, Hal improved greatly, not only in speech but in bearing; he showed no such dislike or backwardness in chivalrous exercises as previously; and when once Sir Lancelot Threlkeld came over to see him, he was absolutely congratulated on looking so much more like a young knight.
‘Ay,’ said Bunce, taking all the merit to himself, ‘there’s nought like having an old squire trained in the wars in France to show a stripling how to hold a lance.’
Hal had been too well tutored to utter a word of him to whom his improvement was really due, not by actual training, but partly by unconscious example in dignified grace and courtesy of demeanour, and partly by the rather sad assurances that it was well that a man born to his station, if he ever regained it, should be able to defend himself and others, and not be a helpless burthen on their hands. Tales of the Seven Champions of Christendom and of King Arthur and his Knights likewise had their share in the moulding of the youthful Lord Clifford.
His great desire was to learn to read, but it was not encouraged by the hermit, nor was there any book available save the portuary, crookedly and contractedly written on vellum, so as to be illegible to anyone unfamiliar with writing, with Latin, or the service. However, the anchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the alphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred words in the book--which, indeed, were all in gold, red and blue.
He did not advance more than this, for his teacher was apt to go off in a musing dream of meditation, repeating over and over in low sweet tones the holy phrases, and not always rousing himself when his pupil made a remark or asked a question. Yet he was always concerned at his own inattention when awakened, and would apologise in a tone of humility that always made Hal feel grieved and ashamed of having been importunate. For there was a dignity and gentleness about the hermit that always made the boy feel the contrast with his own roughness and uncouthness, and reverence him as something from a holier world.
‘Nurse, I do think he is a saint,’ one day said Hal.
‘Nay, nay, my laddie, saints don’t come down from heaven in these days of evil.’
‘I would thou could see him when one comes upon him at his prayers. His face is like the angel at the cross I saw so long ago in the castle chapel.’
‘Dost thou remember that chapel? Thou wert a babe when we quitted it.’
‘I had well nigh forgotten it, but the good hermit’s face brought all back again, and the voice of the father when he said the Service.’
‘That thou shouldst mind so long! This hermit is no priest, thou sayst?’
‘No, he said he was not worthy; but sure all saints were not priests, nurse.’
‘Nay, it is easy to be more worthy than the Jack Priests I have known. Though I would they would let me go to church. But look thee here, Hal, if he be such a saint as thou sayst, maybe thou couldst get him to bestow a blessing on poor Piers, and give him his hearing and voice.’
Hal was sure that his own special saint was holy enough for anything, and accordingly asked permission of him to bring his silent companion for blessing and healing.
The mild blue eye lighted for a moment. ‘Is the poor child then afflicted with the King’s Evil?’ the hermit asked.
‘Nay, he is sound enough in skin and limb. It is that he can neither hear nor speak, and if you, holy sir, would lay thine hand on him, and sign him with the rood, and pray, mayhap your holiness--’ ‘Peace, peace,’ cried the hermit impetuously, lifting up his hand. ‘Dost not know that I am a sinner like unto the rest--nay, a greater sinner, in that a burthen was laid on me that I had not the soul to rise to, so that the sin and wickedness of thousands have been caused by my craven faint heart for well nigh two score years? O miserere Domine.’
He threw himself on the ground with clasped hands, and Hal, standing by in awestruck amazement, heard no more save sobs, mingled with the supplications of the fifty-first Psalm.
He was obliged at last to go away without having been able to recall the attention of his friend from his agony of prayer. With the reticence that had grown upon him, he did not mention at home the full effect of his request, but when he thought it over he was all the more convinced that his friend was a great saint. Had he not always heard that saints believed themselves great sinners, and went through many penances? And why did he speak as if he could have cured the King’s Evil? He asked Dolly what it was, and she replied that it was the sickness that only the King’s touch could heal.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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9
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-- HENRY OF WINDSOR
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My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not deck’d with diamonds, and Indian stones, Nor to be seen. My crown is call’d Content. --SHAKESPEARE.
Summer had faded, and an early frost had tinted the fern-leaves with gold here and there, and made the hermit wrap himself close in a cloak lined with thick brown fur.
Simon, who was accustomed very respectfully to take the command of him, insisted that he should have a fire always burning on a rock close to his door, and that Piers, if not Hal, should always take care that it never went out, smothering it with peat, as every shepherd boy knew how to do, so as to keep it alight, or, in case of need, to conceal it with turf.
One afternoon, as Hal lay on the grass, whiling away the time by alternately playing with Watch and trying to unravel the mysteries of a flower of golden-rod, until the hermit should have finished his prayers and be ready to attend to him, Piers came through the wood, evidently sent on a message, and made him understand that he was immediately wanted at home.
Hal turned to take leave of his host, but the hermit’s eyes were raised in such rapt contemplation as to see nought, and, indeed, it might be matter of doubt whether he had ever perceived the presence of his visitor.
Hal directed Piers to arrange the fire, and hurried away, becoming conscious as he came in sight of the cottage that there were horses standing before it, and guessing at once that it must be a visit from Sir Lancelot Threlkeld.
It was Simon Bunce, however, who, with demonstrations of looking for him, came out to meet him as he emerged from the brushwood, and said in a gruff whisper, clutching his shoulder hard, ‘Not a word to give a clue! Mum! More than your life hangs on it.’
No more could pass, to explain the clue intended, whether to the presence of the young Lord Clifford himself, which was his first thought, or to the inhabitant of the hermitage. For Sir Lancelot’s cheerful voice was exclaiming, ‘Here he is, my lady! Here’s your son! How now, my young lord? Thou hast learnt to hold up thy head! Ay, and to bow in better sort,’ as, bending with due grace, Hal paused for a second ere hurrying forward to kneel before his mother, who raised him in her arms and kissed him with fervent affection. ‘My son! mine own dear boy, how art thou grown! Thou hast well nigh a knightly bearing!’ she exclaimed. ‘Master Bunce hath done well by thee.’
‘Good blood will out, my lady,’ quoth Simon, well pleased at her praise.
‘He hath had no training but thine?’ said Sir Lancelot, looking full at Simon.
‘None, Sir Knight, unless it be honest Halstead’s here.’
‘Methought I heard somewhat of the hermit in the glen,’ put in the lady.
‘He is a saint!’ declared two or three voices, as if this precluded his being anything more.
‘A saint,’ repeated the lady. ‘Anchorets are always saints. What doth he?’
‘Prayeth,’ answered Simon. ‘Never doth a man come in but he is at his prayers. ‘Tis always one hour or another!’
‘Ay?’ said Sir Lancelot, interrogatively. ‘Sayest thou so? Is he an old man?’
Simon put in his word before Hal could speak: ‘Men get so knocked about in these wars that there’s no guessing their age. I myself should deem that the poor rogue had had some clouts on the head that dazed him and made him fit for nought save saying his prayers.’
Here Sir Lancelot beckoned Simon aside, and walked him away, so as to leave the mother and son alone together.
Lady Threlkeld questioned closely as to the colour of the eyes and hair, and the general appearance of the hermit, and Hal replied, without suspicion, that the eyes were blue, the hair, he thought, of a light colour, the frame tall and slight, graceful though stooping; he had thought at first that the hermit must be old, very old, but had since come to a different conclusion. His dress was a plain brown gown like a countryman’s. There was nobody like him, no one whom Hal so loved and venerated, and he could not help, as he stood by his mother, pouring out to her all his feeling for the hermit, and the wise patient words that now and then dropped from him, such as ‘Patience is the armour and conquest of the godly;’ or, ‘Shall a man complain for the punishment of his sins?’ ‘Yet,’ said Hal, ‘what sins could the anchoret have? Never did I know that a man could be so holy here on earth. I deemed that was only for the saints in heaven.’
The lady kissed the boy and said, ‘I trow thou hast enjoyed a great honour, my child.’
But she did not say what it was, and when her husband summoned her, she joined him to repair to Penrith, where they were keeping an autumn retirement at a monastery, and had contrived to leave their escort and make this expedition on their way.
Simon examined Hal closely on what he had said to his mother, sighed heavily, and chided him for prating when he had been warned against it, but that was what came of dealing with children and womenfolk.
‘What can be the hurt?’ asked Hal. ‘Sir Lancelot knows well who I am! No lack of prudence in him would put men on my track.’
‘Hear him!’ cried Simon; ‘he thinks there is no nobler quarry in the woods than his lordship!’
‘The hermit! Oh, Simon, who is he?’
But Simon began to shout for Hob Hogward, and would not hear any further questions before he rode away, as far as Hal could see, in the opposite direction to the hermitage. But when he repaired thither the next day he was startled by hearing voices and the stamp of horses, and as he reconnoitred through the trees he saw half a dozen rough-looking men, with bows and arrows, buff coats, and steel-guarded caps--outlaws and robbers as he believed.
His first thought was that they meant harm to the gentle hermit, and his impulse was to start forward to his protection or assistance, but as he sprang into sight one of the strangers cried out: ‘How now! Here’s a shepherd thrusting himself in. Back, lad, or ‘twill be the worse for you.’
‘The hermit! the hermit! Do not meddle with him! He’s a saint,’ shouted Hal.
But even as he spoke he became aware of Simon, who called out: ‘Hold, sir; back, Giles; this is one well nigh in as much need of hiding as him yonder. Well come, since you be come, my lord, for we cannot get _him_ there away without a message to you, and ‘tis well he should be off ere the sleuth-hounds can get on the scent.’
‘What! Where! Who?’ demanded the bewildered boy, breaking off, as at that moment his friend appeared at the door of the hovel, no longer in the brown anchoret’s gown but in riding gear, partially defended by slight armour, and with a cap on his head, which made him look much younger than he had before done.
‘Child, art thou there? It is well; I could scarce have gone without bidding thee farewell,’ he said in his sweet voice; ‘thou, the dear companion of my loneliness.’
‘O sir, sir, and are you going away?’
‘Yea, so they will have it! These good fellows are come to guard me.’
‘Oh! may I not go with thee?’
‘Nay, my fair son. Thou art beneath thy mother’s wing, while I am like one who was hunted as a partridge on the mountains.’
‘Whither, oh whither?’ gasped Hal.
‘That I know not! It is in the breasts of these good men, who are charged by my brave wife to have me in their care.’
‘Oh! sir, sir, what shall I do without you? You that have helped me, and taught me, and opened mine eyes to all I need to know.’
‘Hush, hush; it is a better master than I could ever be that thou needest. But,’ as tokens of impatience manifested themselves among the rude escort, ‘take thou this,’ giving him the little service-book, as he knelt to receive it, scarce knowing why. ‘One day thou wilt be able to read it. Poor child! whose lot it is to be fatherless and landless for me and mine, I would I could do more for thee.’
‘Oh! you have done all,’ sobbed Hal.
‘Nay, now, but this be our covenant, my boy! If thou, and if mine own son both come to your own, thou wilt be a true and loyal man to him, even as thy father was to me, and may God Almighty make it go better with you both.’
‘I will, I will! I swear by all that is holy!’ gasped Hal Clifford, with a flash of perception, as he knelt.
‘Come, my liege, we have far to go ere night. No time for more parting words and sighs.’
Hal scarcely knew more except that the hands were laid on his head, and the voice he had learnt to love so well said: ‘The blessing of God the Father be upon thee, thou fatherless boy, and may He reward thee sevenfold for what thy father was, who died for his faithfulness to me, a sinner! Fare thee well, my boy.’
As the hand that Hal was fervently kissing was withdrawn from him he sank upon his face, weeping as one heartbroken. He scarce heard the sounds of mounting and the trampling of feet, and when he raised his head he was alone, the woods and rocks were forsaken.
He sprang up and ran along at his utmost speed on the trampled path, but when he emerged from it he could only see a dark party, containing a horseman or two, so far on the way that it was hopeless to overtake them.
He turned back slowly to the deserted hut, and again threw himself on the ground, weeping bitterly. He knew now that his friend and master had been none other than the fugitive King, Henry of Windsor.
|
{
"id": "5313"
}
|
10
|
-- THE SCHOLAR OF THE MOUNTAINS
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Not in proud pomp nor courtly state; Him his own thoughts did elevate, Most happy in the shy recess. --WORDSWORTH.
The departure of King Henry was the closing of the whole intellectual and religious world that had been opened to the young Lord Clifford. To the men of his own court, practical men of the world, there were times when poor Henry seemed almost imbecile, and no doubt his attack of melancholy insanity, the saddest of his ancestral inheritances, had shattered his powers of decision and action; but he was one who ‘saw far on holy ground,’ and he was a well-read man in human learning, besides having the ordinary experience of having lived in the outer world, so that in every way his companionship was delightful to a thoughtful boy, wakening to the instincts of his race.
To think of being left to the society of the sheep, of dumb Piers and his peasant parents was dreariness in the extreme to one who had begun to know something like conversation, and to have his countless questions answered, or at any rate attended to. Add to this, he had a deep personal love and reverence for his saint, long before the knowing him as his persecuted King, and thus his sorrow might well be profound, as well as rendered more acute by the terror lest his even unconscious description to his mother might have been treason!
He wept till he could weep no longer, and lay on the ground in his despair till darkness was coming on, and Piers came and pulled him up, indicating by gestures and uncouth sounds that he must go home. Goodwife Dolly was anxiously looking out for him.
‘Laddie, there thou beest at last! I had begun to fear me whether the robber gang had got a hold of thee. Only Hob said he saw Master Simon with them. Have they mishandled thee, mine own lad nurse’s darling? Thou lookest quite distraught.’
All Hal’s answer was to hide his head in her lap and weep like a babe, though she could, with all her caresses, elicit nothing from him but that his hermit was gone. No, no, the outlaws had not hurt him, but they had taken him away, and he would never come back.
‘Ay, ay, thou didst love him and he was a holy man, no doubt, but one of these days thou shalt have a true knight, and that is better for a young baron to look to than a saint fitter for Heaven than for earth! Come now, stand up and eat thy supper. Don’t let Hob come in and find thee crying like a swaddled babe.’
With which worldly consolations and exhortations Goodwife Dolly brought him to rise and accept his bowl of pottage, though he could not swallow much, and soon put it aside and sought his bed.
It was not till late the next day that Simon Bunce was seen riding his rough pony over the moor. Hal repaired to him at once, with the breathless inquiry, ‘Where is he?’
‘In safe hands! Never you fear, sir! But best know nought.’
‘O Simon, was I--? Did I do him any scathe? --I--I never knew--I only told my lady mother it was a saint.’
‘Ay, ay, lad, more’s the pity that he is more saint than king! If my lady guessed aught, she would be loyal as became your father’s wife, and methinks she would not press you hard for fear she should be forced to be aware of the truth.’
‘But Sir Lancelot?’
‘As far as I can gather,’ explained Simon, ‘Sir Lancelot is one that hath kept well with both sides, and so is able to be a protector. But down came orders from York and his crew that King Harry is reported to be lurking in some of these moors, and the Countess Clifford being his wife, he fell under suspicion of harbouring him. Nay, there was some perilous talk in his own household, so that, as I understand the matter, he saw the need of being able to show that he knew nothing; or, if he found that the King was living within these lands, of sending him a warning ere avowing that he had been there. So I read what was said to me.’
‘He knew nothing from me! Neither he nor my lady mother,’ eagerly said Hal. ‘When I mind me I am sure my mother cut me short when I described the hermit too closely, lest no doubt she should guess who he was.’
‘Belike! It would be like my lady, who is a loyal Lancastrian at heart, though much bent on not offending her husband lest his protection should be withdrawn from you.’
‘Better--O, a thousand times better! --he gave me up than the King!’
‘Hush! What good would that do? A boy like you? Unless they took you in hand to make you a traitor, and offered you your lands if you would swear allegiance to King Edward, as he calls himself.’
‘Never, though I were cut into quarters!’ averred Hal, with a fierce gesture, clasping his staff. ‘But the King? Where and what have they done with him?’
‘Best not to know, my lord,’ said Simon. ‘In sooth, I myself do not know whither he is gone, only that he is with friends.’
‘But who--what were they? They looked like outlaws!’
‘So they were; many a good fellow is of Robin of Redesdale’s train. There are scores of them haunting the fells and woods, all Red Rose men, keeping a watch on the King,’ replied Simon. ‘We had made up our minds that he had been long enough in one place, and that he must have taken shelter the winter through, when I got notice of these notions of Sir Lancelot, and forthwith sent word to them to have him away before worse came of it.’
‘Oh! why did you not let me go with him? I would have saved him, waited on him, fought for him.’
‘Fine fighting--when there’s no getting you to handle a lance, except as if you wanted to drive a puddock with a reed! Though you have been better of late, little as your hermit seemed the man to teach you.’
‘He said it was right and became a man! Would I were with him! He, my true King! Let me go to him when you know where, good Simon. I, that am his true and loving liegeman, should be with him.’
‘Ay! when you are a man to keep his head and your own.’
‘But I could wait on him.’
‘Would you have us bested to take care of two instead of one, and my lady, moreover, in a pother about her son, and Sir Lancelot stirred to make a hue and cry all the more? No, no, sir, bide in peace in the safe homestead where you are sheltered, and learn to be a man, minding your exercises as well as may be till the time shall come.’
‘When I shall be a man and a knight, and do deeds of derring-do in his cause,’ cried Hal.
And the stimulus drove him on to continual calls to Hob, in Simon’s default, to jousts with sword or spear, represented generally by staves; and when these could not be had, he was making arrows and practising with them, so as to become a terror to the wild ducks and other neighbours on the wolds, the great geese and strange birds that came in from the sea in the cold weather. When it was not possible to go far afield in the frosts and snows, he conned King Henry’s portuary, trying to identify the written words with those he knew by heart, and sometimes trying to trace the shapes of the letters on the snow with a stick; visiting, too, the mountains and looking into the limpid grey waters of the lakes, striving hard to guess why, when the sea rose in tides, they were still. More than ever, too, did the starry skies fill him with contemplation and wonder, as he dwelt on the scraps alike of astronomy, astrology, and devotion which he had gathered from his oracle in the hermitage, and longed more and more for the time to return when he should again meet his teacher, his saint, and his King.
Alas! that time was never to come. The outlawed partisans of the Red Rose had secret communications which spread intelligence rapidly throughout the country, and long before Sir Lancelot and his lady knew, and thus it was that Simon Bunce learnt, through the outlaws, that poor King Henry had been betrayed by treachery, and seized by John Talbot at Waddington Hall in Lancashire. Deep were the curses that the outlaws uttered, and fierce were the threats against the Talbot if ever he should venture himself on the Cumbrian moors; and still hotter was their wrath, more bitter the tears of the shepherd lord, when the further tidings were received that the Earl of Warwick had brought the gentle, harmless prince, to whom he had repeatedly sworn fealty, into London with his feet tied to the stirrups of a sorry jade, and men crying before him, ‘Behold the traitor!’
The very certainty that the meek and patient King would bear all with rejoicing in the shame and reproach that led him in the steps of his Master, only added to the misery of Hal as he heard the tale; and he lay on the ground before his hut, grinding his teeth with rage and longing to take revenge on Warwick, Edward, Talbot--he knew not whom--and grasping at the rocks as if they were the stones of the Tower which he longed to tear down and liberate his beloved saint.
Nor, from that time, was there any slackness in acquiring or practising all skill in chivalrous exercises.
|
{
"id": "5313"
}
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11
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-- THE RED ROSE
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That Edward is escaped from your brother And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy. --SHAKESPEARE.
Years passed on, and still Henry Clifford continued to be the shepherd. Matters were still too unsettled, and there were too many Yorkists in the north, keeping up the deadly hatred of the family against that of Clifford, for it to be safe for him to show himself openly. He was a tall, well-made, strong youth, and his stepfather spoke of his going to learn war in Burgundy; but not only was his mother afraid to venture him there, but he could not bear to leave England while there was a hope of working in the cause of the captive King, though the Red Rose hung withered on the branches.
Reports of misunderstandings between King Edward and the Earl of Warwick came from time to time, and that Queen Margaret and her son were busy beyond seas, which kept up hope; and in the meantime Hal grew in the knowledge of all country lore, of herd and wood, and added to it all his own earnest love of the out-of-door world, of sun, moon, and stars, sea and hills, beast and bird. The hermit King, who had been a well-educated, well-read man in his earlier days, had given him the framework of such natural science as had come down to the fifteenth century, backed by the deepest faith in scriptural descriptions; and these inferences and this philosophy were enough to lead a far acuter and more able intellect, with greater opportunities of observation, much further into the fields of the mystery of nature than ever the King had gone.
He said nothing, for never had he met one who understood a word he said apart from fortune telling, excepting the royal teacher after whom he longed; but he watched, he observed, and he dreamt, and came to conclusions that his King’s namesake cousin, Enrique of Portugal, the discoverer, in his observatory at St. Vincent, might have profited by. Brother Brian, a friar, for whose fidelity Simon Bunce’s outlaw could absolutely answer, and who was no Friar Tuck, in spite of his rough life, gave Dolly much comfort religiously, carried on some of the education for which Hal longed, and tried to teach him astrology. Some of the yearnings of his young soul were thus gratified, but they were the more extended as he grew nearer manhood, and many a day he stood with eyes stretched over the sea to the dim line of the horizon, with arms spread for a moment as if he would join the flight of the sea-gulls floating far, far away, then clasped over his breast in a sort of despair at being bound to one spot, then pressed the tighter in the strong purpose of fighting for his imprisoned King when the time should come.
For this he diligently practised with bow and arrow when alone, or only with Piers, and learnt all the feats of arms that Simon Runce or Giles Spearman could teach him. Spearman was evidently an accomplished knight or esquire; he had fought in France as well as in the home wars, and knew all the refinements of warfare in an age when the extreme weight of the armour rendered training and skill doubly necessary. Spearman was evidently not his real name, and it was evident that he had some knowledge of Hal’s real rank, though he never hazarded mention of other name or title. The great drawback was the want of horses. The little mountain ponies did not adequately represent the warhorses trained to charge under an enormous load, and the buff jerkins and steel breast-plates of the outlaws were equally far from showing how to move under ‘mail and plates of Milan steel.’ Nor would Sir Lancelot Threlkeld lend or give what was needful. Indeed, he was more cautious than ever, and seemed really alarmed as well as surprised to see how tall and manly his step-son was growing, and how like his father. He would not hear of a visit to Threlkeld under any disguise, though Lady Clifford was in failing health, nor would he do anything to forward the young lord’s knightly training. In effect, he only wanted to keep as quiet and unobserved as possible, for everything was in a most unsettled and dangerous condition, and there was no knowing what course was the safest for one by no means prepared to lose life or lands in any cause.
The great Earl of Warwick, on whom the fate of England had hitherto hinged, was reported to have never forgiven King Edward for his marriage with Dame Elizabeth Grey, and to be meditating insurrection. Encouraged by this there was a great rising in Yorkshire of the peasants under Robin of Redesdale, and a message was brought to Giles Spearman and his followers to join them, but he and Brother Brian demurred, and news soon came that the Marquess of Montagu had defeated the rising and beheaded Redesdale.
Sir Lancelot congratulated his step-son on having been too late to take up arms, and maintained that the only safe policy was to do nothing, a plan which suited age much better than youth.
He still lived with Hob and Piers, and slept at the hut, but he went further and further afield among the hills and mosses, often with no companion save Watch, so that he might without interruption watch the clear streams and wonder what filled their fountains, and why the sea was never full, or stand on the sea-shore studying the tides, and trying to construct a theory about them. King Henry was satisfied with ‘Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,’ but He who gave that decree must have placed some cause or rule in nature thus to affect them. Could it be the moon? The waves assuredly obeyed the changes of the moon, and Hal was striving to keep a record in strokes marked by a stick on soft earth or rows of pebbles, so as to establish a rule. ‘Aye, aye,’ quoth Hob. ‘Poor fellow, he is not much wiser than the hermit. See how he plays with pebbles and stones. You’ll make nought of him, fine grown lad as he is. Why, he’ll sit dazed and moonstruck half a day, and all the night, staring up at the stars as if he would count them!’
So spoke the stout shepherd to Simon Bunce, pointing to the young man, who lay at his length upon the grass calculating the proportions of the stones that marked the relations of hours of the flood tide and those of the height of the moon. Above and beyond was a sundial cut out in the turf, from his own observations after the hints that the hermit and the friar had given him.
‘Ha now, my lord, I have rare news for you.’
The unwonted title did not strike Hal’s unaccustomed ears, and he continued moving his lips, ‘High noon, spring tide.’
‘There, d’ye see?’ said Hob, ‘he heeds nothing. ‘That I and my goodwife should have bred up a mooncalf! Here, Hal, don’t you know Simon? Hear his tidings!’
‘Tidings enow! King Henry is freed, King Edward is fled. My Lord of Warwick has turned against him for good and all. King Henry is proclaimed in all the market-places! I heard it with my own ears at Penrith!’ And throwing up his cap into the air, while the example was followed by Hob, with ‘God save King Henry, and you my Lord of Clifford.’
The sound was echoed by a burst of voices, and out of the brake suddenly stood the whole band of outlaws, headed by Giles Spearman, but Hal still stood like one dazed. ‘King Harry, the hermit, free and on his throne,’ he murmured, as one in a dream.
‘Ay, all things be upset and reversed,’ said Spearman, with a hand on his shoulder. ‘No herd boy now, but my Lord of Clifford.’
‘Come to his kingdom,’ repeated Hal. ‘My own King Harry the hermit! I would fain go and see him.’
‘So you shall, my brave youth, and carry him your homage and mine,’ said Spearman. ‘He will know me for poor Giles Musgrave, who upheld his standard in many a bloody field. We will off to Sir Lancelot at Threlkeld now! Spite of his policy of holes and corners, he will not now refuse to own you for what you are, aye, and fit you out as becomes a knight.’
‘God grant he may!’ muttered Bunce, ‘without his hum and ha, and swaying this way and that, till he never moves at all! Betwixt his caution, and this lad’s moonstruck ways, you have a fair course before you, Sir Giles! See, what’s the lad doing now?’
The lad was putting into his pouch the larger white pebbles that had represented tens in his calculation, and murmuring the numbers they stood for. ‘He will understand,’ he said almost to himself, but he showed himself ready to go with the party to Threlkeld, merely pausing at Hob’s cottage to pick up a few needful equipments. In the skin of a rabbit, carefully prepared, and next wrapped in a silken kerchief, and kept under his chaff pillow, was the hermit’s portuary, which was carefully and silently transferred by Hal to his own bosom. Sir Giles Musgrave objected to Watch, in city or camp, and Hal was obliged to leave him to Goodwife Dolly and to Piers.
With each it was a piteous parting, for Dolly had been as a mother to him for almost all his boyhood, and had supplied the tenderness that his mother’s fears and Sir Lancelot’s precautions had prevented his receiving at Threlkeld. He was truly as a son to her, and she sobbed over him, declaring that she never would see him again, even if he came to his own, which she did not believe was possible, and who would see to his clean shirts?
‘Never fear, goodwife,’ said Giles Musgrave; ‘he shall be looked to as mine own son.’
‘And what’s that to a gentle lad that has always been tended as becomes him?’
‘Heed not, mother! Be comforted! I must have gone to the wars, anyway. If so be I thrive, I’ll send for thee to mine own castle, to reign there as I remember of old. Here now! Comfort Piers as thou only canst do.’
Piers, poor fellow, wept bitterly, only able to understand that something had befallen his comrade of seven years, which would take him away from field and moor. He clung to Hal, and both lads shed tears, till Hob roughly snatched Piers away and threw him to his aunt, with threats that drew indignant, though useless, interference from Hal, though Simon Bunce was muttering, ‘As lief take one lad as the other!’ while Dolly’s angry defence of her nursling’s wisdom broke the sadness of the parting.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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12
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-- A PRUDENT RECEPTION
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So doth my heart misgive me in these conflicts, What may befall him to his harm and ours. --SHAKESPEARE.
Through the woods the party went to the fortified house of Threlkeld, where the gateway was evidently prepared to resist any passing attack, by stout gates and a little watch-tower.
Sir Giles blew a long blast on his bugle-horn, and had to repeat it twice before a porter looked cautiously out at a wicket opening in the heavy door, and demanded ‘Who comes?’
‘Open, porter, open in the name of King Harry, to the Lords of Clifford and of Peelholm.’
The porter fell back, observing, ‘Sir, pardon, while I have speech with my master, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld.’
Some delay and some sounds of conversation were heard, then, on a renewed and impatient blast on Sir Giles’s horn, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld himself came to the wicket, and his thin anxious voice might be heard demanding, ‘What madness is this?’
‘The madness is past, soundness is come,’ responded Sir Giles. ‘King Harry is on his throne, the traitors are fled, and your own fair son comes forth in his proper person to uphold the lawful sovereign; but he would fain first see his lady mother, and take her blessing with him.’
‘And by his impatience destroy himself, after all the burthen of care and peril he hath been to me all these years,’ lamented Sir Lancelot. ‘But come in, fair lad. Open the gates, porter. I give you welcome, Lord Musgrave of Peelholm. But who are these?’ he added, looking at the troop of buff-coated archers in the rear.
‘They are bold champions of the Red Rose, returned Sir Giles, ‘who have lived with me in the wolds, and now are on the way to maintain our King’s quarrel.’’
Sir Lancelot, however, would not hear of admitting the outlaws. Young Clifford and the Lord of Peelholm should be welcome, or more truly he could not help receiving them, but the archers must stay outside, their entertainment in beef and ale being committed to Bunce and the chief warder, while the two noblemen were conducted to the castle hall. For the first time in his life Clifford was received in his mother’s home, and accepted openly, as he knelt before her to ask her blessing. A fine, active, handsome youth was he, with bright, keen eyes, close-curled black locks and hardy complexion, telling of his out-of-door life, and a free use of his limbs, and upright carriage, though still with more of the grace of the free mountain than of the training of pagedom and squiredom.
Nor could he speak openly and freely to her, not knowing how much he might say of his past intercourse with King Henry, and of her endeavour to discover it; and he sat beside her, neither of them greatly at ease, at the long table, which, by the array of silver cups, of glasses and the tall salt cellar separating the nobility and their followers, recalled to him dim recollections of the scenes of his youth.
He asked for his sister--he knew his little brother had died in the Netherlands--and he heard that she had been in the Priory of St. Helen’s, and was now in the household of my Lady of Hungerford, who had promised to find a good match for her. There was but one son of the union with the knight of Threlkeld, and him Hal had never seen; nor was he at home, being a page in the household of the Earl of Westmoreland, according to the prevailing fashion of the castles of the great feudal nobles becoming schools of arms, courtesy and learning for the young gentlemen around. Indeed, Lady Clifford surveyed her eldest son with a sigh that such breeding was denied him, as she observed one or two little deficiencies in what would be called his table manners--not very important, but revealing that he had grown up in the byre instead of the castle, where there was a very strict and punctilious code, which figured in catechisms for the young.
She longed to keep him, and train him for his station, but in the first place, Sir Lancelot still held that it could not safely be permitted, since he had little confidence in the adherence of the House of Nevil to the Red Rose; and moreover Hal himself utterly refused to remain concealed in Cumberland instead of carrying his service to the King he loved.
In fact, when he heard the proposal of leaving him in the north, he stood up, and, with far more energy than had been expected from him, said, ‘Go I must, to my lawful King’s banner, and my father’s cause. To King Harry I carry my homage and whatever my hand can do!’
Such an expression of energy lighted his hitherto dreamy eyes, that all beholders turned their glances on his face with a look of wonder. Sir Lancelot again objected that he would be rushing to his ruin.
‘Be it so,’ replied Hal. ‘It is my duty.’
‘The time seems to me to be come,’ added Musgrave, ‘that my young lord should put himself forward, though it may be only in a losing cause. Not so much for the sake of success, as to make himself a man and a noble.’
‘But what can he do?’ persisted Threlkeld; ‘he has none of the training of a knight. How can you tilt in plate armour, you who have never bestridden a charger? These are not the days of Du Guesclin, when a lad came in from the byre and bore down all foes before him.’
The objection was of force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth century had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long practice for a man to be capable of moving under it.
‘So please you, sir,’ said Hal, ‘I am not wholly unskilled. The good Sir Giles and Simon Bunce have taught me enough to strike a blow with a good will for a good cause.’
‘With horse and arms as befits him,’ began Musgrave.
‘I know not that a horse is here that could be depended on,’ began Threlkeld. ‘Armour too requires to be fitted and proved.’
He spoke in a hesitating voice that showed his unwillingness, and Hal exclaimed, ‘My longbow is mine own, and so are my feet. Sir Giles, will you own me as an archer in your troop, where I will strive not to disgrace you or my name?’
‘Bravely spoken, young lord,’ said Sir Giles heartily; ‘right willingly will I be your godfather in chivalry, since you find not one nigher home.’
‘So may it best be,’ observed his mother, ‘since he is bent on going. Thus his name and rank may be kept back till it be plain whether the enmity of my Lords of Warwick and Montagu still remain against our poor house.’
There was no desire on either side to object when the Lord Musgrave of Peelholm decided on departing early on the morrow. Their host was evidently not sorry to speed them on their way, and his reluctant hospitality made them anxious to cumber him no longer than needful; and his mind was relieved when it was decided that the heir of the De Vescis and Cliffords should be known as Harry of Derwentdale.
Only, when all was preparation in the morning, and a hearty service had been said in the chapel, the lady called her son aside, and looking up into his dark eyes, said in a low voice, ‘Be not angered with my lord husband’s prudence, my son. Remember it is only by caution that he has saved thine head, or mine, or thy sister’s!’
‘Ay, ay, mother, I know,’ he said, more impatiently than perhaps he knew.
‘It was by the same care that he preserved us all when Edgecotefield was fought. Chafe not at him. Thou mayst be thankful even now, mayhap, to find a shelter preserved, while that rogue and robber Nevil holds our lands.’
‘I am more like to have to protect thee, lady mother, and bring thee to thy true home again!’ said Hal.
‘Meantime, my child, take this purse and equip thyself at York or whenever thou canst. Nay, thou needst not shrug and refuse! How like thy father the gesture, though I would it were more gracious and seemly. But this is mine, mine own, none of my husband’s, though he would be willing. It comes from the De Vesci lands, and those will be thine after me, and thine if thou winnest not back thy Clifford inheritance. And oh! my son, crave of Sir Giles to teach thee how to demean thyself that they may not say thou art but a churl.’
‘I trust to be no churl in heart, if I be in manners,’ said Hal, looking down on his small clinging mother.
‘Only be cautious, my son. Remember that you are the last of the name, and it is your part to bring it to honour.’
‘Which I shall scarce do by being cautious,’ he said, with something of a smile. ‘That was not my father’s way.’
‘Ah me! You have his spirit in you, and how did it end?’
‘My Lord of Clifford,’ said a voice from the court, ‘you are waited for!’
‘And remember,’ cried his mother, with a last embrace, ‘there will be safety here whenever thou shalt need it.’
‘With God’s grace, I am more like to protect you and your husband,’ said the lad, bending for another kiss and hurrying away.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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13
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-- FELLOW TRAVELLERS
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And sickerlie she was of great disport, And full pleasant and amiable of port; Of small hounds had she that she fed With roasted flesh and milk and wastel bread. --CHAUCER.
Sir Giles Musgrave of Peelholm was an old campaigner, and when Hal came out beyond the gate of the Threlkeld fortalice, he found him reviewing his troop; a very disorderly collection, as Sir Lancelot pronounced with a sneer, looking out on them, and strongly advising his step-son not to cast in his lot with them, but to wait and see what would befall, and whether the Nevils were in earnest in their desertion of the House of York.
Hal restrained himself with difficulty enough to take a courteous leave of his mother’s husband, to whose prudence and forbearance he was really much beholden; though, with his spirit newly raised and burning for his King, it was hard to have patience with neutrality.
He found Sir Giles employed in examining his followers, and rigidly sending home all not properly equipped with bow, sheaf of arrows, strong knife or pike, buff coat, head-piece and stout shoes; also a wallet of provisions for three days, or a certain amount of coin. He would have no marauding on the way, and refused to take any mere lawless camp follower, thus disposing of a good many disreputable-looking fellows who had flocked in his wake. Sir Lancelot’s steward seconded him heartily by hunting back his master’s retainers; and there remained only about five-and-twenty--mostly, in fact, yeomen or their sons--men who had been in arms for Queen Margaret and had never made their submission, but lived on unmolested in the hills, really outlawed, but not coming in collision with the authorities enough to have their condition inquired into. They had sometimes attacked Yorkist parties, sometimes resisted Scottish raids, or even made a foray in return, and they were well used to arms. These all had full equipments, and some more coin in their pouches than they cared to avow. Three or four of them brought an ox, calf or sheep, or a rough pony loaded with provisions, and driven by a herd boy or a son eager to see life and ‘the wars.’ Simon Bunce, well armed, was of this party. Hob Hogward, though he had come to see what became of his young lord, was pronounced too stiff and aged to join the band, which might now really be called a troop, not a mere lawless crowd of rough lads. There were three trained men-at-arms, the regular retainers of Sir Giles, who held a little peel tower on the borders where nobody durst molest him, and these marshalled the little band in fair order.
It was no season for roses, but a feather was also the cognisance of Henry VI., and every one’s barret-cap mounted a feather, generally borrowed from the goodwife’s poultry yard at home, but sometimes picked up on the moors, and showing the barred black and brown patterns of the hawk’s or the owl’s plumage. It was a heron’s feather that Hal assumed, on the counsel of Sir Giles, who told him it was an old badge of the Cliffords, and it became well his bright dark hair and brown face.
On they went, a new and wonderful march to Hal, who had only looked with infant eyes on anything beyond the fells, and had very rarely been into a little moorland church, or seen enough people together for a market day in Penrith. Sir Giles directed their course along the sides of the hills till he should gain further intelligence, and know how they would be received. For the most part the people were well inclined to King Henry, though unwilling to stir on his behalf in fear of Edward’s cruelty.
However, it was as they had come down from the hills intending to obtain fresh provisions at one of the villages, and Hal was beginning to recognise the moors he had known in earlier childhood, that they perceived a party on the old Roman road before them, which the outlaws’ keen eyes at once discovered to be somewhat of their own imputed trade. There seemed to be a waggon upset, persons bound, and a buzz of men, like wasps around a honeycomb preying on it. Something like women’s veiled forms could be seen. ‘Ha! Mere robbery. This must not be. Upon them! Form! Charge!’ were the brief commands of the leader, and the compact body ran at a rapid but a regulated pace down the little slope that gave them an advantage of ground with some concealment by a brake of gorse. ‘Halt! Pikes forward!’ was the next order. The little band were already close upon the robbers, in whom they began to recognise some of those whom Sir Giles had dismissed as mere ruffians unequipped a few days before. It was with a yell of indignation that the troop fell on them, Sir Giles with a sharp blow severing the bridle of a horse that a man was leading, but there was a cry back, ‘We are for King Harry! These be Yorkists!’
‘Nay! nay!’ came back the voices of the overthrown. ‘Help! help! for King Harry and Queen Margaret! These be rank thieves who have set on us! Holy women are here!’
These exclamations came broken and in utter confusion, mingled with cries for mercy and asseverations on the part of the thieves, and fierce shouts from Sir Giles’s men. All was hubbub, barking dogs, shouting men, and Hal scarcely knew anything till he was aware of two or three shrouded nuns, as it seemed, standing by their ponies, of merchantmen or carters trying to quiet and harness frightened mules, of waggons overturned, of a general confusion over which arose Lord Musgrave’s powerful authoritative voice.
‘Kit of Clumber! Why should I not hang you for thieving on yonder tree, with your fellow thieves?’
‘Yorkists, sir! It was all in the good cause,’ responded a sullen voice, as a grim red and scarred face was seen on a ruffian held by two of the archers.
‘No Yorkists we, sir!’ began a stout figure, coming forward from the waggon. ‘We be peaceable merchants and this is a holy dame, the--’ ‘The Prioress Selby of Greystone,’ interrupted one of the nuns, coming forward with a hawk on her wrist. ‘Sir Giles of Musgrave, I am beholden to you! I was on my way to take the young damsel of Bletso to her father, the Lord St. John, with Earl Warwick in London. He sent us an escort, but they being arrant cravens, as it seems, we thought it well to join company with these same merchants, and thus we became a bait for the outlaws of the Border.’
‘Lady, lady,’ burst from one of the prisoners, ‘I swear that we kenned not holy dames to be of the company! Sir, my lord, we thought to serve the cause of King Harry, and how any man is to guess which side is Earl Warwick’s is past an honest man.’
‘An honest man whose cause is his own pouch!’ returned Sir Giles. ‘Miscreants all! But I trow we are scarce yet out of the land of misrule! So if the Lady Prioress will say a word for such a sort of sorners, I’ll e’en let you go on your way.’
‘They have had a warning, the poor rogues, and that will suffice for this time! Nay, now, fellows, let my wimple alone! You’ll not find another lord to let you off so easy, nor another Prioress to stand your friend. Get off, I say.’
An archer enforced her words with a blow, and by some means, rough or otherwise, a certain amount of order was restored, the ruffians slinking off among the gorse bushes, their flight hastened by the pointing of pikes and levelling of arrows at them. While the merchants, diving into their packages, produced horns of ale which a younger man offered to their defenders, the chief of the party, a portly fellow, interrupted certain civilities between the Prioress and Sir Giles by praying them to partake of a cup of malmsey, and adding an entreaty that they might be allowed to join company with so brave an escort, explaining that he was a poor merchant of London and the Hans towns who had been beguiled into an expedition to Scotland to the young King James, who was said to have a fair taste. He waved his hands as if his sufferings had been beyond description.
‘Went for wool and came back shorn!’ said the Prioress, laughing. ‘Well, my Lord Musgrave, what say you to letting us join company? --as I see your band is afoot it will be no great delay, and the more the safer as well as the merrier! Here, let me present to you my young maid, the Lady Anne of Bletso, whom I in person am about to deliver to her father.’
‘And let me present privately to both ladies,’ said Sir Giles, ‘the young squire Harry of Derwentdale, who hath been living as a shepherd in the hills during the York rule.’
‘Ha! my lord, methinks this may not be the first meeting between Lady Anne and you, though she would not know who the herd boy was who found her, a stray lambkin on the moor.’
The young people looked at each other with eyes of recognition, and as Hal made his best bow, he said, ‘Forsooth, lady, I did not know myself till afterwards.’
‘Your shepherd and his wife gave me to understand that I should do hurt by inquiring too much,’ said the young lady smiling, and holding out her hand, which Hal did not know whether to kiss or to shake. ‘I hope the kind old goodwife is well, who cosseted me so lovingly.’
‘She fares well, indeed, lady, only grieved at parting with me.’
‘There now,’ said the Prioress, ‘since we are quit of the robbers, methinks we cannot do better than halt awhile for Master Lorimer’s folk to mend the tackling of their gear, while we make our noonday meal and provide for our further journey. Allow me to be your hostess for the nonce, my lords.’
And between the lady’s sumpter mules and the merchant’s stores a far more sumptuous meal was produced than would have otherwise been the share of the Lancastrian party.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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14
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-- THE JOURNEY
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‘Twas sweet to see these holy maids, Like birds escaped to greenwood shades, --SCOTT.
The Prioress Agnes Selby of Greystone was a person who would have made a much fitter lady of a castle than head of a nunnery. She would have worked for and with her lord, defended his lands for him, governed his house and managed her sons with untiring zest and energy. But a vow of her parents had consigned her to a monastic life at York, where she could only work off her vigour by teasing the more devout and grave sisters, and when honourably banished to the more remote Greystone, in field sports, and in fortifying her convent against Scots or Lancastrians who, somewhat to her disappointment, never did attack her. No complaint or scandal had ever attached itself to her name, and she let Mother Scholastica manage the nuns, and regulate the devotions, while Greystone was known as a place where a thirsty warrior might be refreshed, where tales and ballads of Border raids were welcome, and where good hawk or hound was not despised.
It had occurred to the Lord St. John of Bletso that the little daughter whom he had left at York might be come to a marriageable age, and he had listened to the proposal of one of the cousins of the house of Nevil for a contract between her and his son, sending an escort northwards to fetch her, properly accompanied.
She had been all these years at Greystone, and the Prioress immediately decided that this would be an excellent opportunity of seeing the southern world, and going on a round of pilgrimages which would make the expedition highly decorous. The ever restless spirit within her rose in delight, and the Sisterhood of York were ready to acquiesce, having faith in Mother Agnes’ good sense to guide her and her pupil to his castle in Bedfordshire by the help of Father Martin through any tangles of the White and Red Roses that might await her, as well to her real principle for avoiding actual evil, though she might startle monastic proprieties.
There was no doubt but that conversation, when she could have it, was as great a joy to her as ever was galloping after a deer; and there she sat with her beautiful hound by her side, and her hawk on a pole, exchanging sentiments of speculation as to Warwick’s change of front with Sir Giles Musgrave, Father Martin, and Master Ralph Lorimer, while discussing a pasty certainly very superior to anything that had come out of the Penrith stores.
Young Clifford and Lady Anne sat on the grass near, too shy for the present to renew their acquaintance, but looking up at one another under their eyelashes, and the first time their eyes met, the girl breaking into a laugh, but it was not till towards the end of the refection that they were startled into intercourse by a general growling and leaping up of the great hound, and of the two big ungainly dogs chained to the waggon, as wet, lean, bristling but ecstatic, Watch dashed in among them, and fell on his master.
For four days (unless he was tied up at first) the good dog must have been tracking him. ‘Off! off!’ cried the Prioress, holding back her deer-hound by main strength. ‘Off, Florimond! he sets thee a pattern of faithfulness! Be quiet and learn thy devoir!’
‘O sir, I cannot send him back!’ entreated Hal, also embracing and caressing the shaggy neck.
‘Send him back! Nay, indeed. As saith the Reverend Mother, it were well if some earls and lords minded his example,’ said Sir Giles.
‘Here! Watch, I mind thee well,’ added Anne. ‘Here’s a slice of pasty to reward thee. Oh! thou art very hungry,’ as the big mouth bolted it whole.
‘Nearly famished, poor rogue!’ said Hal, administering a bone. ‘How far hast thou run, mine own lad! Art fain to come with thy master and see the hermit?’
‘Thou must e’en go,’ growled Simon Bunce, ‘unless the lady’s dog make an end of thee! ‘Tis ever the worthless that turn up.’
‘I would Florimond would show himself as true,’ said the Prioress. ‘Don’t show thy teeth, sir! I can honour Watch, yet love thee.’
‘’Tis jealousy as upsets faith,’ said the merchant. ‘The hound is a knightly beast with his proud head, but he brooks not to see a Woodville creep in.’
‘Nay, or a Beaufort!’ suggested Sir Giles.
‘No treason, Lord Musgrave!’ said the Prioress, laughing.
‘Ah, madam,’ responded Sir Giles, ‘what is treason?’
‘Whatever is against him that has the best of it,’ observed Master Lorimer. ‘Well that it is not the business of a poor dealer in horse-gear and leather-work. He asks not which way his bridles are to turn! How now, Tray and Blackchaps? Never growl and gird. You have no part in the fray!’
For they were chained, and could only champ, bark and howl, while Florimond and Watch turned one another over, and had to be pulled forcibly back, by Hal on the one hand and on the other by the Mother Agnes, who would let nobody touch Florimond except herself. After this, the two dogs subsided into armed neutrality, and gradually became devoted friends.
The curiously composed cavalcade moved on their way southward. The Prioress was mounted on the fine chestnut horse that Sir Giles had rescued. She was attended by a nun, Sister Mabel, and a lay Sister, both as hardy as herself, and riding sturdy mountain ponies; but her chaplain, a thin delicate-looking man with a bad cough, only ventured upon a sturdy ass; Anne St. John had a pretty little white palfrey and two men-at-arms. There were two grooms, countrymen, who had run away on the onset of the thieves, but came sneaking back again, to be soundly rated by the Prioress, who threatened to send them home again or have them well scourged, but finally laughed and forgave them.
The merchant, Master Lorimer--who dealt primarily in all sorts of horse furniture, but added thereto leather-work for knights and men-at-arms, and all that did not too closely touch the armourer’s trade--had three sturdy attendants, having lost one in an attack by the Scottish Borderers, and he had four huge Flemish horses, who sped along the better for their loads having been lightened by sales in Edinburgh, where he had hardly obtained skins enough to make up for the weight. His headquarters, he said, were at Barnet, since tanning and leather-dressing, necessary to his work, though a separate guild, literally stank in the nostrils of the citizens of London.
To these were added Sir Giles Musgrave’s twenty archers, making a very fair troop, wherewith to proceed, and the Prioress decided on not going to York. She was not particularly anxious for an interview with the Abbess of her Order, and it would have considerably lengthened the journey, which both Musgrave and Lorimer were anxious to make as short as possible. They preferred likewise to keep to the country, that was still chiefly open and wild, with all its destiny in manufactories yet to come, though there were occasionally such towns, villages and convents on the way where provisions and lodging could be obtained.
Every fresh scene of civilisation was a new wonder to Hal Clifford, and scarcely less so to Anne St. John, though her life in the moorland convent had begun when she was not quite so young as he had been when taken to the hills of Londesborough. He had only been two or three times in the church at Threlkeld, which was simple and bare, and the full display of a monastic church was an absolute amazement, making him kneel almost breathless with awe, recollecting what the royal hermit had told him. He was too illiterate to follow the service, but the music and the majestic flow of the chants overwhelmed him, and he listened with hands clasped over his face, not daring to raise his eyes to the dazzling gold of the altar, lighted by innumerable wax tapers.
The Prioress was amused. ‘Art dazed, my friend? This is but a poor country cell; we will show you something much finer when we get to Derby.’
Hal drew a long breath. ‘Is that meant to be like the saints in Heaven?’ he said. ‘Is that the way they sing there?’
‘I should hope they pronounce their Latin better,’ responded the Prioress, who, it may be feared, was rather a light-minded woman. At any rate there was a chill upon Hal which prevented him from directing any of his remarks or questions to her for the future. The chaplain told him something of what he wanted to know, but he met with the most sympathy from the Lady Anne.
‘Which, think you, is the fittest temple and worship?’ he said; as they rode out together, after hearing an early morning service, gone through in haste, and partaking of a hurried meal. The sun was rising over the hills of Derbyshire, dyeing them of a red purple, standing out sharply against a flaming sky, flecked here and there with rosy clouds, and fading into blue that deepened as it rose higher. The elms and beeches that bordered the monastic fields had begun to put on their autumn livery, and yellow leaves here and there were like sparks caught from the golden light.
Hal drew off his cap as in homage to the glorious sight.
‘Ah, it is fine!’ said Anne, ‘it is like the sunrise upon our own moors, when one breathes freely, and the clouds grow white instead of grey.’
‘Ah!’ said Hal, ‘I used to go out to the high ground and say the prayer the hermit taught me--“Jam Lucis,” it began. He said it was about the morning light.’
‘I know that “Jam Lucis,”’ said Anne; ‘the Sisters sing it at prime, and Sister Scholastica makes us think how it means about light coming and our being kept from ill,’ and she hummed the chant of the first verse.
‘I think this blue sky and royal sun, and the moon and stars at night, are God’s great hall of praise,’ said Hal, still keeping his cap off, as he had done through Anne’s chant of praise.
‘Verily it is! It is the temple of God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth, as the Credo says,’ replied Anne, ‘but, maybe, we come nearer still to Him in God the Son when we are in church.’
‘I do not know. The dark vaulted roof and the dimness seem to crush me down,’ said the mountain lad, ‘though the singing lifts me sometimes, though at others it comes like a wailing gust, all mournful and sad! If I could only understand! My royal hermit would tell me when I can come to him.’
‘Do you think, now he is a king again, he will be able to take heed to you?’
‘I know he cares for me,’ said Hal with confidence.
‘Ah yea, but will the folk about him care to let him talk to you? I have heard say that he was but a puppet in their hands. Yea, you are a great lord, that is true, but will that great masterful Earl Warwick let you to him, or say all these thoughts of his and yours are but fancies for babes?’
‘Simon Bunce did mutter such things, and that one of us was as great an innocent as the other,’ said Hal, ‘but I trust my hermit’s love.’
‘Ay, you know you are going to someone you love, and who loves you,’ sighed Anne, ‘but how will it be with me?’
‘Your father?’ suggested Hal.
‘My father! What knows he of me or I of him? I tell thee, Harry Clifford, he left me at York when I was not eight years old, and I have never seen him since. He gave a charge on his lands to a goldsmith at York to pay for my up-bringing, and I verily believe thought no more of me than if I had been a messan dog. He wedded a lady in Flanders and had a son or twain, but I have never seen them nor my stepdame; and now Gilbert there, who brought the letter to the Mother Prioress, says she is dead, and the little heir, whose birth makes me nobody, is at a monastery school at Ghent. But my Lord of Redgrave must needs make overtures to my father for me, whether for his son or himself Gilbert cannot say. So my father sends to bring me back for a betrothal. The good Prioress goes with me. She saith that if it be the old Lord, who is a fierce old rogue with as ill a name as Tiptoft himself, the butcher, she will make my Lord St. John know the reason why! But what will he care?’
‘It would be hard not to hear my Lady Prioress!’ said Hal, looking back at the determined black figure, gesticulating as she talked to Sir Giles.
Anne laughed, half sadly, ‘So you think! But you have never seen the grim faces at Bletso! They will say she is but a woman and a nun, and what are her words to alliance with a friend of the Lord of Warwick? Ah! it is a heartless hope, when I come to that castle!’
‘Nay, Anne, if my King gives me my place then&& ‘Lady Anne! Lady Anne!’ called Sir Giles Musgrave, ‘the Mother Prioress thinks it not safe for you to keep so much in the front. There might be ill-doers in the thickets.’
Anne perforce reined in, but Hal fed on the idea that had suddenly flashed on him.
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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15
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-- BLETSO
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Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me. --SHAKESPEARE, The cavalcade journeyed on not very quickly, as the riders accommodated themselves to those on foot. They avoided the towns when they came into the more inhabited country, the Prioress preferring the smaller hostels for pilgrims and travellers, and, it may be suspected, monasteries to the nunneries, where she said the ladies had nothing to talk about but wonder at her journey, and advice to stay in shelter till after the winter weather. Meantime it was a fine autumn still, and with bright colours on the woods, where deer, hare, rabbit, or partridge tempted the hounds, not to say their mistress, but she kept them well in leash, and her falcon with hood and jesses, she being too well nurtured not to be well aware of the strict laws of the chase, except when some good-natured monk gave her leave and accompanied her--generally Augustinians, who were more of country squires than ecclesiastics. Watch needed no leash--he kept close to his master, except when occasionally tempted to a little amateur shepherding, from which Hal could easily call him off. The great stag-hounds evidently despised him, and the curs of the waggon hated him, and snarled whenever he came near them, but the Prioress respected him, and could well believe that the hermit King had loved him. ‘He had just the virtues to suit the good King Harry,’ she said, ‘dutifulness and harmlessness.’
The Prioress was the life of the party, with her droll descriptions of the ways of the nuns who received her, while the males of the party had to be content with the hostel outside. Sir Giles and Master Lorimer, riding on each side of her, might often be heard laughing with her. The young people were much graver, especially as there were fewer and fewer days’ journeys to Bletso, and Anne’s unknown future would begin with separation from all she had ever known, unless the Mother Prioress should be able to remain with her.
And to Harry Clifford the loss of her presence grew more and more to be dreaded as each day’s companionship drew them nearer together in sympathy, and he began to build fanciful hopes of the King’s influence upon the plans of Lord St. John, unless the contract of betrothal had been actually made, and therewith came a certain zest in looking to his probable dignity such as he had never felt before.
The last day’s journey had come. The escort who had acted as guides were in familiar fields and lanes, and one, the leader, rode up to Lady Anne and pointed to the grey outline among the trees of her home, while he sent the other to hurry forward and announce her.
Anne shivered a little, and Hal kept close to her. He had made the journey on foot, because he had chosen to be reckoned among Musgrave’s archers till he had received full knightly training; and, besides, he had more freedom to attach himself to Anne’s bridle rein, and be at hand to help through difficult passages. Now he came up close to her, and she held out her hand. He pressed it warmly.
‘You will not forget?’
‘Never, never! That red rose in the snow--I have the leaf in my breviary. And Goodwife Dolly, tell her I’ll never forget how she cosseted the wildered lamb.’
‘Poor Mother Dolly, when shall I see her?’
‘Oh! you will be able to have her to share your state, and Watch too! I take none with me.’
‘If we are all in King Harry’s cause, there will be hope of meeting, and then if--’ ‘Ah! I see a horseman coming! Is it my father?’
It was a horseman who met them, taking off his cap of maintenance and bowing low to the Prioress and the young lady, but it was the seneschal of the castle, not the father whom Anne so dreaded, but an old gentleman, Walter Wenlock, with whom there was a greeting as of an old friend. My lord had gone with the Earl of Warwick to Queen Margaret in France, and had sent a messenger with a letter to meet his daughter at York, and tell her to go to the house of the Poor Clares in London instead of coming home, ‘and there await him.’
The route that had been taken by the party accounted for their not having met the messenger and it was plain that they must go on to London. The evening was beginning to draw in, and a night’s lodging was necessary. Anne assumed a little dignity.
‘My good friends who have guarded me, I hope you will do me the honour to rest for the night in my father’s castle.’
The seneschal bowed acquiescence, but the poor man was evidently sorely perplexed by such an extensive invitation on the part of his young lady on his peace establishment, though the Prioress did her best to assist Anne to set him at ease. ‘Here is Sir Giles Musgrave, the Lord of Peelholm on the Borders, a staunch friend of King Harry, with a band of stout archers, and this gentleman from the north is with him.’ (It had been agreed that the Clifford name should not be mentioned till the way had been felt with Warwick, one of whose cousins had been granted the lands of the Black Lord Clifford.)
The seneschal bent before Musgrave courteously, saying he was happy to welcome so good and brave a knight, and he prayed his followers to excuse if their fare was scant and homely, being that he was unprovided for the honour.
‘No matter, sir,’ returned Musgrave; ‘we are used to soldiers’ fare.’
‘And,’ proceeded Anne, ‘Master Lorimer must lie here, and his wains.’
‘Master Lorimer,’ said the Prioress, ‘with whom belike--Lorimer of Barnet--Sir Seneschal has had dealings,’ and she put forward the merchant, who had been falling back to his waggon.
‘Yea,’ said Walter Wenlock frankly, holding out his hand. ‘We have bought your wares and made proof of them, good sir. I am glad to welcome you, though I never saw you to the face before.’
‘Great thanks, good seneschal. All that I would ask would be licence for my wains to stand in your court to-night while my fellows and I sup and lodge at the hostel.’
The hospitality of Bletso could not suffer this, and both Anne and the seneschal were urgent that all should remain, Wenlock reflecting that if the store for winter consumption were devoured, even to the hog waiting to be killed, he could obtain fresh supplies from the tenants, so he ushered all into the court, and summoned steward, cooks, and scullions to do their best. It was not a castle, only a castellated house, which would not have been capable of long resistance in time of danger, but the court and stables gave ample accommodation for the animals and the waggons, and the men were bestowed in the great open hall, reaching to the top of the house, where all would presently sup.
In the meantime the seneschal conducted the ladies and their two attendants to a tiny chamber, where an enormous bed was being made ready by the steward’s wife and her son, and in which all four ladies would sleep, the Prioress and Anne one way, the other two foot to foot with them! They had done so before, so were not surprised, and the lack of furniture was a matter of course. Their mails were brought up, a pitcher of water and a bowl, and they made their preparations for supper. Anne was in high spirits at the dreaded meeting, and still more dreaded parting, having been deferred, and she skipped about the room, trying to gather up her old recollections. ‘Yes, I remember that bit of tapestry, and the man that stands there among the sheep. Is it King David, think you, Mother, about to throw his stone at the lion and the bear?’
‘Lion and bear, child! ‘Tis the three goddesses and Paris choosing the fairest to give the golden apple.’
‘Methought that was the lion’s mane, but I see a face.’
‘What would the Lady Venus say to have her golden locks taken for a lion’s mane?’
‘I like black hair,’ said Anne.
‘Better not fix thy mind on any hue! We poor women have no choice save what fathers make for us.’
‘O good my mother, peace! They are all in France, and there’s no need to spoil this breathing time with thinking of what is coming! Good old Wenlock! I used to ride on his shoulder! I’m right glad to see him again! I must tell him in his ear to put Hal well above the salt! May not I tell him in his ear who he is?’
‘Safer not, my maid, till we know what King Harry can do for him. Better that his name should not get abroad till he can have his own.’
A great bell brought all down, and Anne was pleased to see that her seneschal made no question about placing Harry Clifford beside the Prioress, who sat next to the Lord of Peelholm, who sat next to the young daughter of the house in the seat of honour.
The nuns, Master Lorimer, and one of the archers, who was a Border squire, besides Master Wenlock, occupied the high table on the dais, and the archers, grooms, and the rest of the household were below.
The fare was not scanty nor unsubstantial, but evidently hastily prepared, being chiefly broiled slices of beef, on which salting had begun; but there was a lack of bread, even of barley, though there was no want of drink.
However, the Prioress was good-humoured, and forestalled all excuses by jests about travellers’ meals and surprises in the way of guests, and both she and Sir Giles were anxious for Wenlock’s news of the state of things.
He knew much more of the course of affairs than they in their northern homes and on their journey.
‘The realm is divided,’ he said. ‘Those who hold to King Harry, as you gentles do, are in high joy, but there be many, spoken with respect, who cannot face about so fast, and hold still for York, though they mislike the Queen’s kindred. Of such are the merchantmen of London.’
‘Is it so?’ asked Lorimer. ‘If King Edward be as deep in debt to them as to me for housings and bridle reins methinks he should not be in good odour in their nostrils.’
‘Yea,’ said Wenlock, ‘but if he be gone a beggar to Burgundy what becomes of their debt?’
‘I would not give much for it were he restored a score of times,’ said the Prioress. ‘What would he do but plunge deeper?’
‘There would be hope, though, of getting an order on the royal demesne, or the crown jewels, or the taxes,’ said Lorimer. ‘Nay, I hold one even now that will be but waste if he come not back.’
‘And this poor King spendeth nothing save on priests and masses,’ said Wenlock.
Hal started forward, eager to hear of his King, and Musgrave said, ‘A holy man is he.’
‘Too holy for a King,’ said the seneschal. ‘He looked like a woolsack across a horse when my Lord of Warwick led him down Cheapside; and only the rabble cried out “Long live King Harry!” but some scoffed and said they saw a mere gross monk with a baby face where they had been wont to see a comely prince full of manhood, with a sword instead of beads.’
‘His son will please them,’ said Musgrave. ‘He was a goodly child, full of spirit, when last I saw him.’
‘If so be he have not too much of the Frenchwoman, his mother, in him,’ said Wenlock. ‘A losing lot, as poor as any rats, and as proud as very peacocks.’
‘She was gracious enough and won all hearts on the Border,’ replied Musgrave.
‘Come, come!’ put in the Prioress, ‘you may have the chance yet to break a lance on her behalf. No fear but she is royal enough to shine down King Edward’s low-born love, the Widow Grey!’
‘Ay, there lay the cause of discontent,’ said Lorimer; ‘the upstart ways of her kin were not to be borne. To hear Dick Woodville chaffer about the blazoning of his horse-gear when he was wedding the fourscore-year-old Duchess of Norfolk, one would have thought he was an emperor at the very least.’
‘Widow Grey has done something for her husband’s cause,’ said the seneschal, ‘in bringing him at last a fair son, all in his exile, and she in sanctuary at Westminster. The London citizens are ever touched through all the fat about their hearts by whatever would sound well in the mouth of a ballad-monger.’
‘My King, my King, what of him?’ sighed Hal in the Prioress’s ear, and she made the inquiry for him: ‘What said you of King Henry, Sir Seneschal? How did he fare in his captivity?’
‘Not so ill, methinks,’ said the seneschal. ‘He had the range of the Tower, and St. Peter’s in the Fetters to pray in, which was what he heeded most; also he had a messan dog, and a tame bird. Indeed, men said he had laid on much flesh since he had been mewed up there; and my lord, who went with my Lord of Warwick to fetch him, said his garments were scarce so cleanly as befitted. ‘Twas hard to make him understand. First he clasped his hands, and bowed his head, crying out that he forgave those who came to slay him, and when he found it was all the other way, he stood like one dazed, let his hand be kissed, and they say is still in the hands of my Lord Archbishop of York just as if he were the waxen image of St. John in a procession.’
‘The Earl and the Queen will have to do the work,’ said the Prioress, ‘and they will no more hold together than a couple of wild hawks will hunt in company. How long do you give them to tear out one another’s eyes?’
‘Son and daughter may keep them together,’ said Musgrave, ‘Hatred of the Woodvilles is more like, a poor band though it be,’ said the Prioress. ‘These are stirring times! I’ll not go back to my anchoress lodge in the north till I see what works out of them! Meantime, to our beds, sweet Anne, since ‘tis an early start tomorrow.’
The Prioress, who had become warmly interested in Hal, and had divined the feeling between him and Anne, thought that if she could obtain access to the Archbishop of York, Warwick’s brother George, she could deal with him to procure Clifford’s restitution in name and in blood, and at least his De Vesci inheritance, if Dick Nevil, who had grasped the Clifford lands, could not be induced to give them up.
‘I have seen George Nevil,’ she said, ‘when I was instituted to Greystone. He is of kindlier mood than his brothers, and more a valiant trencherman and hunter than aught else. If I had him on the moors and could show him some sport with a red deer, I could turn him round my finger.’
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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16
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-- THE HERMIT IN THE TOWER
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Thy pity hath been balm to heal their wounds, Thy mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs, Thy mercy dried their ever flowing tears. --SHAKESPEARE.
Early in the morning, while the wintry sun was struggling with mists, and grass and leaves were dark with frost, the Prioress was in her saddle. Perhaps the weather might have constrained a longer stay, but that it was clear to her keen eyes that, however welcome Wenlock might make his young lady, there was little provision and no welcome for thorough-going Lancastrians like Sir Giles’s troop, who had besides a doubtful Robin Hood-like reputation; and as neither she nor Anne wished to ride forward without them, they decided to go on all together as before.
And a very wet and slightly snowy journey they had, ‘meeting in snow and parting in snow,’ as Hal said, as he marched by Anne’s bridle-rein, leading her pony, so as to leave her hands free to hold cloak and hood close about her.
She sighed, and put one hand on his, but a gust of wind took that opportunity of getting under her cloak and sending it fluttering over her back, so that he had to catch it and return it to her grasp.
‘Let us take that as a prophecy that storms shall not hinder our further meeting! It may be! It may be! Who knows what my King may do for us?’
‘Only a storm can bring us together! But that may--’ Her breath was blown away again before the sentence was finished, if it was meant to be finished, and Master Lorimer came to insist on the ladies taking shelter in his covered waggon, where the Prioress was already installed.
Through rain and sleet they reached Chipping Barnet in due time on the third day’s journey, and here they were to part from the merchant’s wains. He had sent forward, and ample cheer was provided at the handsome timbered and gabled house at the porch of which stood his portly wife, with son, daughter, and son-in-law, ready to welcome the party, bringing them in to be warmed and dried before sitting down to the excellent meal which it had been Mistress Lorimer’s pride and pleasure to provide. There was a small nunnery at Barnet, but not very near, and the Prioress Agnes did not think herself bound to make her way thither in the dark and snow, so she remained, most devoutly waited on by her hostess, and discussed the very last tidings, which had been brought that morning by the foreman whom Mistress Lorimer had sent to bring the news to her husband.
It was probable that the Lord of Bletso was with Warwick and the Queen, as he had not been heard of at his home. The King was in the royal apartments of the Tower, under the charge of the Chancellor. The Earl of Oxford, a steady partisan of the Red Rose, was Constable of the Kingdom, and was guarding the Tower.
On hearing this, Musgrave decided to repair at once to the Earl, one of the few men in whom there was confidence, since he had never changed his allegiance, and to take his counsel as to the recognition of young Clifford. On the way to the Tower they would leave the Prioress and her suite at the Sister Minoresses’, till news could be heard of the Baron St. John.
So for the last time the travellers rode forth in slightly improved weather. Harry’s heart beat high with the longing soon to be in the presence of him who had opened so many doors of life to his young mind, whom he so heartily loved, and who, it might be, could give him that which he began to feel would be the joy of his life.
The archers, who had been lodged in the warehouses, were drawn up in a compact body, and Master Lorimer, who had a shop in Cheapside, decided on accompanying them, partly to be at the scene of action and partly to facilitate their entrance.
So Hal walked by the side of Anne St. John’s bridle-rein, with a very full heart, swelling with sensations he did not understand, and which kept him absolutely silent, untrained as he was in the conventionalities which would have made speech easier to him. Nor had Anne much more command of tongue, and all she did was to keep her hand upon the shoulder of her squire; but there was much involuntary meaning in the yearning grasp of those fingers, and both fed on the hopes the Prioress had given them.
Christmas was close at hand, and fatted cattle on their way to market impeded the way, so that Hal’s time was a good deal taken up in steering the pony along, and in preventing Watch from getting into a battle with the savage dogs that guarded them. Penrith market, where once he had been, had never shown him anything like such a concourse, and he could hear muttered exclamations from the archers, who walked by Sir Giles’s orders in a double line on each side the horses, their pikes keeping off the blundering approach of bullocks or sheep. ‘By the halidome, if the Scots were among them, they might victual their whole kingdom till Domesday!’
The tall spire of old St. Paul’s and the four turrets of the Tower began to rise on them, and were pointed out by Master Lorimer, for even Sir Giles had only once in his life visited the City, and no one else of the whole band from the north had ever been there. The road was bordered by the high walls of monasteries, overshadowed by trees, and at the deep gateway of one of these Lorimer called a halt. It was the house of the Minoresses or Poor Clares, where the ladies were to remain. The six weeks’ companionship would come to an end, and the Prioress was heartily sorry for it. ‘I shall scarce meet such good company at the Clares’,’ she said, laughing, as she took leave of Lord Musgrave, ‘Mayhap when I go back to my hills I shall remember your goodwife’s offer of hospitality, Master Lorimer.’
Master Lorimer bowed low, expressed his delight in the prospect, and kissed the Prioress’s hand, but the heavy door was already being opened, and with an expressive look of drollery and resignation, the good lady withdrew her hand, hastily brought her Benedictine hood and veil closely over her face, and rode into the court, followed by her suite. Anne had time to let her hand be kissed by Sir Giles and Hal, who felt as if a world had closed on him as the heavy doors clanged together behind the Sisters. But the previous affection of his young life lay before him as Sir Giles rode on to the fortified Aldgate, and after a challenge from the guard, answered by a watchword from Lorimer, and an inquiry for whom the knight held, they were admitted, and went on through an increasing crowd trailing boughs of holly and mistletoe, to the north gateway of the Tower. Here they parted with Lorimer, with friendly greetings and promises to come and see his stall at Cheapside.
There was a man-at-arms with the star of the De Veres emblazoned on his breast, and a red rosette on his steel cap, but he would not admit the new-comers till Sir Giles had given his name, and it had been sent in by another of the garrison to the Earl of Oxford.
Presently, after some waiting in the rain, and looking up with awe at the massive defences, two knights appeared with outstretched hands of welcome. Down went the drawbridge, up went the portcullis, the horses clattered over the moat, and the reception was hearty indeed. ‘Well met, my Lord of Musgrave! I knew you would soon be where Red Roses grew.’
‘Welcome, Sir Giles! Methought you had escaped after the fight at Hexham.’
‘Glad indeed to meet you, brave Sir John, and you, good Lord of Holmdale! Is all well with the King?’
‘As well as ever it will be. The Constable is nigh at hand! You have brought us a stout band of archers, I see! We will find a use for them if March chooses to show his presumptuous nose here again!’
‘And hither comes my Lord Constable! It rejoices his heart to hear of such staunch following.’
The Earl of Oxford, a stern, grave man of early middle age, was coming across the court-yard, and received Sir Giles with the heartiness that became the welcome of a proved and trustworthy ally. After a few words, Musgrave turned and beckoned to Hal, who advanced, shy and colouring.
‘Ha! young Lord Clifford! I am glad to see you! I knew your father well, rest his soul! The King spoke to me of the son of a loyal house living among the moors.’
‘The King was very good to me,’ faltered Hal, crimson with eagerness.
‘Ay, ay! I sent not after you, having enough to do here; and besides, till we have the strong hand, and can do without that heady kinsman of Warwick, it will be ill for you to disturb the rogue--what’s his name--to whom your lands have been granted, and who might turn against the cause and maybe make a speedy end of you if he knew you present. Be known for the present as Sir Giles counsels. Better not put his name forward,’ he added to Musgrave.
‘I care not for lands,’ said Hal, ‘only to see the King.’
‘See him you shall, my young lord, and if he be not in one of his trances, he will be right glad to see you and remember you. But he is scarce half a man,’ added Oxford, turning to Musgrave. ‘Cares for nought but his prayers! Keeps his Hours like a monk! We can hardly bring him to sit in the Council, and when he is there he sits scarce knowing what we say. ‘Tis my belief, when the Queen and Prince come, that we shall have to make the Prince rule in his name, and let him alone to his prayers! He will be in the church. ‘Tis nones, or some hour as they call it, and he makes one stretch out to another.’
They entered the low archway of St. Peter ad Vincula, and there Hal perceived a figure in a dark mantle just touched with gold, kneeling near the chancel step, almost crouching. Did he not know the attitude, though the back was broader than of old? He paused, as did his companions; but there was one who did not pause, and would not be left outside. Watch unseen had pattered up, and was rearing up, jumping and fawning. There was a call of ‘Watch! here sirrah!’ but ‘Watch! Watch! Good dog! Is it thou indeed?’ was exclaimed at the same moment, and with Watch springing up, King Henry stood on his feet looking round with his dazed glance.
‘My King! my hermit father! Forgive! Down, Watch!’ cried Hal, falling down at his feet, with one arm holding down Watch, who tried to lick his face and the King’s hand by turns.
‘Is it thou, my child, my shepherd?’ said Henry, his hands on the lad’s head. ‘Bless thee! Oh, bless thee, much loved child of my wanderings! I have longed after thee, and prayed for thee, and now God hath given thee to me at this shrine! Kneel and give the Lord thy best thanks, my lad! Ah! how tall thou art! I should not have known thee, Hal, but for Watch.’
‘It is well,’ muttered Oxford to Musgrave. ‘I have not seen him so well nor so cheery all this day. The lad will waken him up and do him good.’
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{
"id": "5313"
}
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17
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-- A CAPTIVE KING
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And we see far on holy ground, If duly purged our mental view. --KEBLE.
The King held Harry Clifford by the hand as he left St. Peter’s Church. ‘My child, my shepherd boy,’ he said, and he called Watch after him, and interested himself in establishing a kind of suspicious peace between the shaggy collie and his own ‘Minion,’ a small white curly-haired dog, which belonged to a family that had been brought by Queen Margaret from Provence.
His attendant knight, Sir Nicolas Romford, told Sir Giles Musgrave that he had really never seemed so happy since his deliverance, and Sir Nicolas had waited on him ever since his capture, six years previously. He led the youth along to the royal rooms, asking on the way after his sheep and the goodwife who had sent him presents of eggs, then showing him the bullfinch, that greeted his return with loving chirps, and when released from its cage came and sat upon his shoulder and played with his hair, ‘A better pet than a fierce hawk, eh, Hal?’ he said.
He laughed when he found that Harry thought he had spent all this time in a dark underground dungeon with fetters on his feet.
‘Oh no!’ he said; ‘they were kindly jailors. They dealt better with me than with my Master.’
‘Sir, sir, that terrible ride through Cheapside!’ said Harry. ‘We heard of it at Derwent-side, and we longed to have our pikes at the throats of the villain traitors.’
The King looked as if he hardly remembered that cruel procession, when he was set upon a sorry jade with his feet tied to the stirrups, and shouts of ‘Behold the traitor!’ around him. Then with a sweet smile of sudden recollection, he said, ‘Ah! I recall it, and how I rejoiced to be led in the steps of my Lord, and how the cries sounded, “We will not have this man to reign over us!” Gratias ago, unworthy me, who by my own fault could not reign.’
Harry was silenced, awe-struck, and by-and-by the King took him to see his old chamber in the White Tower, up a winding stone stair. It was not much inferior to the royal lodgings, except in the matter of dais, canopy, and tapestry, and the window looked out into the country, so that the King said he had loved it, and it had many a happy thought connected with it.
Hal followed him in a sort of silent wonder, if not awe, not daring to answer him in monosyllables. This was not quite the hermit of Derwentdale. It was a broader man--not with the breadth of full strength, but of inactivity and advance of years, though the fiftieth year was only lately completed--and the royal robe of crimson, touched with gold, suited him far less than the brown serge of the anchoret. The face was no longer thin, sunburnt, and worn, but pale, and his checks slightly puffed, and the eyes and smile, with more of the strange look of innocent happiness than of old, and of that which seemed to bring back to his young visitor the sense of peace and well-being that the saintly hermit had always given him.
There was consultation that evening between Lord Oxford and Sir Giles Musgrave. It was better, they agreed, to let young Clifford remain with the King as much as possible, but without divulging his name. The King knew it, and indeed had known it, when he received the boy at his hermitage, but he seemed to have forgotten it, as he had much besides. Oxford said that though he could be roused into actual fulfilment of such forms as were required of him, and understood what was set before him, his memory and other powers seemed to have been much impaired, and it was held wiser not to call on him more than could be helped, till the Queen and her son should come to supply the energy that was wanting. They would make the gay and brilliant appearance that the Londoners had admired in Edward of York, and which could not be obtained from poor Henry.
His memory for actual matters was much impaired. Never for two days together could he recollect that his son and Warwick’s daughter were married, and it was always by an effort that he remembered that the Prince of Wales was not the eight-years-old child whom he had last seen. As to young Clifford, he sometimes seemed to think the tall nineteen-years-old stripling was just where he had left the child of twelve or thirteen, and if he perceived the age, was so far confused that it was not quite certain that he might not mix him up with his own son, though the knight in constant attendance was sure that he was clear on that point, and only looked on ‘Hal’ as the child of his teaching and prayers.
But Harry Clifford could not persuade him to enter into that which more and more lay near the youthful heart, the rescuing Anne St. John from the suitor of whom little that was hopeful was heard; and the obtaining her from his father. Of course this could not be unless Harry could win his father’s property, and no longer be under the attaint in blood, so as to be able to lay claim to the lands of the De Vescis through his mother; but though the King listened with kindly interest to the story of the children’s adventure on the Londesborough moor, and the subsequent meeting in Westmorland, the rescue from the outlaws, and the journey together, it was all like a romance to him--he would nod his head and promise to do what he could, if he could, but he never remembered it for two days together, and if Hal ventured on anything like pressure, the only answer was, ‘Patience, my son, patience must have her work! It is the will of God, it will be right.’
And when Hal began to despair and work himself up and seek to do more with one so impracticable, Lord Oxford and Sir Giles warned him not to force his real name and claims too much, for he did not need too many enemies nor to have Lord St. John and the Nevil who held his lands both anxious to sweep him from their path.
Nor was anything heard from or of the Prioress of Greystone, and whenever the name of George Nevil, the Chancellor and Archbishop of York, was heard, Hal’s heart burnt with anxiety, and fear that the lady had forgotten him, though as Dick Nevil, who held the lands of Clifford, was known to be in his suite, it was probable that she was acting out of prudence.
The turmoil of anxious impatience seemed to be quelled when Hal sat on a stool before the King, with Watch leaning against his knee. The instruction or meditation seemed to be taken up much where it had been left six years before, with the same unanswerable questions, only the youth had thought out a great deal more, and the hermit had advanced in a wisdom which was not that of the rough, practical world.
Part of Clifford’s day was spent in the tilt-yard, where his two friends, as well as himself, were anxious that he should acquire proficiency and ease such as would become his station, when he recovered it; and a martinet old squire of Oxford proved himself nearly as hard a master as ever Simon Bunce had been.
One very joyous day came to Henry in his regal capacity. Christmas Day had been quietly spent. There was much noisy revelling in the city, and the guards in the castle had their feastings, but Warwick was daily expected to return from France, and neither his brother nor the Archbishop thought that there was much policy in making a public spectacle of a puppet King.
But there was one ceremony from which Henry would not be debarred. He would make the public offering on the Epiphany in Westminster Abbey. He had done so ever since he was old enough to totter up to the altar and hold the offerings; and his heart was set on doing so once more. So a large and quiet cream-coloured Flemish horse was brought for him, he was robed in purple and ermine, with a coronal around the cap that covered his hair, fast becoming white. His train in full array followed him, and the streets were thronged, but there was an ominous lack of applause, and even a few audible jeers at the monk dressed up like the jackdaw in peacock’s plumes, and comparisons with Edward, in sooth a king worth looking at.
Henry seemed not to heed or hear. His blue eyes looked upward, his face was set in peaceful contemplation, his lips were moving, and those who were near enough caught murmurs of ‘Vidimus enim stellam Ejus in Oriente et venimus adorare Eum.’ Truly the one might be a king to suit the kingdoms of this world, the other had a soul near the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Dean and choir received him at the west door, and with the same rapt countenance he paced up to the sanctuary, and knelt before the chair appropriated to him, while the grand Epiphany Celebration was gone through, in all its glory and beauty of sound and sight, and with the King kneeling with clasped hands, and a radiant look of happiness almost transfiguring that worn face.
When the offertory anthem was sung, he rose up, and advanced to the altar. A salver of gold coins was presented to him, which he took and solemnly laid on the altar, but paused for a moment, and removed his crown with both hands, placing it likewise on the altar, and kneeling for a moment ere he turned to take the vase whence breathed the fragrant odour of frankincense; and presenting this, and afterwards kneeling and bowing low with clasped hands, he again took the salver in which the myrrh was laid. This again he placed on the altar, and remained kneeling in intense devotion through the remainder of the service, only looking up at the ‘Sursum Corda,’ when those near enough to see his countenance said that they never knew before the full import of those words, nor how the heart could be uplifted.
It was the first time that Hal Clifford had ever joined in the full ceremonial of the Church, or in such splendid accompaniment, for though there had been the rightful ritual at St. Peter’s in the Tower, the space had been confined, and the clergy few, and the whole, even on Christmas Day, had been more or less a training to him to enter into what he now saw and heard. He had in these last weeks gathered much of the meaning of all this from the King, who perhaps never fully disentangled the full-grown youth from the boy he had taught at Derwentdale, but who, perhaps for that very cause, really suited better the strange mixture of ignorance, simplicity, observation and aspiration of the shepherd lord.
The King did not help more but less than he had done before in Hal’s researches and wonderings about natural objects; he had forgotten the philosophies he had once read, and the supposed circuits of moon, planets and stars only perplexed and worried his brain. It was much more satisfactory to refer all to ‘He hath made them fast for ever and ever, He hath given them a law which shall not be broken,’ and he could not understand Hal’s desire to find out what that law was, and far less his calculations about the tides. He had scarcely ever seen the sea, and as to its motions, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther’ was sufficient explanation, and when Hal tried to show him the correspondence between spring tides and full moons he either waved him away or fell asleep.
But on the spiritual side of his mind there was no torpor. He loved to explain the sense of the prayers to his willing pupil, and to tell him the Gospel story, dwelling on whatever could waken or carry on the Christian life; and between the tiltyard and the oratory Hal spent a strange life.
That question which had occurred to him on the journey Hal ventured to lay before his King--‘Was it really and truly better and more acceptable worship that came to breathe through him when alone with God under the open vault of Heaven, with endless stars above and beyond, or was the best that which was beautified and guided by priests, with all that man’s devices could lavish upon its embellishment?’ Such, though in more broken and hesitating words, was the herd boy’s difficulty, and Henry put his head back, and after having once said, ‘Adam had the one, God directed the other,’ he shut his eyes, and Hal feared he would put it aside as he had with the moon and the tides, but after some delay, he leant forward and said, ‘My son, if man had always been innocent, that worship as Adam and Eve had it might--nay, would--have sufficed them. The more innocent man is, the better his heart rises. But sin came into the world, and expiation was needed, not only here on earth, but before the just God in Heaven above. Therefore doth He, who hath once offered Himself in sacrifice for us, eternally present His offering in Heaven before the Mercy-Seat, and we endeavour as much as our poor feeble efforts can, to take part in what He does above, and bring it home to our senses by all that can represent to us the glories of Heaven.’
There was much in this that went beyond Hal, who knitted his brow, and would have asked further, but the King fell into a state of contemplation, and noticed nothing, until presently he broke out into a thanksgiving: ‘Blessed be my Lord, who hath granted me once more to follow in the steps of the kings of the East, though but as in a dream, and lay my crown and my prayer before Him. Once more I thank Thee, O my true King of kings, and Lord of lords.’
‘Oh, do not say once more!’ exclaimed Hal. ‘Again and again, I trust, sir. It is no dream. It is real.’
The King smiled and shook his head. ‘It is all a dream to me,’ he said, ‘the pageants and the whole. They will not last! Oh, no! It is all but an empty show.’
Hal looked up anxiously, and the King went on: ‘Well do I remember the day when, scarce able to walk, and weighed down by my robes, I tottered up to the altar and was well pleased to make my offering, and how my Lord of Warwick, who was then, took me in his arms, and showed me my great father’s figure on his grave, and told me I was bound to be such a king as he! Alas! was it mine own error that I so failed? && Henry born at Monmouth shall short live and gain all, Henry born at Windsor shall long live and lose all.’
‘Oh, sir, sir, do not speak of that old saw!’
Still the King smiled. ‘It has come true, my child. All is lost, and it may be well for my soul that thus it should be, and that I should go into the presence of my God freed from the load of what was gained unjustly. I know not whether, if my hand had been stronger, I should have striven to have borne up the burthen of these two realms, but they never ought to have been mine, and if the sins of the forefathers be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, no marvel that my brain and mine arm could but sink under the weight. Would that I had yielded at once, and spared the bloodshed and sacrilege! Miserere mei! My son was a temptation. Oh, my poor boy! is he to be the heir to all that has come on me? Have pity on him, good Lord!’
‘Nay, sir, your brave son will come home to comfort you, and help you and make all well.’
‘I know not! I know not! I cannot believe that I shall see him again, or that the visitation of these crimes is not still to come! My son, my sweet son, I can only pray that he might give up his soul sackless and freer of guilt than his father can be, when I remember all that I ought to have hindered when I could think and use my will! Now, now all is but confusion! God has taken away my judgment, even as He did with my French grandsire, and I can only let others act as they will, and pray for them and for myself.’
He had never spoken at such length, nor so clearly, and whenever he was required to come forward, he merely walked, rode, sat or signed rolls as he was told to do, and continually made mistakes as to the persons brought to him, generally calling them by their fathers’ names, if he recognised them at all, but still to his nearest attendants, and especially to his beloved herd boy, he was the same gentle, affectionate being, never so happy as at his prayers, and sometimes speaking of holy things as one almost inspired.
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{
"id": "5313"
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18
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-- AT THE MINORESSES’
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The bird that hath been limed in a bush, With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush. --SHAKESPEARE.
One day, soon after that Twelfth Day, Hal accompanied Sir Giles Musgrave to the shop or stall of Master Lorimer in Cheapside, a wide space, open by day but closed by shutters at night, where all sorts of gilded and emblazoned leather-works for man or horse were displayed, and young ‘prentices called, ‘What d’ye lack?’ ‘Saddle of the newest make?’ ‘Buff coat fit to keep out the spear of Black Douglas himself?’
‘’Tis Master Lorimer himself I lack,’ said Musgrave with a good-humoured smile, and the merchant appeared from a room in the rear, something between a counting-house and a bedroom, where he welcomed his former companions, and insisted on their tasting the good sherris sack that had been sent with his last cargo of Spanish leather.
‘I would I could send a flask to our good Prioress,’ he said, ‘to cheer her heart. I went to the Minoresses’ as she bade me, to settle some matters of account with her, and after some ado, Sister Mabel came down to the parlour and told me the Prioress is very sick with a tertian fever, and they misdoubt her recovering.’
‘And the young Lady of St. John.’
‘She is well enough, but sadly woeful as to the Mother Prioress, and likewise as to what they hear of the Lord Redgrave. It is the old man, not his son, a hard and stark old man, as I remember. He would have bargained with me for the coats of the poor rogues slain at St. Albans, and right evil was his face as he spoke thereof, he being then for Queen Margaret; but then he went over to King Edward, and glutted himself with slaughter at Towton, and here he calls himself Red Rose again. Ill-luck to the poor young maid if she falls to him!’
It was terrible news for Hal, and Musgrave could not but gratify him by riding by the Minories to endeavour to hear further tidings of the Prioress.
It was a grand building in fine pointed architecture, for the Clares, though once poor, in imitation of St. Clara and St. Francis, had been dispensed collectively from their vow of poverty, and though singly incapable of holding property, had a considerable accumulation en masse. They were themselves a strict Order, but they often gave lodgings to ladies either in retreat or for any cause detained near London.
Sir Giles and Harry were only admitted to the outer court, whence the portress went with their message of inquiry. They waited a long time, and then the Greystone lay Sister who had been the companion of their journey came back in company with the portress.
‘Benedicite, dear gentles,’ she said; ‘oh, you are a sight for sair een.’
‘And how fares the good Mother Prioress?’ asked the Lord of Peelholm.
‘Alack! she is woefully ill when the fever takes her, and she is wasted away so that you would scarce know her; but this is one of the better days, and if you, sir, will come into the parlour, she will see you. She was arraying herself as I came down. She was neither to have nor to hold when she heard you were there, and said a north country face would be better to her than all the Sisters’ potions!’
They were accordingly conducted through a graceful cloister, overgrown with trailing ivy, to a bare room, with mullioned windows, and frescoes on the Walls with the history of St. Francis relieving beggars, preaching to the birds, &c., and with a stout open work barrier cutting off half the room.
Presently the Prioress tottered in, leaning heavily on the arms of Sister Mabel and of Anne St. John, while her own lay Sister and another placed a seat for her; but before she would sit down, she would go up to the opening, and turning back her veil, put out a hand to be grasped. ‘Right glad am I to see you, good Sir Giles and young Harry. Are you going back to the wholesome winds of our moors?’
‘Not yet, holy Mother. It grieves me to see you faring so ill.’
‘Ah! a breeze from the north would bring life back to my old bones. Aye, Giles, this place has made an old woman of me.’ And truly her bright ruddy face was faded to a purple hue, and her cheeks hung haggard and almost withered, but as her visitors expressed their grief and sympathy, she went on in her own tone. ‘And tell me somewhat of how things are going. How doth Richard of Warwick comport himself to the King? Hath your King zest enough to reign? Is my White Rose King still abroad in Burgundy?’ And as Sir Giles replied to each inquiry in turn, and told all he could of political matters, she exclaimed: ‘Ah! that is better than the hearing whether the black hen hath laid an egg, or the skein of yellow silk matches. I am weary, O! I am weary. Moreover, young Hal, I know as matters are that could I see George Nevil face to face I could do somewhat with him, and I laid my plans to obtain a meeting, but therewith, what with vexation and weariness and lack of air, comes this sickness, and I am laid aside and can do nought but pray, and lay my plans to meet him some day in the fields, and show him what a hawk can do, then shame him into listening to my tale. But I must be a sound woman first! And maybe his brother Warwick, being a sturdy gentleman who loves a brave man, will be better to deal with. I am a sinful woman, and maybe my devotions here will help me to be more worthy to be heard. Moreover, I hoped you had done somewhat in thine own cause with thy King and Earl Oxford,’ she proceeded. ‘Thou hast an esquire’s coat; hast thou any hope of thy lands?’
‘I must strive to earn them by deeds,’ said Hal. ‘And--’ ‘Well spoken, lad! ‘Tis the manly way; but methought you hadst interest with this King of thine, or hath he only a royal memory for services?’
‘He is good to me. Yea, most good,’ began Harry.
‘Ay, he loves the boy,’ said Sir Giles, ‘no question about that; but his memory for all that is about him hath failed, and there is nothing for it save to wait for the Queen and the Prince, who will bear the boy’s father’s services in mind.’
‘And wherefore tarries the French woman? This maid’s father is to come over with her. He is forming her English court, I trow; she can have few beside from England.’
‘When he comes,’ said Harry, with a look into Anne’s eyes that made them droop and her cheeks burn, ‘then shall we put it to the touch. Then shall I know whether I have mine own, and what is more than mine own.’
‘Thine own,’ whispered Anne. ‘Oh, better live in the sheepfolds with thee than with this Baron! I shudder at the thought.’
This, and a few more such words were an aside, while the Prioress continued her conversation with Sir Giles, and went on to say that she was sure she should never recover till she was out of these walls, and away from London smoke and London smells, and she naughtily added in a whisper the weary talk of these good nuns, who had never flown a hawk or chased a deer in their lives, and thought Florimond a mere wolf, if not the evil one himself, and kept the poor hound chained up like a malefactor in gyves, till she was fain to send him away with Master Lorimer to keep for her.
She would not go back to her Priory till Anne’s fate was settled, being in hopes of doing something yet for the poor wench; but meantime she should die if she stayed there much longer, and she meant to set forth on pilgrimage in good time, before she had scandalised the good ladies enough to make them gossip to the dames of St. Helen’s, who would be only too glad to have a story against the Benedictines. A ride over the Kentish downs was the only cure for her or for Anne, who had been pining ever since they had been mewed up here, though, looking across at the girl, whose head was leaning against the bars, Sir Giles seemed to have brought a remedy to judge by those cheeks.
‘Would that we could hope it would be an effectual and lasting remedy,’ sighed Sir Giles; ‘but unless this poor King could be roused to insist, or the Earl of Warwick fell out with his cousin, I do not see much chance for the lad.’
‘Is it Warwick who is his chief foe or King Edward?’ asked the Prioress.
‘King Edward, doubtless, for his father’s slaughter of young Rutland at Wakefield.’
‘That bodes ill,’ said the lady. ‘By all I gather, King Edward is a tiger when once roused, but at other times is like that same tiger, purring and slow to move. But there’s a bell that warns us to vespers. They are mightily more strict here than ever we are at Greystone. Ah! you won’t tell tales, Sir Giles! You’ll soon hear of me at St. Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury.’
The knight took his leave. It was impossible not to like and pity the Prioress, though the life among devout nuns was clearly beyond her powers.
The dreamy peaceful days of the Tower of London were stirred by the arrival of the great Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, as people already called him. He took up his residence in his own mighty establishment at Warwick House near St. Paul’s; and the day after his arrival, he came clanking over London Bridge with a great following of knights and squires to pay his respects to King Henry.
Henry Clifford was not disposed to meet him, and only watched from a window when the drawbridge was lowered, and the sturdy man, with grizzled hair and marked, determined features, rode into the gateway, where he was received by the Earl of Oxford.
The interview was long, and when it was finished, the two Earls made the round of the defences, and Oxford drew up his garrison on the Tower Green to be inspected.
When Warwick had taken his leave, Hal was summoned to the Constable’s hall. ‘We must be jogging, my young master,’ he said. ‘There are rumours of King Edward making another attempt for his crown, and my Lord of Warwick would have me go and watch the eastern seaboard. And you had best go with me.’
‘The King--’ began Hal.
‘You will come back to the King by-and-by if so be he misses you, but he was more dazed than ever to-day, and perhaps it was well, for Warwick brought with him Dick Nevil, who has got your lands of Clifford, and might be tempted to put you out of the way in one of the dungeons that lie so handy.’
‘No one save the King knows who I am,’ said Hal, ‘and he forgets from day to day all save that I am the herd boy, and I think it cheers him to have me with him. I will stay beside him even as a varlet.’
‘Nay, my lord, that may not be. ‘Tis true he loves thee, but he will forget anon, and I may not suffer the risk. Too many know or guess.’
Harry Clifford repeated that he recked not of the risk when he could serve and comfort his beloved King, and, indeed, his mind was made up on the subject. He had taken measures for remaining as one of the men-at-arms of the garrison; but King Henry himself surprised him by saying, ‘My young Lord of Clifford, fare thee well. Thou goest forth to-morrow with the Constable of Oxford. Take my blessing with thee, my child. Thou hast been granted to me to make life very sweet to me of late, and I thank God for it, but the time is come that thou must part from me.’
‘Oh, sir, never! None was ever so dear to me! For weal or woe I will be with you! Suffer me to be your meanest varlet, and serve you as none other can do.’
Henry shook his head. ‘It may not be, my child, let not thy blood also be on my head! Go with Oxford and his men. Thou hast learnt to draw sword and use lance. Thou wilt be serving me still if again there be, which Heaven forefend, stricken fields in my cause or my son’s.’
‘Sir, if I must fight, let no less holy hand than thine lay knighthood on my shoulder,’ sobbed Hal, kneeling.
Henry smiled. ‘I have well-nigh forgotten the fashion. But if it will please thee, my son, give me thy sword, Oxford. In the name of God and St. George of England I dub thee knight. For the Church, for the honour of God, for a good cause, fight. Arise, Sir Henry Clifford!’
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{
"id": "5313"
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19
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-- A STRANGE EASTER EVE
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And spare, O spare The meek usurper’s holy head. --GRAY.
Once more, at the close of morning service, while it was still dark, did Harry Clifford, the new-made knight, kneel before King Henry and feel his hand in blessing on his head. Then he went forth to join Musgrave and the troop that the Earl of Oxford was leading from the Tower to raise the counties of East Anglia and watch the coast against a descent of King Edward from the Low Countries.
As they passed the walls enclosing the Minories Convent, and Hal gazed at it wistfully, the wide gateway was opened and out came a party of black-hooded nuns, mounted on ponies and mules, evidently waiting till Oxford’s band had gone by. Harry drew Sir Giles’s attention, and they lingered, as they became certain that they beheld the Prioress Selby of Greystone, hawk, hound and all, riding forth, nearly smothered in her hood, and not so upright as of old.
‘Ay, here I am!’ she said, as he reined up and bowed his greeting. ‘Here I am on my pilgrimage! I got Father Ridley, the Benedictine head, to order me forth. Methinks he was glad, being a north countryman, to send me out before I either died on the Poor Clares’ hands, or gave them a fuller store of tales against us of St. Bennet’s! Not but that they are good women, too godly and devout for a poor wild north country Selby like me, who cannot live without air.
O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree, They flourish best at home in the north countree.
Flori, Flori, whither away? Ah! thou hast found thine old friend. Birds of a feather. Eh? the young folk have foregathered likewise. Watch! And thou, sir knight, whither are you away?’
‘On our way to Norfolk in case the Duke of York should show himself on the coast. And yours, reverend Mother?’
‘To Canterbury first by easy journeys. We sleep to-night at the Tabard, where we shall meet other pilgrims.’
‘Here, alack! our way severs from yours. Farewell, holy Mother, may you find health on your pilgrimage.’
‘Every breath I take in is health,’ said the Mother, who had already manoeuvred an opening in her veil, and gasped to throw it back as soon as she should attain an unfrequented place. ‘There are so many coming and going here that all the air is used up by their greasy nostrils! Well! good luck, and God’s blessing go with you, and you, young Hal, I may say so far, whichever side ye be, but still I hold that York has the right, and yours may be a saint, but not a king.’
Hal had meantime ‘forgathered’ as the Prioress said with Anne, marching, in spite of his new honours, close to her stirrup, and venturing to whisper to her that he was now her knight, and ‘her colours,’ which he was to wear for her, were only a tiny scrap of ribbon from her glove, which he cut off with his dagger, and kissed, saying he should wear it next his heart, though he might not do so openly.
Their love was more implied than ever it had been before, and she repeated her confidence that the kind Prioress would never leave her till she had done her utmost for them both.
‘But you, my good stripling, I am ashamed to see you. I have done nothing for you. I sent a humble message to ask to see the Archbishop, but had no answer, and by-and-by, when I stirred again, who should come to sec me but young Bertram Selby, and “Kinswoman,” said he, “you had best keep quiet. The Archbishop hath asked me whether rumours were sooth that yours was scarce a regular Priory.” The squire stood up for me and said, as became one of the family, that an outlying cell, where there were ill neighbours of Scots, thieves, borderers, and the like, could scarce look to be as trim as a city nunnery, and that none had ever heard harm of Mother Agnes. But then one of his priests took on him to whisper in his ear, and he demanded whether we had not gone so far as to hide traitors from justice, to which Bertram returned a stout denial as well he might, though he thought it well to give me warning, but for the present there was no use in attempting anything more. The Archbishop was exceedingly busy with the work of his office and the defence of London in case of Edward’s threatened return; but he had not yet come, and no one thought there was a reasonable doubt that Warwick, the Kingmaker, would not be victorious, and he had carried his son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, with him.’ After the cause of the Red Rose was won, there was no fear but that the services of Clifford would be remembered. So Harry Clifford parted with Anne, promising himself and her that there should be fresh Clifford services, winning a recognition of the De Vesci inheritance if of no more.
The ladies went on their way in the track which Chaucer has made memorable, laying their count to meet Queen Margaret and her son, and win their ears beforehand, and wondering that they came not. Kentish breezes soon revived the Prioress, and she went through many strange devotions at the shrine of Becket, which, it might be feared, did not improve her spiritual, so much as her bodily, health, while Anne’s chiefly resolved themselves into prayers that Harry Clifford might be guarded and restored, and that she herself might be saved from the dreaded Lord Redgrave.
They did not set out on the return to London till they had inhaled plenty of sea breezes by visiting the shrine of St. Mildred in the isle of Thanet, and St. Eanswith at Folkestone, till Lent had begun, and the first fresh tidings that they met were that Edward had landed in Yorkshire, but his fleet had been dispersed by storms, and the people did not rise to join him, so that he was fain to proclaim that he only came to assert his right to his father’s inheritance of the Dukedom of York.
At the Minoresses’ Convent they found that a messenger had arrived, bidding Anne go to meet her father at his castle in Bedfordshire. He was coming over with the Queen whenever she could obtain a convoy from King Louis of France. Lord Redgrave was with him, and the marriage should take place as soon as they arrived.
‘Never fear, child,’ said the Prioress; ‘many is the slip between the cup and the lip.’
Further tidings came that Edward had thrown off his first plea, that he had passed Warwick’s brother Montagu at Pontefract, and that men from his own hereditary estates were flocking to his royal banner. Warwick was calling up his men in all directions, and both armies were advancing on London. Then it was known that ‘false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’ had deserted his father-in-law, and returned to his brother; and worthless as he individually was, it boded ill for Lancaster, though still hope continued in the uniform success of the Kingmaker. Warwick was about twenty miles in advance of Edward, till that King actually passed him and reached the town of Warwick itself. Still the Earl wrote to his brother that if he could only hold out London for forty-eight hours all would be well.
Once more poor King Henry was set on horseback and paraded through the streets. Brother Martin went out with the chaplain of the Poor Clares to gaze upon him, and they came back declaring that he was more than ever like the image carried in a procession, seeming quite as helpless and indifferent, except, said Brother Martin, when he passed a church, and then a heavenly look came over his still features as he bowed his head; but none of the crowd who came out to gaze cried ‘Save King Harry!’ or ‘God bless him!’
There were two or three thousand Yorkists in the various sanctuaries of London, and they were preparing to rise in favour of their King Edward, and only a few hundred were mustering in St. Paul’s Churchyard for the Red Rose.
The Poor Clares were in much terror, though nunneries and religious houses, and indeed non-combatants in general, were usually respected by each side in these wars; but the Prioress of Greystone was not sorry that the summons to her protegee called her party off on the way to Bedfordshire, and they all set forward together, intending to make Master Lorimer’s household at Chipping Barnet their first stage, as they had engaged to do.
Their intention had been notified to Lorimer’s people in his London shop, who had sent on word to their master, and the good man came out to meet them, full of surprise at the valour of the ladies in attempting the journey. But they could not possibly go further. King Edward was at St. Albans, and was on his way to London, and the Earl of Warwick was coming up from Dunstable with the Earls of Somerset and Oxford. For ladies, even of religious orders, to ride on between the two hosts was manifestly impossible, and he and his wife were delighted to entertain the Lady Prioress till the roads should be safe.
The Prioress was nothing loth. She always enjoyed the freedom of a secular household, and she was glad to remain within hearing of the last news in this great crisis of York and Lancaster.
‘I marvel if there will be a battle,’ she said. ‘Never have I had the good luck to see or hear one.’
‘Oh! Mother, are you not afraid?’ cried Sister Mabel.
‘Afraid! What should I be afraid of, silly maid? Do you think the men-at-arms are wolves to snap you up?’
‘And,’ murmured Anne, ‘we shall know how it goes with my Lord of Oxford’s people.’
These were the last days of Lent, and were carefully kept in the matter of food by the household, but the religious observances were much disturbed by the tidings that poured in. King Henry and Archbishop Nevil had taken refuge in the house of Bishop Kemp of London, Urswick the Recorder, with the consent of the Aldermen, had opened the gates to Edward, and the Good Friday Services at Barnet, the Psalms and prayers in the church, were disturbed by men-at-arms galloping to and fro, and reports coming in continually.
There could be no going out to gather flowers to deck the Church the next day, for King Edward was on the London side, and Warwick with his army had reached the low hills of Hadley, and their tents, their banners, and the glint of their armour might be seen over the heathy slope between them and the lanes and fields, surrounded by hedges, that fenced in the valley of Barnet. The little town itself, though lying between the two armies, remained unoccupied by either party, and only men-at-arms came down into it, not as plunderers, but to buy food.
Warwick’s cannon, however, thundered all night, a very awful sound to such unaccustomed ears, but they were so directed that the charges flew far away from Barnet, under a false impression as to the situation of the Yorkist forces.
Mistress Lorimer had heard them before, but accompanied every report with a pious prayer; Sister Mabel screamed at each, then joined in; the Prioress was greatly excited, and walked about with Master Lorimer, now on the roof, trying to see, now at the gate, trying to hear. Anne fancied it meant victory to Hal’s party, but knelt, tried to pray while she listened, and the dogs barked incessantly. And that Hal must be in the army above the little town they guessed, for in the evening Watch came floundering into the courtyard, hungry and muddy, but full of affectionate recognition of his old friends and the quarters he had learnt to know. Florimond, who happened to be loose, had a romp with him in their old fashion, and to the vexation and alarm of his mistress, they both ran off together, and must have gone hunting on the heath, for there was no response to her silver whistle.
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{
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20
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-- BARNET
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A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew The mist aside. --TENNYSON.
And Sir Henry Clifford? Still he was Hal of Derwentdale, for the perilous usurper, Sir Richard Nevil, was known to be continually with Warwick, and Musgrave was convinced that the concealment was safest.
The youth then remained with the Peelholm men, and became a good deal more practised in warlike affairs, and accustomed to campaigning, during the three months when Oxford was watching the eastern coast. On this Easter night he lay down on the hill-side with Watch beside him, his shepherd’s plaid round him, his heart rising as he thought himself near upon gaining fame and honour wherewith to win his early love, and winning victory and safety for his beloved King, or rather his hermit. For as his hermit did that mild unearthly face always come before him. He could not think of it wearing that golden crown, which seemed alien to it, but rather, as he lay on his back, after his old habit looking up at the stars, either he saw and recognised the Northern Crown, or his dazed and sleepy fancy wove a radiant coronet of stars above that meek countenance that he knew and loved so well; and as at intervals the cannon boomed and wakened him, he looked on at the bright Northern Cross and dreamily linked together the cross and crown.
Easter Sunday morning came dawning, but no one looked to see the sun dance, even if the morning had not been dull and grey, a thick fog covering everything; but through it came a dull and heavy sound, and the clang of armour. Even by their own force the radiant star of the De Veres could hardly be seen on the banner, as the Earl of Oxford rode up and down, putting his men in battle array. Hal was on foot as an archer, meaning to deserve the spurs that he had not yet worn. The hosts were close to one another, and at first only the continual rain of arrows darkened the air; but as the sun rose and the two armies saw one another, Oxford’s star was to be seen carried into the very midst of the opposing force under Lord Hastings. On, on, with cries of victory, the knights rode, the archers ran across the heath carrying all before them, never doubting that the day was theirs, but not knowing where they were till trumpets sounded, halt was called, and they were drawn up together, as best they might, round their leading star. But as they advanced, behold there was an unexpected shout of treason. Arrows came thickly on them, men-at-arms bearing Warwick’s ragged staff came thundering headlong upon them. ‘Treason, treason,’ echoed on all sides, and with that sound in his ears Harry Clifford was cut down, and fell under a huge horse and man, and lay senseless under a gorse-bush.
He knew no more but that horses and men seemed for ever trampling over him and treading him down, and then all was lost to him--for how long he knew not, but for one second he was roused so far as to hear a furious growling and barking of Watch, but with dazed senses he thought it was over the sheep, tried to raise himself, could not, thought himself dying, and sank back again.
The next thing he knew was ‘Here, Master Lorimer, you know this gear better than I; unfasten this buff coat. There, he can breathe. Drink this, my lad.’
It was the Prioress’s voice! He felt a jolt as of a waggon, and opened his eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was under the tilt of Lorimer’s waggon, which was moving on. The Prioress was kneeling over him on one side, Lorimer on the other, and his head was on a soft lap--nay, a warm tear dropped on his face, a sweet though stifled voice said, ‘Is he truly better?’
Then came sounds of ‘hushing,’ yet of reassurance; and when there was a halt, and clearer consciousness began to revive, while kind hands were busy about him, and a cordial was poured down his throat, by the light of a lantern cautiously shown, Hal found speech to say, as he felt a long soft tongue on his face, ‘Watch, Watch, is it thou, man?’
‘Ay, Watch it is,’ said the Prioress. ‘Well may you thank him! It is to him you owe all, and to my good Florimond.’
‘But what--how--where am I?’ asked Hal, trying to look round, but feeling sharp thrills and shoots of pain at every motion.
‘Lie still till they bring their bandages, and I will tell you. Gently, Nan, gently--thy sobs shake him!’ But, as he managed to hold and press Anne’s hand, the Prioress went on, ‘You are in good Lorimer’s warehouse. Safer thus, though it is too odorous, for the men of York do not respect sanctuary in the hour of victory.’
The word roused Hal further. ‘The victory was ours!’ he said. ‘We had driven Hastings’ banner off the field! Say, was there a cry of treason?’
‘Even so, my son. So far as Master Lorimer understands, Lord Oxford’s banner of the beaming star was mistaken for the sun of York, and the men of Warwick turned on you as you came back from the chase, but all was utter confusion. No one knows who was staunch and who not, and the fields and lanes are full of blood and slaughtered men; and Edward’s royal banner is set up on the market cross, and trumpets were sounding round it. And here come Master Lorimer and the goodwife to bind these wounds.’
‘But Sir Giles Musgrave?’ still asked Hal.
‘Belike fled with Lord Oxford and his men, who all made off at the cry of treason,’ was the answer.
Lorimer returned with his wife and various appliances, and likewise with fresh tidings. There was no doubt that the brothers Warwick and Montagu had been slain. They had been found--Warwick under a hedge impeded by his heavy armour, and Montagu on the field itself. Each body had been thrown over a horse, and shown at the market cross; and they would be carried to London on the morrow. ‘And so end,’ said Lorimer, ‘two brave and open-handed gentlemen as ever lived, with whom I have had many friendly dealings.’
One thing more Hal longed to hear--namely, how he had been saved. He remembered that Watch had come back to him with Florimond the evening before. They had probably been hunting together, and the hound, who had always been very fond of him on the journey, had accompanied Watch to his side before going back to his chain in Barnet; but he had lost sight of them in the morning, and regretted that he could not find Watch to provide for his safety. He knew, he said, by the presence of Florimond, who must be in Barnet. And he also had a dim recollection of being licked by Watch’s tongue as he lay, and likewise of hearing a furious barking, yelling and growling, whether of one or both dogs he was not sure.
It seemed that towards the evening, when the battle-cries had grown fainter, and the sun was going down, Florimond had burst in on his mistress, panting and blood-stained--but not with his own blood, as was soon ascertained--and made vehement demonstrations by which, as a true dog-lover, the Prioress perceived that he wanted her to follow him. And Anne, who thought she saw a piece of Hal’s plaid caught in his collar, was ‘neither to have nor to hold,’ as the Mother said, till Master Lorimer was found, and entreated to follow the hound, ay, and to take them with him. He demurred much as to their safety, but the Prioress declared that it was the part of the religious to take care of the wounded, and not inconsistent with her vow. See the Sisters of St. Katharine’s of the Tower! And though her interpretation was a broad one, and would have shocked alike her own Abbess and her of the Minoresses, he was fain to accept it in such a cause; but he commanded his waggoners to bring the wain in the rear, both as an excuse, and a possible protection for the ladies, and, it might be, a conveyance for the wounded.
Florimond, who had sprung about, barked, fawned and made entreating sounds all this time (longer in narrative than in reality) led them, not through the central field of slaughter, but somewhat to the left, among the heath--where, in fact, Oxford had lost his way in the fog, and his own allies had charged him, but had not followed far beyond the place of Hal’s fall, discovering the fatal error that spread confusion through their ranks, where everyone distrusted his fellow leader.
There, after a weary and perilous way, diversified by the horrid shouts of plunderers of the slain, happily not near at hand, and when Lorimer, but for the ladies, would have given up the quest as useless, they were greeted by Watch’s bark, and found him lying with his fine head alert and ready over his senseless master.
There was no doubt but that the two good creatures, both powerful and formidable animals, must have saved him from the spoilers, and then been sagacious enough to let the hound go down to fetch assistance while the sheep-dog remained as his master’s faithful guardian. How honoured and caressed they were can hardly be described, but all will know.
The joy and gratitude of knowing of Anne’s devotion, and the pleasure of his good dog’s faithfulness, helped Hal through the painful process of having his hurts dealt with. Surgeons, even barbers, were fully occupied, and Lorimer did not wish to have it known that a Lancastrian was in his house. His wife and her old nurse, as well as the Prioress, had some knowledge of simple practical surgery; and Hal’s disasters proved to be a severe cut on the head, a slash on the shoulder, various bruises, and a broken rib and thigh-bone, all which were within their capabilities, with assistance from the master’s stronger hand. No one could tell whether the savage nature of the York brothers might not slake their revenge in a general massacre of their antagonists; so Lorimer caused Hal’s bed to be made in the waggon in the warehouse, where he was safe from detection until the victorious army should have quitted Barnet.
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{
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21
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-- TEWKESBURY
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The last shoot of that ancient tree Was budding fair as fair might be; Its buds they crop Its branches lop Then leave the sapless stem to die. --SOPHOCLES (Anstice).
Harry Clifford lay fevered, and knowing little of what passed, for several days, only murmuring sometimes of his flock at home, sometimes of the royal hermit, and sometimes in distress of the men-at-arms with whom he had been thrown, and whose habits and language had plainly been a great shock to his innocent mind, trained by the company of the sheep, and the hermit. He took the Prioress’s hand for Good-wife Dolly’s, but he generally knew Anne, who could soothe him better than any other.
Master Lorimer was fully occupied by combatants who came to have their equipments renewed or repaired, and he spent the days in his shop in London, but rode home in the long evenings with his budget of news. King Henry was in the Tower again, as passive as ever, but on the very day of the battle of Barnet Queen Margaret had landed at Weymouth with her son, and the war would be renewed in Somersetshire.
Search for prisoners being over at Barnet, Hal was removed to the guest chamber of his hosts, where he lay in a huge square bed, and in the better air began to recover, understand what was going on round him, and be anxious for his friends, especially Sir Giles Musgrave and Simon Bunce. The ladies still attended to him, as Lorimer pronounced the journey to be absolutely unsafe, while so many soldiers disbanded, or on their way to the Queen’s army, were roaming about, and the Burgundians brought by Edward might not be respectful to an English Prioress. It was safer to wait for tidings from Lord St. John, which were certain to come either from Bletso or the Minoresses’.
So May had begun when Lorimer hurried home with the tidings that a messenger had come in haste from King Edward from the battlefield of Tewkesbury, with the tidings of a complete victory. Prince Edward, the fair and spirited hope of Lancaster, was slain, Somerset and his friends had taken sanctuary in the Abbey Church, Queen Margaret and the young wife of the prince in a small convent, and beyond all had been flight and slaughter.
For a few days no more was known, but then came fuller and sadder tidings. The young prince had been brutally slain by his cousins, Edward, George, and Richard, excited as they were to tiger-like ferocity by the late revolt. The nobles in the sanctuary, who had for one night been protected by a cord drawn in front of them by a priest, had in the morning been dragged out and beheaded. Among them was Anne’s father, Lord St. John of Bletso, and on the field the heralds had recognised the corpse of her suitor, Lord Redgrave. To expect that Anne felt any acute sorrow for a father whom she had never seen since she was six years old, and who then had never seemed to care for her, was not possible.
And what was to be her fate? Her young brother, the heir of Bletso, was in Flanders with his foreign mother, and she knew not what might be her own claims through her own mother, though the Prioress and Master Lorimer knew that it could be ascertained through the seneschal at Bletso, if he had not perished with his lord, or the agents at York through whom Anne’s pension had been paid. If she were an heiress, she would become a ward of the Crown, a dreary prospect, for it meant to be disposed of to some unknown minion of the Court.
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{
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22
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-- THE NUT-BROWN MAID
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All my wellfare to trouble and care Should change if you were gone, For in my mynde, of all mankind I love but you alone. --NUT-BROWN MAID.
Anne St. John, in her ‘doul’ or deep mourning, sat by Hal’s couch or daybed in tears, as he lay in the deep bay of the mullioned window, and told him of the consultation that had been held.
‘Ah, dear lady!’ he said, ‘now am I grieved that I have not mine own to endow you with! Well would I remain the landless shepherd were it not for you.’
‘Nay,’ she said, looking up through her tears, ‘and wherefore should I not share your shepherd’s lot?’
‘You! Nan, sweet Nan, tenderly nurtured in the convent while I have ever lived as a rough hardy shepherd!’
‘And I have ever been a moorland maid,’ she answered, ‘bred to no soft ways. I know not how to be the lady of a castle--I shall be a much better herdsman’s wife, like your good old Dolly, whom I have always loved and envied.’
‘You never saw us snowed up in winter with all things scarce, and hardly able to milk a goat.’
‘Have not we been snowed up at Greystone for five weeks at a time?’
‘Ay, but with thick walls round and a stack of peat at hand,’ said Hal, his heart beating violently as more and more he felt that the maiden did not speak in jest, but in full earnestness of love.
‘Verily one would deem you took me for a fine dainty dame, such as I saw at the Minoresses’, shivering at the least gust of fresh wind, and not daring to wet their satin shoes if there had been a shower of rain in the cloisters. Were we not all stifled within the walls, and never breathed till we were out of them? Nay, Hal, there is none to come between us now. Take me to your moors and hills! I will be your good housewife and shepherdess, and make you such a home! And you will teach me of the stars and of the flowers and all the holy lore of your good royal hermit.’
‘Ah! my hermit, my master, how fares it with him? Would that I could go and see!’
‘Which do you love best--me or the hermit?’ asked Anne archly, lifting up her head, which was lying on his shoulder.
‘I love you, mine own love and sweetheart, with all my heart,’ he said, regaining her hand, ‘but my King and master with my soul; and oh! that I had any strength to give him! I love him as my master in holy things, and as my true prince, and what would I not give to know how it is with him and how he bears these dreadful tidings!’
He bent his head, choking with sobs as he spoke, and Anne wept with him, her momentary jealousy subdued by the picture of the lonely prisoner, his friends slain in his cause, and his only child cut off in early prime; but she tried the comfort of hoping that his Queen would be with him. Thus talking now of love, now of grief, now of the future, now of the past, the Prioress found them, and as she was inclined to blame Anne for letting her patient weep, the maiden looked up to her and said, ‘Dear Mother, we are disputing--I want this same Hal to wed me so soon as he can stand and walk. Then I would go home with him to Derwentside, and take care of him.’
The Prioress burst out laughing. ‘Make porridge, milk the ewes and spin their wool? Eh? Meet work for a baron’s daughter!’
‘So I tell her,’ said Harry. ‘She knows not how hard the life is.’
‘Do I not?’ said Anne. ‘Have I not spent a night and day, the happiest my childhood knew, in your hut? Has it not been a dream of joy ever since?’
‘Ay, a summer’s dream!’ said Hal. ‘Tell her the folly of it.’
‘I verily believe he does not want me. If he had not a lame leg, I trow he would be trying to be mewed up with his King!’
‘It would be my duty,’ murmured Hal, ‘nor should I love thee the less.’
‘’Tis a duty beyond your reach,’ said the Prioress. ‘Master Lorimer hears that none have access to King Henry, God help him! and he sits as in a trance, as though he understood and took heed of nothing--not even of this last sore battle.’
‘God aid him! Aye, and his converse is with Him,’ said Hal, with a gush of tears. ‘He minds nought of earth, not even earthly griefs.’
‘But we, we are of earth still, and have our years before us,’ said Anne, ‘and I will not spend mine the dreary lady of a dull castle. Either I will back and take my vows in your Priory, reverend Mother, if Hal there disdains to have me.’
‘Nan, Nan! when you know that all I dread is to have you mewed behind a wall of snow as thick as the walls of the Tower and freezing to the bone!’
‘With you behind it telling all the tales. Mother, prithee prove to him that I am not made of sugar like the Clares, but that I love a fresh wind and the open moorlands.’
The Prioress laughed and took her away, but in private the maiden convinced her that the proposal, however wild, was in full earnest, and not in utter ignorance of the way of life that was preferred.
Afterwards the good lady discussed it with the Lorimers. ‘For my part,’ she said, ‘I see nought to gainsay the children having their way. They are equal in birth and breeding, and love one another heartily, and the times may turn about to bring them to their own proper station.’
‘But the hardness and the roughness of the life,’ objected Mistress Lorimer, ‘for a dainty, convent-bred lady.’
‘My convent--God, forgive me! --is not like the Poor Clares. We knew there what cold and hunger mean, as well as what free air and mountains are. Moreover, though the maid thinks not of it, I do not believe the life will be so bare and comfortless. The lad’s mother hath not let him want, and there is a heritage through the Vescis that must come to him, even if he never can claim the lands of Clifford.’
‘And now that all Lancaster is gone, King Edward may be less vindictive against the Red Rose,’ said Lorimer.
‘There must be a dowry secured to the maid,’ said the Prioress. ‘Let them only lie quiet for a time till the remains of the late tempest have blown over, and all will be well with them. Ay, and Master Lorimer, the Lady Threlkeld, as well as myself, will fully acquit ourselves of the heavy charges you have been put to for your hospitality to us.’
Master Lorimer disclaimed all save his delight in the honour paid to his poor house, and appealed to his wife, who seconded him courteously, though perhaps the expenses of a wounded knight, three nuns, a noble damsel and their horses, were felt by her enough to make the promise gratifying.
While the elders talked, a horseman was heard in the court, asking whether the young demoiselle of Bletso were lodged there. It was the seneschal Wenlock, who had come with what might be called the official report of his lord’s death, and to consider of the disposal of the young lady, being glad to find the Prioress of Greystone, to whom she had originally been committed by her father.
Before summoning her, he explained to the Prioress that a small estate which had belonged to her mother devolved upon her. The proceeds of the property were not large, but they had been sufficient to keep her at the convent, on the moderate charges of the time. Anne was only eighteen, and at no time of their lives were women, even widows, reckoned able to dispose of themselves. She would naturally become a ward of the Crown, and Lord Redgrave having been killed, the seneschal was about to go and inform King Edward of the situation.
‘But,’ said the Prioress, ‘suppose you found her already betrothed to a gentleman of equal birth, and with claims to an even greater inheritance? Would you not be silent till the match was concluded, and the King had no chance of breaking it?’
‘If it were well for the maid’s honour and fortune,’ said the seneschal. ‘If you, reverend Mother, have found a fair marriage for her, it might be better to let well alone.’
Then the Prioress set forth the situation and claims of young Clifford, and the certainty, that even if it were more prudent not to advance them at present, yet the ruin of the house of Nevil removed one great barrier, and at least the Vesci inheritance held by his mother must come to him, and she was the more likely to make a portion over to him when she found that he had married nobly.
The seneschal acquiesced, even though the Prioress confessed that the betrothal had not actually taken place. In fact he was relieved that the maiden, whom he had known as a fair child, should be off his hands, and secured from the greed of some Yorkist partisan needing a reward.
When Anne, her dark eyes and hair shaded by her mourning veil, came down, and had heard his greeting, with such details of her father’s death and the state of the family as he could give her, she rose and said: ‘Sir, there have been passages between Sir Harry Clifford and myself, and I would wed none other than him.’
Nor did the seneschal gainsay her.
All that he desired was that what was decided upon should be done quickly, before heralds or lawyers brought to the knowledge of the Woodvilles that there was any sort of prize to be had in the damsel of St. John, and he went off, early the next morning, back to Bletso, that he might seem to know nothing of the matter.
The Prioress laughed at men being so much more afraid than women. She was willing to bear all the consequences, but then the Plantagenets were not in the habit of treating ladies as traitors. However, all agreed that it would be wiser to be out of reach of London as soon as possible, and Master Lorimer, who had become deeply interested in this romance of true love, arranged to send one of his wains to York, in which the bride and bridegroom might travel unsuspected, until the latter should be able to ride and all were out of reach of pursuit. The Prioress would go thus far with them, ‘And then! And then,’ she said sighing, ‘I shall have to dree my penance for all my friskings!’
‘But, oh, what kindly friskings!’ cried Anne, throwing herself into those tender arms.
‘Little they will reck of kindness out of rule,’ sighed the Prioress. ‘If only they will send me back to Greystone, then shall I hear of thee, and thou hadst better take Florimond, poor hound, or the Sisters at York may put him to penance too!’
Henry Clifford was able to walk again, though still lame, when, in the early morning of Ascension Day, he and Anne St. John were married in the hall of Master Lorimer’s house by a trusty priest of Barnet, and in the afternoon, when the thanksgiving worship at the church had been gone through, they started in the waggon for the first stage of the journey, to be overtaken at the halting-place by the Prioress and Master Lorimer, who had had to ride into London to finish some business.
And he brought tidings that rendered that wedding-day one of mournful, if peaceful, remembrances.
For he had seen, borne from the Tower, along Cheapside, the bier on which lay the body of King Henry, his hands clasped on his breast, his white face upturned with that heavenly expression which Hal knew so well, enhanced into perfect peace, every toil, every grief at an end.
Whether blood dropped as the procession moved along, Lorimer could not certainly tell. Whether so it was, or whoever shed it, there was no marring the absolute rest and joy that had crowned the ‘meek usurper’s holy head,’ after his dreary half-century of suffering under the retribution of the ancestral sins of two lines of forefathers. All had been undergone in a deep and holy trust and faith such as could render even his hereditary insanity an actual shield from the poignancy of grief.
Tears were shed, not bitter nor vengeful. Such thoughts would have seemed out of place with the memory of the gentle countenance of love, good-will and peace, and as Harry and Anne joined in the service that the Prioress had requested to have in the early daylight before starting, Hal felt that to the hermit saint of his boyhood he verily owed his own self.
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{
"id": "5313"
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23
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-- BROUGHAM CASTLE
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And now am I an Earlis son, And not a banished man. --NUT-BROWN MAID.
That journey northward in the long summer days was a honeymoon to the young couple. The Prioress left them as much to themselves as possible, trying to rejoice fully in their gladness, and not to think what might have been hers but for that vow of her parents, keeping her hours diligently in preparation for the stricter rule awaiting her.
When they parted she sent Florimond with them, to be restored if she were allowed to return to Greystone, and Anne parted with her with many tears as the truest mother and friend she had ever known.
By this time Harry was able to ride, and the two, with a couple of men-at-arms hired as escort, made their way over the moors, Harry’s head throbbing with gladness, as, with a shout of joy, he hailed his own mountain-heads, Helvellyn and Saddleback, in all their purple cloud-like majesty.
They agreed first to go to Dolly’s homestead, drawn as much by affection as by prudence. Delight it was to Hal to point out the rocks and bushes of his home; but when he came in sight of Piers and the sheep, the dumb boy broke out into a cry of terror, and rushed away headlong, nor did he turn till he felt Watch’s very substantial paws bounding on him in ecstasy.
Watch was indeed a forerunner, for Dolly and her husband could scarcely be induced by his solid presence and caresses to come out and see for themselves that the tall knight and lady were no ghostly shades, nor bewildered travellers, but that this was their own nursling Hal, whom Simon Bunce had reported to be lying dead under a gorse-bush at Barnet, and further that the lovely brunette lady was the little lost child whom Dolly had mothered for a night.
While the happy goodwife was regaling them with the best she had to offer, Hob set forth to announce their arrival at Threlkeld, being not certain what the cautious Sir Lancelot would deem advisable, since the Lancaster race had perished, and York was in the ascendant.
There was a long time to wait, but finally Sir Lancelot himself came riding through the wood, no longer afraid to welcome his stepson at the castle, and the more willing since the bride newly arrived was no maiden of low degree, but a damsel of equal birth and with unquestioned rights.
So all was well, and the lady no longer had to embrace her son in fear and trembling, but to see him a handsome and thoughtful young man, well able to take his place in her halls.
Since he had been actually in arms against King Edward it was not thought safe to assert his claims to his father’s domains, but the lady gave up to him a portion of her own inheritance from the Vescis, where he and Anne were able to live in Barden Tower in Yorkshire, not far from Bolton Abbey. So Hal’s shepherd days were over, though he still loved country habits and ways. Hob came to be once more his attendant, Dolly was Anne’s bower-woman, and Simon Bunce Sir Harry’s squire, though he never ceased blaming himself for having left his master, dead as he thought, when even a poor hound was more trusty.
Florimond was restored to the Prioress, who was reinstated at Greystone, a graver woman than before she had set forth, the better for having watched deeper devotion at the Minoresses’, and still more for the terrible realities of the battle of Barnet. At Bolton Abbey Harry found monks who encouraged his craving for information on natural science, and could carry him on much farther in these researches than his hermit, though he always maintained that the royal anchorite and prisoner saw farther into heavenly things than any other whom he had known, and that his soul and insight rose the higher with his outward troubles and bodily decay.
So peacefully went the world with them till Henry was one-and-thirty, and then the tidings of Bosworth Field came north. The great tragedy of Plantagenet was complete, and the ambitious and blood-stained house of York, who had avenged the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster, had perished, chiefly by the hands of each other, and the distantly related descendant of John of Gaunt, Henry Tudor, triumphed.
The Threlkelds were not slow to recollect that it was time for the Cliffords to show their heads; moreover, that the St. Johns of Bletso were related to the Tudors. Though now an aged woman, she descended from her hills, called upon her son and his wife with their little nine-year-old son to come with her, and pay homage to the new sovereign in their own names, and rode with them to Westminster.
There a very different monarch from the saint of Harry’s memory received and favoured him. The lands of Westmoreland were granted to him as his right, and on their return, Master Lorimer coming by special invitation, the family were welcomed at Brougham Castle, the cradle of their race, where Harry Clifford, no longer an outlaw, began the career thus described: Love had he found in huts where poor men lie, His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
In him the savage virtue of the race, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead, Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place The wisdom that adversity had bred.
Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth, The Shepherd Lord was honoured more and more, And ages after he was laid in earth The Good Lord Clifford was the name he bore.
FINIS
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{
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1
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None
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It is close upon daybreak. The great wall of pines and hemlocks that keep off the west wind from Stillwater stretches black and indeterminate against the sky. At intervals a dull, metallic sound, like the guttural twang of a violin string, rises form the frog-invested swamp skirting the highway. Suddenly the birds stir in their nests over there in the woodland, and break into that wild jargoning chorus with which they herald the advent of a new day. In the apple-orchards and among the plum-trees of the few gardens in Stillwater, the wrens and the robins and the blue-jays catch up the crystal crescendo, and what a melodious racket they make of it with their fifes and flutes and flageolets!
The village lies in a trance like death. Possibly not a soul hears this music, unless it is the watchers at the bedside of Mr. Leonard Tappleton, the richest man in town, who has lain dying these three days, and cannot last until sunrise. Or perhaps some mother, drowsily hushing her wakeful baby, pauses a moment and listens vacantly to the birds singing. But who else?
The hubbub suddenly ceases,--ceases as suddenly as it began,--and all is still again in the woodland. But it is not so dark as before. A faint glow of white light is discernible behind the ragged line of the tree-tops. The deluge of the darkness is receding from the face of the earth, as the mighty waters receded of old.
The roofs and tall factory chimneys of Stillwater are slowly taking shape in the gloom. Is that a cemetery coming into view yonder, with its ghostly architecture of obelisks and broken columns and huddled head-stones? No, that is only Slocum's Marble Yard, with the finished and unfinished work heaped up like snowdrifts,--a cemetery in embryo. Here and there in an outlying farm a lantern glimmers in the barn-yard: the cattle are having their fodder betimes. Scarlet-capped chanticleer gets himself on the nearest rail-fence and lifts up his rancorous voice like some irate old cardinal launching the curse of Rome. Something crawls swiftly along the gray of the serpentine turnpike,--a cart, with the driver lashing a jaded horse. A quick wind goes shivering by, and is lost in the forest.
Now a narrow strip of two-colored gold stretches along the horizon.
Stillwater is gradually coming to its senses. The sun has begun to twinkle on the gilt cross of the Catholic chapel and make itself known to the doves in the stone belfry of the South Church. The patches of cobweb that here and there cling tremulously to the coarse grass of the inundated meadows have turned into silver nets, and the mill-pond--it will be steel-blue later--is as smooth and white as if it had been paved with one vast unbroken slab out of Slocum's Marble Yard. Through a row of button-woods on the northern skirt of the village is seen a square, lap-streaked building, painted a disagreeable brown, and surrounded on three sides by a platform,--one of seven or eight similar stations strung like Indian heads on a branch thread of the Great Sagamore Railway.
Listen! That is the jingle of the bells on the baker's cart as it begins its rounds. From innumerable chimneys the curdled smoke gives evidence that the thrifty housewife--or, what is rarer in Stillwater, the hired girl--has lighted the kitchen fire.
The chimney-stack of one house at the end of a small court--the last house on the easterly edge of the village, and standing quite alone--sends up no smoke. Yet the carefully trained ivy over the porch, and the lemon verbena in a tub at the foot of the steps, intimate that the place is not unoccupied. Moreover, the little schooner which acts as weather-cock on one of the gables, and is now heading due west, has a new top-sail. It is a story-and-a-half cottage, with a large expanse of roof, which, covered with porous, unpainted shingles, seems to repel the sunshine that now strikes full upon it. The upper and lower blinds on the main building, as well as those on the extensions, are tightly closed. The sun appears to beat in vain at the casements of this silent house, which has a curiously sullen and defiant air, as if it had desperately and successfully barricaded itself against the approach of morning; yet if one were standing in the room that leads from the bed-chamber on the ground-floor--the room with the latticed window--one would see a ray of light thrust through a chink of the shutters, and pointing like a human finger at an object which lies by the hearth.
This finger, gleaming, motionless, and awful in its precision, points to the body of old Mr. Lemuel Shackford, who lies there dead in his night-dress, with a gash across his forehead.
In the darkness of that summer night a deed darker than the night itself had been done in Stillwater.
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{
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That morning, when Michael Hennessey's girl Mary--a girl sixteen years old--carried the can of milk to the rear door of the silent house, she was nearly a quarter of hour later than usual, and looked forward to being soundly rated.
"He's up and been waiting for it," she said to herself, observing the scullery door ajar. "Won't I ketch it! It's him for growling and snapping at a body, and it's me for always being before or behind time, bad luck to me. There's no plazing him."
Mary pushed back the door and passed through the kitchen, serving herself all the while to meet the objurgations which she supposed were lying in wait for her. The sunshine was blinding without, but sifted through the green jalousies, it made a gray, crepuscular light within. As the girl approached the table, on which a plate with knife and fork had been laid for breakfast, she noticed, somewhat indistinctly at first, a thin red line running obliquely across the floor from the direction of the sitting-room and ending near the stove, where it had formed a small pool. Mary stopped short, scarcely conscious why, and peered instinctively into the adjoining apartment. Then, with a smothered cry, she let fall the milk-can, and a dozen white rivulets, in strange contrast to that one dark red line which first startled her, went meandering over the kitchen floor. With her eyes riveted upon some object in the next room, the girl retreated backward slowly and heavily dragging one foot after the other, until she reached the gallery door; then she turned swiftly, and plunged into the street.
Twenty minutes later, every man, woman, and child in Stillwater knew that old Mr. Shackford had been murdered.
Mary Hennessey had to tell her story a hundred times during the morning, for each minute brought to Michael's tenement a fresh listener hungry for the details at first hand.
"How was it, Molly? Tell a body, dear!"
"Don't be asking me!" cried Molly, pressing her palms to her eyes as if to shut out the sight, but taking all the while a secret creepy satisfaction in living the scene over again. "It was kinder dark in the other room, and there he was, laying in his night-gownd, with his face turned towards me, so, looking mighty severe-like, jest as if he was a-going to say, 'It's late with the milk ye are, ye hussy!' --a way he had of spaking."
"But he didn't spake, Molly darlin'?"
"Niver a word. He was stone dead, don't you see. It was that still you could hear me heart beat, saving there wasn't a drop of beat in it. I let go the can, sure, and then I backed out, with me eye on 'im all the while, afeard to death that he would up and spake them words."
"The pore child! for the likes of her to be wakin' up a murthered man in the mornin'!"
There was little or no work done that day in Stillwater outside the mills, and they were not running full handed. A number of men from the Miantowona Iron Works and Slocum's Yard--Slocum employed some seventy or eighty hands--lounged about the streets in their blouses, or stood in knots in front of the tavern, smoking short clay pipes. Not an urchin put in an appearance at the small red brick building on the turnpike. Mr. Pinkham, the school-master, waited an hour for the recusants, then turned the key in the lock and went home.
Dragged-looking women, with dishcloth or dustpan in hand, stood in door-ways or leaned from windows, talking in subdued voices with neighbors on the curb-stone. In a hundred far-away cities the news of the suburban tragedy had already been read and forgotten; but here the horror stayed.
There was a constantly changing crowd gathered in front of the house in Welch's Court. An inquest was being held in the room adjoining the kitchen. The court, which ended at the gate of the cottage, was fringed for several yards on each side by rows of squalid, wondering children, who understood it that Coroner Whidden was literally to sit on the dead body,--Mr. Whidden, a limp, inoffensive little man, who would not have dared to sit down on a fly. He had passed, pallid and perspiring, to the scene of his perfunctory duties.
The result of the investigation was awaited with feverish impatience by the people outside. Mr. Shackford had not been a popular man; he had been a hard, avaricious, passionate man, holding his own way remorselessly. He had been the reverse of popular, but he had long been a prominent character in Stillwater, because of his wealth, his endless lawsuits, and his eccentricity, an illustration of which was his persistence in living entirely alone in the isolated and dreary old house, that was henceforth to be inhabited by his shadow. Not his shadow alone, however, for it was now remembered that the premises were already held in fee by another phantasmal tenant. At a period long anterior to this, one Lydia Sloper, a widow, had died an unexplained death under that same roof. The coincidence struck deeply into the imaginative portion of Stillwater. "The Widow Sloper and old Shackford have made a match of it," remarked a local humorist, in a grimmer vain than customary. Two ghosts had now set up housekeeping, as it were, in the stricken mansion, and what might not be looked for in the way of spectral progeny!
It appeared to the crowd in the lane that the jury were unconscionably long in arriving at a decision, and when the decision was at length reached it gave but moderate satisfaction. After a spendthrift waste of judicial mind the jury had decided that "the death of Lemuel Shackford was caused by a blow on the left temple, inflicted with some instrument not discoverable, in the hands of some person or persons unknown."
"We knew that before," grumbled a voice in the crowd, when, to relieve public suspense, Lawyer Perkins--a long, lank man, with stringy black hair--announced the verdict from the doorstep.
The theory of suicide had obtained momentary credence early in the morning, and one or two still clung to it with the tenacity that characterizes persons who entertain few ideas. To accept this theory it was necessary to believe that Mr. Shackford had ingeniously hidden the weapon after striking himself dead with a single blow. No, it was not suicide. So far from intending to take his own life, Mr. Shackford, it appeared, had made rather careful preparations to live that day. The breakfast-table had been laid over night, the coals left ready for kindling in the Franklin stove, and a kettle, filled with water to be heated for his tea or coffee, stood on the hearth.
Two facts had sharply demonstrated themselves: first, that Mr. Shackford had been murdered; and, second, that the spur to the crime had been the possession of a sum of money, which the deceased was supposed to keep in a strong-box in his bedroom. The padlock had been wrenched open, and the less valuable contents of the chest, chiefly papers, scattered over the carpet. A memorandum among the papers seemed to specify the respective sums in notes and gold that had been deposited in the box. A document of some kind had been torn into minute pieces and thrown into the waste-basket. On close scrutiny a word or two here and there revealed the fact that the document was of a legal character. The fragments were put into an envelope and given in charge of Mr. Shackford's lawyer, who placed seals on that and on the drawers of an escritoire which stood in the corner and contained other manuscript.
The instrument with which the fatal blow had been dealt--for the autopsy showed that there had been but one blow--was not only not discoverable, but the fashion of it defied conjecture. The shape of the wound did not indicate the use of any implement known to the jurors, several of whom were skilled machinists. The wound was an inch and three quarters in length and very deep at the extremities; in the middle in scarcely penetrated to the cranium. So peculiar a cut could not have been produced with the claw part of a hammer, because the claw is always curved, and the incision was straight. A flat claw, such as is used in opening packing-cases, was suggested. A collection of the several sizes manufactured was procured, but none corresponded with the wound; they were either too wide or too narrow. Moreover, the cut was as thin as the blade of a case-knife.
"That was never done by any tool in these parts," declared Stevens, the foreman of the finishing shop at Slocum's.
The assassin or assassins had entered by the scullery door, the simple fastening of which, a hook and staple, had been broken. There were footprints in the soft clay path leading from the side gate to the stone step; but Mary Hennessey had so confused and obliterated the outlines that now it was impossible accurately to measure them. A half-burned match was found under the sink,--evidently thrown there by the burglars. It was of a kind known as the safety-match, which can be ignited only by friction on a strip of chemically prepared paper glued to the box. As no box of this description was discovered, and as all the other matches in the house were of a different make, the charred splinter was preserved. The most minute examination failed to show more than this. The last time Mr. Shackford had been seen alive was at six o'clock the previous evening.
Who had done the deed?
Tramps! answered Stillwater, with one voice, though Stillwater lay somewhat out of the natural highway, and the tramp--that bitter blossom of civilization whose seed was blown to us from over seas--was not then so common by the New England roadsides as he became five or six years later. But it was intolerable not to have a theory; it was that or none, for conjecture turned to no one in the village. To be sure, Mr. Shackford had been in litigation with several of the corporations, and had had legal quarrels with more than one of his neighbors; but Mr. Shackford had never been victorious in any of these contests, and the incentive of revenge was wanting to explain the crime. Besides, it was so clearly robbery.
Though the gathering around the Shackford house had reduced itself to half a dozen idlers, and the less frequented streets had resumed their normal aspect of dullness, there was a strange, electric quality in the atmosphere. The community was in that state of suppressed agitation and suspicion which no word adequately describes. The slightest circumstance would have swayed it to the belief in any man's guilt; and, indeed, there were men in Stillwater quite capable of disposing of a fellow-creature for a much smaller reward than Mr. Shackford had held out. In spite of the tramp theory, a harmless tin-peddler, who had not passed through the place for weeks, was dragged from his glittering cart that afternoon, as he drove smilingly into town, and would have been roughly handled if Mr. Richard Shackford, a cousin of the deceased, had not interfered.
As the day wore on, the excitement deepened in intensity, though the expression of it became nearly reticent. It was noticed that the lamps throughout the village were lighted an hour earlier than usual. A sense of insecurity settled upon Stillwater with the falling twilight,--that nameless apprehension which is possibly more trying to the nerves than tangible danger. When a man is smitten inexplicably, as if by a bodiless hand stretched out of a cloud,--when the red slayer vanishes like a mist and leaves no faintest trace of his identity,--the mystery shrouding the deed presently becomes more appalling than the deed itself. There is something paralyzing in the thought of an invisible hand somewhere ready to strike at your life, or at some life dearer than your own. Whose hand, and where is it? Perhaps it passes you your coffee at breakfast; perhaps you have hired it to shovel the snow off your sidewalk; perhaps it has brushed against you in the crowd; or may be you have dropped a coin into the fearful palm at a street corner. Ah, the terrible unseen hand that stabs your imagination,--this immortal part of you which is a hundred times more sensitive than your poor perishable body!
In the midst of situations the most solemn and tragic there often falls a light purely farcical in its incongruity. Such a gleam was unconsciously projected upon the present crisis by Mr. Bodge, better known in the village as Father Bodge. Mr. Bodge was stone deaf, naturally stupid, and had been nearly moribund for thirty years with asthma. Just before night-fall he had crawled, in his bewildered, wheezy fashion, down to the tavern, where he found a somber crowd in the bar-room. Mr. Bodge ordered his mug of beer, and sat sipping it, glancing meditatively from time to time over the pewter rim at the mute assembly. Suddenly he broke out: "S'pose you've heerd that old Shackford's ben murdered."
So the sun went down on Stillwater. Again the great wall of pines and hemlocks made a gloom against the sky. The moon rose from behind the tree-tops, frosting their ragged edges, and then sweeping up to the zenith hung serenely above the world, as if there were never a crime, or a tear, or a heart-break in it all.
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{
"id": "5435"
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On the afternoon of the following day Mr. Shackford was duly buried. The funeral, under the direction of Mr. Richard Shackford, who acted as chief mourner and was sole mourner by right of kinship, took place in profound silence. The carpenters, who had lost a day on Bishop's new stables, intermitted their sawing and hammering while the services were in progress; the steam was shut off in the iron-mills, and no clinking of the chisel was heard in the marble yard for an hour, during which many of the shops had their shutters up. Then, when all was over, the imprisoned fiend in the boilers gave a piercing shriek; the leather bands slipped on the revolving drums, the spindles leaped into life again, and the old order of things was reinstated,--outwardly, but not in effect.
In general, when the grave closes over a man his career is ended. But Mr. Shackford was never so much alive as after they had buried him. Never before had he filled so large a place in the public eye. Though invisible, he sat at every fireside. Until the manner of his death had been made clear, his ubiquitous presence was not to be exorcised. On the morning of the memorable day a reward of one hundred dollars--afterwards increased to five hundred, at the insistence of Mr. Shackford's cousin--had been offered by the board of selectmen for the arrest and conviction of the guilty party. Beyond this and the unsatisfactory inquest, the authorities had done nothing, and were plainly not equal to the situation.
When it was stated, the night of the funeral, that a professional person was coming to Stillwater to look into the case, the announcement was received with a breath of relief.
The person thus vaguely described appeared on the spot the next morning. To mention the name of Edward Taggett is to mention a name well known to the detective force of the great city lying sixty miles southwest of Stillwater. Mr. Taggett's arrival sent such a thrill of expectancy through the village that Mr. Leonard Tappleton, whose obsequies occurred this day, made his exit nearly unobserved. Yet there was little in Mr. Taggett's physical aspect calculated to stir either expectation or enthusiasm: a slender man of about twenty-six, but not looking it, with overhanging brown mustache, sparse side-whiskers, eyes of no definite color, and faintly accentuated eyebrows. He spoke precisely, and with a certain unembarrassed hesitation, as persons do who have two thoughts to one word,--if there are such persons. You might have taken him for a physician, or a journalist, or the secretary of an insurance company; but you would never have supposed him the man who had disentangled the complicated threads of the great Barnabee Bank defalcation.
Stillwater's confidence, which had risen into the nineties, fell to zero at sight of him. "Is _that_ Taggett?" they asked. That was Taggett; and presently his influence began to be felt like a sea-turn. The three Dogberrys of the watch were dispatched on secret missions, and within an hour it was ferreted out that a man in a cart had been seen driving furiously up the turnpike the morning after the murder. This was an agricultural district, the road led to a market town, and teams going by in the early dawn were the rule and not the exception; but on that especial morning a furiously driven cart was significant. Jonathan Beers, who farmed the Jenks land, had heard the wheels and caught an indistinct glimpse of the vehicle as he was feeding the cattle, but with a reticence purely rustic had not been moved to mention the circumstance before.
"Taggett has got a clew," said Stillwater under its breath.
By noon Taggett had got the man, cart and all. But it was only Blufton's son Tom, of South Millville, who had started in hot haste that particular morning to secure medical service for his wife, of which she had sorely stood in need, as two tiny girls in a willow cradle in South Millville now bore testimony.
"I haven't been cutting down the population _much,"_ said Blufton, with his wholesome laugh.
Thomas Blufton was well known and esteemed in Stillwater, but if the crime had fastened itself upon him it would have given something like popular satisfaction.
In the course of the ensuing forty-eight hours four or five tramps were overhauled as having been in the neighborhood at the time of the tragedy; but they each had a clean story, and were let go. Then one Durgin, a workman at Slocum's Yard, was called upon to explain some half-washed-out red stains on his overalls, which he did. He had tightened the hoops on a salt-pork barrel for Mr. Shackford several days previous; the red paint on the head of the barrel was fresh, and had come off on his clothes. Dr. Weld examined the spots under a microscope, and pronounced them paint. It was manifest that Mr. Taggett meant to go to the bottom of things.
The bar-room of the Stillwater hotel was a center of interest these nights; not only the bar-room proper, but the adjoining apartment, where the more exclusive guests took their seltzer-water and looked over the metropolitan newspapers. Twice a week a social club met here, having among its members Mr. Craggie, the postmaster, who was supposed to have a great political future, Mr. Pinkham, Lawyer Perkins, Mr. Whidden, and other respectable persons. The room was at all times in some sense private, with a separate entrance from the street, though another door, which usually stood open, connected it with the main salon. In this was a long mahogany counter, one section of which was covered with a sheet of zinc perforated like a sieve, and kept constantly bright by restless caravans of lager-beer glasses. Directly behind that end of the counter stood a Gothic brass-mounted beer-pump, at whose faucets Mr. Snelling, the landlord, flooded you five or six mugs in the twinkling of an eye, and raised the vague expectation that he was about to grind out some popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched a narrow mirror, reflecting he gaily-colored wine-glasses and decanters which stood on each other's shoulders, and held up lemons, and performed various acrobatic feats on a shelf in front of it.
The fourth night after the funeral of Mr. Shackford, a dismal southeast storm caused an unusual influx of idlers in both rooms. With the rain splashing against the casements and the wind slamming the blinds, the respective groups sat discussing in a desultory way the only topic which could be discussed at present. There had been a general strike among the workmen a fortnight before; but even that had grown cold as a topic.
"That was hard on Tom Blufton," said Stevens, emptying the ashes out of his long-stemmed clay pipe, and refilling the bowl with cut cavendish from a jar on a shelf over his head.
Michael Hennessey sat down his beer-mug with an air of argumentative disgust, and drew one sleeve across his glistening beard.
"Stevens, you've as many minds as a weather-cock, jist! Didn't ye say yerself it looked mighty black for the lad when he was took?"
"I might have said something of the sort," Stevens admitted reluctantly, after a pause. "His driving round at daybreak with an empty cart did have an ugly look at first."
"Indade, then."
"Not to anybody who knew Tom Blufton," interrupted Samuel Piggott, Blufton's brother-in-law. "The boy hasn't a bad streak in him. It was an outrage. Might as well have suspected Parson Langly or Father O'Meara."
"If this kind of thing goes on," remarked a man in the corner with a patch over one eye, "both of them reverend gents will be hauled up, I shouldn't wonder."
"That's so, Mr. Peters," responded Durgin. "If my respectability didn't save me, who's safe?"
"Durgin is talking about his respectability! He's joking."
"Look here, Dexter," said Durgin, turning quickly on the speaker, "when I want to joke, I talk about your intelligence."
"What kind of man is Taggett, anyhow?" asked Piggott. "You saw him, Durgin."
"I believe he was at Justice Beemis's office the day Blufton and I was there; but I didn't make him out in the crowd. Shouldn't know him from Adam."
"Stillwater's a healthy place for tramps jest about this time," suggested somebody. "Three on 'em snaked in to-day."
"I think, gentlemen, that Mr. Taggett is on the right track there," observed Mr. Snelling, in the act of mixing another Old Holland for Mr. Peters. "Not too sweet, you said? I feel it in my bones that it was a tramp, and that Mr. Taggett will bring him yet."
"He won't find him on the highway yonder," said a tall, swarthy man named Torrini, an Italian. Nationalities clash in Stillwater. "That tramp is a thousand miles from here."
"So he is if he has any brains under his hat," returned Snelling. "But they're on the lookout for him. The minute he pawns anything, he's gone."
"Can't put up greenbacks or gold, can he? He didn't take nothing else," interposed Bishop, the veterinary surgeon.
"Now jewelry nor nothing?"
"There wasn't none, as I understand it," said Bishop, "except a silver watch. That was all snug under the old man's piller."
"Wanter know!" ejaculated Jonathan Beers.
"I opine, Mr. Craggie," said the school-master, standing in the inner room with a rolled-up file of the Daily Advertiser in his hand, "that the person who--who removed our worthy townsman will never be discovered."
"I shouldn't like to go quite so far as that, sir," answered Mr. Craggie, with that diplomatic suavity which leads to postmasterships and seats in the General Court, and has even been known to oil a dull fellow's way into Congress. "I cannot take quite so hopeless a view of it. There are difficulties, but they must be overcome, Mr. Pinkham, and I think they will be."
"Indeed, I hope so," returned the school-master. "But there are cases--are there not? --in which the--the problem, if I may so designate it, has never been elucidated, and the persons who undertook it have been obliged to go to the foot, so to speak."
"Ah, yes, there are such cases, certainly. There was the Burdell mystery in New York, and, later, the Nathan affair--By the way, I've satisfactory theories of my own touching both. The police were baffled, and remain so. But, my _dear_ sir, observe for a moment the difference."
Mr. Pinkham rested one finger on the edge of a little round table, and leaned forward in a respectful attitude to observe the difference.
"Those crimes were committed in a vast metropolis affording a thousand chances for escape, as well as offering a thousand temptations to the lawless. But we are a limited community. We have no professional murderers among us. The deed which has stirred society to its utmost depths was plainly done by some wayfaring amateur. Remorse has already arrived upon him, if the police haven't. For the time being he escapes; but he is bound to betray himself sooner or later. If the right steps are taken,--and I have myself the greatest confidence in Mr. Taggett,--the guilty party can scarcely fail to be brought to the bar of justice, if he doesn't bring himself there."
"Indeed, indeed, I hope so," repeated Mr. Pinkham.
"The investigation is being carried on very closely."
"Too closely," suggested the school-master.
"Oh dear, no," murmured Mr. Craggie. "The strictest secrecy is necessary in affairs of this delicate nature. If Tom, Dick, and Harry were taken behind the scenes," he added, with the air of one wishing to say too much, "the bottom would drop out of everything."
Mr. Pinkham shrunk from commenting on a disaster like that, and relapsed into silence. Mr. Craggie, with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and his legs crossed in an easy, senatorial fashion, leaned back in the chair and smiled blandly.
"I don't suppose there's nothing new, boys!" exclaimed a fat, florid man, bustling in good-naturedly at the public entrance, and leaving a straight wet trail on the sanded floor from the threshold to the polished mahogany counter. Mr. Wilson was a local humorist of the Falstaffian stripe, though not so much witty in himself as the cause of wit in others.
"No, Jimmy, there isn't anything new," responded Dexter.
"I suppose you didn't hear that the ole man done somethin' handsome for me in his last will and testyment."
"No, Jemmy, I don't think he has made any provision whatever for an almshouse."
"Sorry to hear that, Dexter," said Willson, absorbedly chasing a bit of lemon peel in his glass with the spoon handle, "for there isn't room for us all up at the town-farm. How's your grandmother? Finds it tol'rably comfortable?"
They are a primitive, candid people in their hours of unlaced social intercourse in Stillwater. This delicate _tu quoque_ was so far from wounding Dexter that he replied carelessly,-- "Well, only so so. The old woman complains of too much chicken-sallid, and hot-house grapes all the year round."
"Mr. Shackford must have left a large property," observed Mr. Ward, of the firm of Ward & Lock, glancing up from the columns of the Stillwater Gazette. The remark was addressed to Lawyer Perkins, who had just joined the group in the reading-room.
"Fairly large," replied that gentleman crisply.
"Any public bequests?"
"None to speak of."
Mr. Craggie smiled vaguely.
"You see," said Lawyer Perkins, "there's a will and no will,--that is to say, the fragments of what is supposed to be a will were found, and we are trying to put the pieces together. It is doubtful if we can do it; it is doubtful if we can decipher it after we have done it; and if we decipher it it is a question whether the document is valid or not."
"That is a masterly exposition of the dilemma, Mr. Perkins," said the school-master warmly.
Mr. Perkins had spoken in his court-room tone of voice, with one hand thrust into his frilled shirt-bosom. He removed this hand for a second, as he gravely bowed to Mr. Pinkham.
"Nothing could be clearer," said Mr. Ward. "In case the paper is worthless, what then? I am not asking you in your professional capacity," he added hastily; for Lawyer Perkins had been known to send in a bill on as slight a provocation as Mr. Ward's.
"That's a point. The next of kin has his claims."
"My friend Shackford, of course," broke in Mr. Craggie. "Admirable young man! --one of my warmest supporters."
"He is the only heir at law so far as we know," said Mr. Perkins.
"Oh," said Mr. Craggie, reflecting. "The late Mr. Shackford might have had a family in Timbuctoo or the Sandwich Islands."
"That's another point."
"The fact would be a deuced unpleasant point for young Shackford to run against," said Mr. Ward.
"Exactly."
"If Mr. Lemuel Shackford," remarked Coroner Whidden, softly joining the conversation to which he had been listening in his timorous, apologetic manner, "had chanced, in the course of his early sea-faring days, to form any ties of an unhappy complexion"-- "Complexion is good," murmured Mr. Craggie. "Some Hawaiian lady!"
--"perhaps that would be a branch of the case worth investigating in connection with the homicide. A discarded wife, or a disowned son, burning with a sense of wrong"-- "Really, Mr. Whidden!" interrupted Lawyer Perkins witheringly, "it is bad enough for my client to lose his life, without having his reputation filched away from him."
"I--I will explain! I was merely supposing"-- "The law never supposes, sir!"
This threw Mr. Whidden into great mental confusion. As coroner was he not an integral part of the law, and when, in his official character, he supposed anything was not that a legal supposition? But was he in his official character now, sitting with a glass of lemonade at his elbow in the reading-room of the Stillwater hotel? Was he, or was he not, a coroner all the time? Mr. Whidden stroked an isolated tuft of hair growing low on the middle of his forehead, and glared mildly at Mr. Perkins.
"Young Shackford has gone to New York, I understand," said Mr. Ward, breaking the silence.
Mr. Perkins nodded. "Went this morning to look after the real-estate interests there. It will probably keep him a couple of weeks,--the longer the better. He was of no use here. Lemuel's death was a great shock to him, or rather the manner of it was."
"That shocked every one. They were first cousin's weren't they?" Mr. Ward was a comparatively new resident in Stillwater.
"First cousins," replied Lawyer Perkins; "but they were never very intimate, you know."
"I imagine nobody was ever very intimate with Mr. Shackford."
"My client was somewhat peculiar in his friendships."
This was stating it charitably, for Mr. Perkins knew, and every one present knew, that Lemuel Shackford had not had the shadow of a friend in Stillwater, unless it was his cousin Richard.
A cloud of mist and rain was blown into the bar-room as the street door stood open for a second to admit a dripping figure from the outside darkness.
_"What's_ blowed down?" asked Durgin, turning round on his stool and sending up a ring of smoke which uncurled itself with difficulty in the dense atmosphere.
"It's only some of Jeff Stavers's nonsense."
"No nonsense at all," said the new-comer, as he shook the heavy beads of rain from his felt hat. "I was passing by Welch's Court--it's as black as pitch out, fellows--when slap went something against my shoulder; something like wet wings. Well, I was scared. It's a bat, says I. But the thing didn't fly off; it was still clawing at my shoulder. I put up my hand, and I'll be shot if it wasn't the foremast, jib-sheet and all, of the old weather-cock on the north gable of the Shackford house! Here you are!" and the speaker tossed the broken mast, with the mimic sails dangling from it, into Durgin's lap.
A dead silence followed, for there was felt to be something weirdly significant in the incident.
"That's kinder omernous," said Mr. Peters, interrogatively.
"Ominous of what?" asked Durgin, lifting the wet mass from his knees and dropping it on the floor.
"Well, sorter queer, then."
"Where does the queer come in?" inquired Stevens, gravelly. "I don't know; but I'm hit by it."
"Come, boys, don't crowd a feller," said Mr. Peters, getting restive. "I don't take the contract to explain the thing. But it does seem some way droll that the old schooner should be wrecked so soon after what has happened to the old skipper. If you don't see it, or sense it, I don't insist. What's yours, Denyven?"
The person addressed as Denyven promptly replied, with a fine sonorous English accent, "a mug of 'alf an' 'alf,--with a head on it, Snelling."
At the same moment Mr. Craggie, in the inner room was saying to the school-master,-- "I must really take issue with you there, Mr. Pinkham. I admit there's a good deal in spiritualism which we haven't got at yet; the science is in its infancy; it is still attached to the bosom of speculation. It is a beautiful science, that of psychological phenomena, and the spiritualists will yet become an influential class of"--Mr. Craggie was going to say voters, but glided over it--"persons. I believe in clairvoyance myself to a large extent. Before my appointment to the post-office I had it very strong. I've no doubt that in the far future this mysterious factor will be made great use of in criminal cases; but at present I should resort to it only in the last extremity,--the very last extremity, Mr. Pinkham!"
"Oh, of course," said the school-master deprecatingly. "I threw it out only as the merest suggestion. I shouldn't think of--of--you understand me?"
"Is it beyond the dreams of probability," said Mr. Craggie, appealing to Lawyer Perkins, "that clairvoyants may eventually be introduced into cases in our courts?"
"They are now," said Mr. Perkins, with a snort,--"the police bring 'em it."
Mr. Craggie finished the remainder of his glass of sherry in silence, and presently rose to go. Coroner Whidden and Mr. Ward had already gone. The guests in the public room were thinning out; a gloom, indefinable and shapeless like the night, seemed to have fallen upon the few that lingered. At a somewhat earlier hour than usual the gas was shut off in the Stillwater hotel.
In the lonely house in Welch's Court a light was still burning.
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A sorely perplexed man sat there, bending over his papers by the lamp-light. Mr. Taggett had established himself at the Shackford house on his arrival, preferring it to the hotel, where he would have been subjected to the curiosity of the guests and to endless annoyances. Up to this moment, perhaps not a dozen persons in the place had had more than a passing glimpse of him. He was a very busy man, working at his desk from morning until night, and then taking only a brief walk, for exercise in some unfrequented street. His meals were sent in from the hotel to the Shackford house, where the constables reported to him, and where he held protracted conferences with Justice Beemis, Coroner Whidden, Lawyer Perkins, and a few others, and declined to be interviewed by the local editor.
To the outside eye that weather-stained, faded old house appeared a throbbing seat of esoteric intelligence. It was as if a hundred invisible magnetic threads converged to a focus under that roof and incessantly clicked out the most startling information,--information which was never by any chance allowed to pass beyond the charmed circle. The pile of letters which the mail brought to Mr. Taggett every morning--chiefly anonymous suggestions, and offers of assistance from lunatics in remote cities--was enough in itself to exasperate a community.
Covertly at first, and then openly, Stillwater began seriously to question Mr. Taggett's method of working up the case. The Gazette, in a double-leaded leader, went so far as to compare him to a bird with fine feathers and no song, and to suggest that perhaps the bird might have sung if the inducement offered had been more substantial. A singer of Mr. Taggett's plumage was not to be taught by such chaff as five hundred dollars. Having killed his man, the editor proceeded to remark that he would suspend judgment until next week.
As if to make perfect the bird comparison, Mr. Taggett, after keeping the public in suspense for six days and nights, abruptly flew away, with all the little shreds and straws of evidence he had picked up, to build his speculative nest elsewhere.
The defection of Mr. Taggett caused a mild panic among a certain portion of the inhabitants, who were not reassured by the statement in the Gazette that the case would now be placed in the proper hands,--the hand so the county constabulary. "Within a few days," said the editor in conclusion, "the matter will undoubtedly be cleared up. At present we cannot say more;" and it would have puzzled him very much to do so.
A week passed, and no fresh light was thrown upon the catastrophe, nor did anything occur to rattle the usual surface of life in the village. A man--it was Torrini, the Italian--got hurt in Dana's iron foundry; one of Blufton's twin girls died; and Mr. Slocum took on a new hand from out of town. That was all. Stillwater was the Stillwater of a year ago, with always the exception of that shadow lying upon it, and the fact that small boys who had kindling to get in were careful to get it in before nightfall. It would appear that the late Mr. Shackford had acquired a habit of lingering around wood-piles after dark, and also of stealing into bed-chambers, where little children were obliged to draw the sheets over their heads in order not to see him.
The action of the county constabulary had proved quite as mysterious and quite as barren of result as Mr. Taggett's had been. They had worn his mantle of secrecy, and arrested the tramps over again.
Another week dragged by, and the editorial prediction seemed as far as ever from fulfillment. But on the afternoon which closed that fortnight a very singular thing did happen. Mr. Slocum was sitting alone in his office, which occupied the whole of a small building at the right of the main gate to the marble works. When the door behind him softly opened and a young man, whose dress covered with stone-dust indicated his vocation, appeared on the threshold. He hesitated a second, and then stepped into the room. Mr. Slocum turned round with a swift, apprehensive air.
"You gave me a start! I believe I haven't any nerves left. Well?"
"Mr. Slocum, I have found the man."
The proprietor of the marble yard half rose from the desk in his agitation.
"Who is it?" he asked beneath his breath.
The same doubt or irresolution which had checked the workman at the threshold seemed again to have taken possession of him. It was fully a moment before he gained the mastery over himself; but the mastery was complete; for he leaned forward gravely, almost coldly, and pronounced two words. A quick pallor overspread Mr. Slocum's features.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, sinking back into the chair. "Are you mad?"
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The humblest painter of real life, if he could have his desire, would select a picturesque background for his figures; but events have an inexorable fashion for choosing their own landscape. In the present instance it is reluctantly conceded that there are few uglier or more commonplace towns in New England than Stillwater,--a straggling, overgrown village, with whose rural aspects are curiously blended something of the grimness and squalor of certain shabby city neighborhoods. Being of comparatively recent date, the place has none of those colonial associations which, like sprigs of lavender in an old chest of drawers, are a saving grace to other quite as dreary nooks and corners.
Here and there at what is termed the West End is a neat brick mansion with garden attached, where nature asserts herself in dahlias and china-asters; but the houses are mostly frame houses that have taken a prevailing dingy tint from the breath of the tall chimneys which dominate the village. The sidewalks in the more aristocratic quarter are covered with a thin, elastic paste of asphalt, worn down to the gravel in patches, and emitting in the heat of the day an astringent, bituminous odor. The population is chiefly of the rougher sort, such as breeds in the shadow of foundries and factories, and if the Protestant pastor and the fatherly Catholic priest, whose respective lots are cast there, have sometimes the sense of being missionaries dropped in the midst of a purely savage community, the delusion is not wholly unreasonable.
The irregular heaps of scoria that have accumulated in the vicinity of the iron works give the place an illusive air of antiquity; bit it is neither ancient nor picturesque. The oldest and most pictorial thing in Stillwater is probably the marble yard, around three sides of which the village may be said to have sprouted up rankly, bearing here and there an industrial blossom in the shape of an iron-mill or a cardigan-jacket manufactory. Rowland Slocum, a man of considerable refinement, great kindness of heart, and no force, inherited the yard from his father, and a the period this narrative opens (the summer of 187-) was its sole proprietor and nominal manager, the actual manager being Richard Shackford, a prospective partner in the business and the betrothed of Mr. Slocum's daughter Margaret.
Forty years ago every tenth person in Stillwater was either a Shackford or a Slocum. Twenty years later both names were nearly extinct there. That fatality which seems to attend certain New England families had stripped every leaf but two from the Shackford branch. These were Lemuel Shackford, then about forty-six, and Richard Shackford, aged four. Lemuel Shackford had laid up a competency as ship-master in the New York and Calcutta trade, and in 1852 had returned to his native village, where he found his name and stock represented only by little Dick, a very cheerful orphan, who stared complacently with big blue eyes at fate, and made mud-pies in the lane whenever he could elude the vigilance of the kindly old woman who had taken him under her roof. This atom of humanity, by some strange miscalculation of nature, was his cousin.
The strict devotion to his personal interests which had enabled Mr. Shackford to acquire a fortune thus early caused him to look askance at a penniless young kinsman with stockings down at heel, and a straw hat three sizes too large for him set on the back of his head. But Mr. Shackford was ashamed to leave little Dick a burden upon the hands of a poor woman of no relationship whatever to the child; so little Dick was transferred to that dejected house which has already been described, and was then known as the Sloper house.
Here, for three of four years, Dick grew up, as neglected as a weed, and every inch as happy. It should be mentioned that for the first year or so a shock-headed Cicely from the town-farm had apparently been hired not to take care of him. But Dick asked nothing better than to be left to his own devices, which, moreover, were innocent enough. He would sit all day in the lane at the front gate pottering with a bit of twig or a case-knife in the soft clay. From time to time passers-by observed that the child was not making mud-pies, but tracing figures, comic or grotesque as might happen, and always quite wonderful for their lack of resemblance to anything human. That patch of reddish-brown clay was his sole resource, his slate, his drawing-book, and woe to anybody who chanced to walk over little Dick's arabesques. Patient and gentle in his acceptance of the world's rebuffs, this he would not endure. He was afraid of Mr. Shackford, yet one day, when the preoccupied man happened to trample on a newly executed hieroglyphic, the child rose to his feet white with rage, his fingers clenched, and such a blue fire flashing in the eyes that Mr. Shackford drew back aghast.
"Why, it's a little devil!"
While Shackford junior was amusing himself with his primitive bas-reliefs, Shackford senior amused himself with his lawsuits. From the hour when he returned to the town until the end of his days Mr. Shackford was up to his neck in legal difficulties. Now he resisted a betterment assessment, and fought the town; now he secured an injunction on the Miantowona Iron Works, and fought the corporation. He was understood to have a perpetual case in equity before the Marine Court in New York, to which city he made frequent and unannounced journeys. His immediate neighbors stood in terror of him. He was like a duelist, on the alert to twist the slightest thing into a _casus belli_. The law was his rapier, his recreation, and he was willing to bleed for it.
Meanwhile that fairy world of which every baby becomes a Columbus so soon as it is able to walk remained an undiscovered continent to little Dick. Grim life looked in upon him as he lay in the cradle. The common joys of childhood were a sealed volume to him. A single incident of those years lights up the whole situation. A vague rumor had been blown to Dick of a practice of hanging up stockings at Christmas. It struck his materialistic mind as a rather senseless thing to do; but nevertheless he resolved to try it one Christmas Eve. He lay awake a long while in the frosty darkness, skeptically waiting for something remarkable to happen; once he crawled out of the cot-bed and groped his way to the chimney place. The next morning he was scarcely disappointed at finding nothing in the piteous little stocking, except the original holes.
The years that stole silently over the heads of the old man and the young child in Welch's Court brought a period of wild prosperity to Stillwater. The breath of war blew the forges to a white heat, and the baffling problem of the mediæval alchemists was solved. The baser metals were transmuted into gold. A disastrous, prosperous time, with the air rent periodically by the cries of newsboys as battles were fought, and by the roll of the drum in the busy streets as fresh recruits were wanted. Glory and death to the Southward, and at the North pale women in black.
All which interested Dick mighty little. After he had learned to read at the district school, he escaped into another world. Two lights were now generally seen burning of a night in the Shackford house: one on the ground-floor where Mr. Shackford sat mouthing his contracts and mortgages, and weaving his webs like a great, lean, gray spider; and the other in the north gable, where Dick hung over a tattered copy of Robinson Crusoe by the flicker of the candle-ends which he had captured during the day.
Little Dick was little Dick no more: a tall, heavily built blond boy, with a quiet, sweet disposition, that at first offered temptations to the despots of the playground; but a sudden flaring up once or twice of that unexpected spirit which had broken out in his babyhood brought him immunity from serious persecution.
The boy's home life at this time would have seemed pathetic to an observer,--the more pathetic, perhaps, in that Dick himself was not aware of its exceptional barrenness. The holidays that bring new brightness to the eyes of happier children were to him simply days when he did not go to school, and was expected to provide an extra quantity of kindling wood. He was housed, and fed, and clothed, after a fashion, but not loved. Mr. Shackford did not ill-treat the lad, in the sense of beating him; he merely neglected him. Every year the man became more absorbed in his law cases and his money, which accumulated magically. He dwelt in a cloud of calculations. Though all his interests attached him to the material world, his dry, attenuated body seemed scarcely a part of it.
"Shackford, what are you going to do with that scapegrace of yours?"
It was Mr. Leonard Tappleton who ventured the question. Few persons dared to interrogate Mr. Shackford on his private affairs.
"I am going to make a lawyer of him," said Mr. Shackford, crackling his finger-joints like stiff parchment.
"You couldn't do better. You _ought_ to have an attorney in the family."
"Just so," assented Mr. Shackford, dryly. "I could throw a bit of business in his way now and then,--eh?"
"You could make his fortune, Shackford. I don't see but you might employ him all the time. When he was not fighting the corporations, you might keep him at it suing you for his fees."
"Very good, very good indeed," responded Mr. Shackford, with a smile in which his eyes took no share, it was merely a momentary curling up of crisp wrinkles. He did not usually smile at other people's pleasantries; but when a person worth three or four hundred thousand dollars condescends to indulge a joke, it is not to be passed over like that of a poor relation. "Yes, yes," muttered the old man, as he stooped and picked up a pin, adding it to a row of similarly acquired pins which gave the left lapel of his threadbare coat the appearance of a miniature harp, "I shall make a lawyer of him."
It had long been settled in Mr. Shackford's mind that Richard, so soon as he had finished his studies, should enter the law-office of Blandmann & Sharpe, a firm of rather sinister reputation in South Millville.
At fourteen Richard's eyes had begun to open on the situation; at fifteen he saw very clearly; and one day, without much preliminary formulating of his plan, he decided on a step that had been taken by every male Shackford as far back as tradition preserves the record of his family.
A friendship had sprung up between Richard and one William Durgin, a school-mate. This Durgin was a sallow, brooding boy, a year older than himself. The two lads were antipodal in disposition, intelligence, and social standing; for though Richard went poorly clad, the reflection of his cousin's wealth gilded him. Durgin was the son of a washerwoman. An intimacy between the two would perhaps have been unlikely but for one fact: it was Durgin's mother who had given little Dick a shelter at the period of his parents' death. Though the circumstance did not lie within the pale of Richard's personal memory, he acknowledged the debt by rather insisting on Durgin's friendship. It was William Durgin, therefore, who was elected to wait upon Mr. Shackford on a certain morning which found that gentleman greatly disturbed by an unprecedented occurrence,--Richard had slept out of the house the previous night.
Durgin was the bearer of a note which Mr. Shackford received in some astonishment, and read deliberately, blinking with weak eyes behind the glasses. Having torn off the blank page and laid it aside for his own more economical correspondence (the rascal had actually used a whole sheet to write ten words!) , Mr. Shackford turned, and with the absorbed air of a naturalist studying some abnormal bug gazed over the steel bow of his spectacles at Durgin.
"Skit!"
Durgin hastily retreated.
"There's a poor lawyer saved," muttered the old man, taking down his overcoat from a peg behind the door, and snapping off a shred of lint on the collar with his lean forefinger. Then his face relaxed, and an odd grin diffused a kind of wintry glow over it.
Richard had run away to sea.
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After a lapse of four years, during which he had as completely vanished out of the memory of Stillwater as if he had been lying all the while in the crowded family tomb behind the South Church, Richard Shackford reappeared one summer morning at the door of his cousin's house in Welch's Court. Mr. Shackford was absent at the moment, and Mrs. Morganson, an elderly deaf woman, who came in for a few hours every day to do the house-work, was busy in the extension. Without announcing himself, Richard stalked up-stairs to the chamber in the gable, and went directly to a little shelf in one corner, upon which lay the dog's-eared copy of Robinson Crusoe just as he had left it, save the four years' accumulation of dust. Richard took the book fiercely in both hands, and with a single mighty tug tore it from top to bottom, and threw the fragments into the fire-place.
A moment later, on the way down-stairs, he encountered his kinsman ascending.
"Ah, you have come back!" was Mr. Shackford's grim greeting after a moment's hesitation.
"Yes," said Richard, with embarrassment, though he had made up his mind not to be embarrassed by his cousin.
"I can't say I was looking for you. You might have dropped me a line; you were politer when you left. Why do you come back, and why did you go away?" demanded the old man, with abrupt fierceness. The last four years had bleached him and bent him and made him look very old.
"I didn't like the idea of Blandmann & Sharpe, for one thing," said Richard, "and I thought I liked the sea."
"And did you?"
"No, sir! I enjoyed seeing foreign parts, and all that."
"Quite the young gentleman on his travels. But the sea didn't agree with you, and now you like the idea of Blandmann & Sharpe?"
"Not the least in the world, I assure you!" cried Richard. "I take to it as little as ever I did."
"Perhaps that is fortunate. But it's going to be rather difficult to suit your tastes. What _do_ you like?"
"I like you, cousin Lemuel; you have always been kind to me--in your way," said poor Richard, yearning for a glimmer of human warmth and sympathy, and forgetting all the dreariness of his uncared-for childhood. He had been out in the world, and had found it even harder-hearted than his own home, which now he idealized in the first flush of returning to it. Again he saw himself, a blond-headed little fellow with stocking down at heel, climbing the steep staircase, or digging in the clay at the front gate with the air full of the breath of lilacs. That same penetrating perfume, blown through the open hall-door as he spoke, nearly brought the tears to his eyes. He had looked forward for years to this coming back to Stillwater. Many a time, as he wandered along the streets of some foreign sea-port, the rich architecture and the bright costumes had faded out before him, and given place to the fat gray belfry and slim red chimneys of the humble New England village where he was born. He had learned to love it after losing it; and now he had struggled back through countless trials and disasters to find no welcome.
"Cousin Lemuel," said Richard gently, "only just us two are left, and we ought to be good friends, at least."
"We are good enough friends," mumbled Mr. Shackford, who could not evade taking the hand which Richard had forlornly reached out to him, "but that needn't prevent us understanding each other like rational creatures. I don't care for a great deal of fine sentiment in people who run away without so much as thank you."
"I was all wrong!"
"That's what folks always say, with the delusion that it makes everything all right."
"Surely it help,--to admit it."
"That depends; it generally doesn't. What do you propose to do?"
"I hardly know at the moment; my plans are quite in the air."
"In the air!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I fancy that describes them. Your father's plans were always in the air, too, and he never got any of them down."
"I intend to get mine down."
"Have you saved by anything?"
"Not a cent."
"I thought as much."
"I had a couple of hundred dollars in my sea-chest; but I was shipwrecked, and lost it. I barely saved myself. When Robinson Crusoe"-- "Damn Robinson Crusoe!" snapped Mr. Shackford.
"That's what I say," returned Richard gravely. "When Robinson Crusoe was cast on an uninhabited island, shrimps and soft-shell crabs and all sorts of delicious mollusks--readily boiled, I've no doubt--crawled up on the beach, and begged him to eat them; but _I_ nearly starved to death."
"Of course. You will always be shipwrecked, and always be starved to death; you are one of that kind. I don't believe you are a Shackford at all. When they were not anything else they were good sailors. If you only had a drop of _his_ blood in your veins!" and Mr. Shackford waved his head towards a faded portrait of a youngish, florid gentleman with banged hair and high coat-collar, which hung against the wall half-way up the stair-case. This was the counterfeit presentment of Lemuel Shackford's father seated with his back at an open window, through which was seen a ship under full canvas with the union-jack standing out straight in the wrong direction. "But what are you going to do for yourself? You can't start a subscription paper, and play with shipwrecked mariner, you know."
"No, I hardly care to do that," said Richard, with a good-natured laugh, "though no poor devil ever had a better outfit for the character."
"What _are_ you calculated for?"
Richard was painfully conscious of his unfitness for many things; but he felt there was nothing in life to which he was so ill adapted as his present position. Yet, until he could look about him, he must needs eat his kinsman's reluctant bread, or starve. The world was younger and more unsophisticated when manna dropped from the clouds.
Mr. Shackford stood with his neck craned over the frayed edge of his satin stock and one hand resting indecisively on the banister, and Richard on the step above, leaning his back against the blighted flowers of the wall-paper. From an oval window at the head of the stairs the summer sunshine streamed upon them, and illuminated the high-shouldered clock which, ensconced in an alcove, seemed top be listening to the conversation.
"There's no chance for you in the law," said Mr. Shackford, after a long pause. "Sharpe's nephew has the berth. A while ago I might have got you into the Miantowona Iron Works; but the rascally directors are trying to ruin me now. There's the Union Store, if they happen to want a clerk. I suppose you would be about as handy behind a counter as a hippopotamus. I have no business of my own to train you to. You are not good for the sea, and the sea has probably spoiled you for anything else. A drop of salt water just poisons a landsman. I am sure I don't know what to do with you."
"Don't bother yourself about it at all," said Richard, cheerfully. "You are going back on the whole family, ancestors and posterity, by suggesting that I can't make my own living. I only want a little time to take breath, don't you see, and a crust and a bed for a few days, such as you might give any wayfarer. Meanwhile, I will look after things around the place. I fancy I was never an idler here since the day I learnt to split kindling."
"There's your old bed in the north chamber," said Mr. Shackford, wrinkling his forehead helplessly. "According to my notion, it is not so good as a bunk, or a hammock slung in a tidy forecastle, but it's at your service, and Mrs. Morganson, I dare say, can lay an extra plate at table."
With which gracious acceptance of Richard's proposition, Mr. Shackford resumed his way upstairs, and the young man thoughtfully descended to the hall-door and thence into the street, to take a general survey of the commercial capabilities of Stillwater.
The outlook was not inspiring. A machinist, or a mechanic, or a day laborer might have found a foot-hold. A man without handicraft was not in request in Stillwater. "What is your trade?" was the staggering question that met Richard at the threshold. He went from workshop to workshop, confidently and cheerfully at first, whistling softly between whiles; but at every turn the question confronted him. In some places, where he was recognized with thinly veiled surprise as that boy of Shackford's, he was kindly put off; in others he received only a stare or a brutal No.
By noon he had exhausted the leading shops and offices in the village, and was so disheartened that he began to dread the thought of returning home to dinner. Clearly, he was a superfluous person in Stillwater. A mortar-splashed hod-carrier, who had seated himself on a pile of brick and was eating his noonday rations from a tin can just brought to him by a slatternly girl, gave Richard a spasm of envy. Here was a man who had found his place, and was establishing--what Richard did not seem able to establish in his own case--a right to exist.
At supper Mr. Shackford refrained from examining Richard on his day's employment, for which reserve, or indifference, the boy was grateful. When the silent meal was over the old man went to his papers, and Richard withdrew to his room in the gable. He had neglected to provide himself with a candle. However, there was nothing to read, for in destroying Robinson Crusoe he had destroyed his entire library; so he sat and brooded in the moonlight, casting a look of disgust now and then at the mutilated volume on the hearth. That lying romance! It had been, indirectly, the cause of all his woe, filling his boyish brain with visions of picturesque adventure, and sending him off to sea, where he had lost four precious years of his life.
"If I had stuck to my studies," reflected Richard while undressing, "I might have made something of myself. He's a great friend, Robinson Crusoe."
Richard fell asleep with as much bitterness in his bosom against DeFoe's ingenious hero as if Robinson had been a living person instead of a living fiction, and out of this animosity grew a dream so fantastic and comical that Richard awoke himself with a bewildered laugh just as the sunrise reddened the panes of the chamber window. In this dream somebody came to Richard and asked him if he had heard of that dreadful thing about young Crusoe.
"No, confound him!" said Richard, "what is it?"
"It has been ascertained," said somebody, who seemed to Richard at once an intimate friend and an utter stranger,--"it has been ascertained beyond a doubt that the man Friday was not a man Friday at all, but a light-minded young princess from one of the neighboring islands who had fallen in love with Robinson. Her real name was Saturday."
"Why, that's scandalous!" cried Richard with heat. "Think of the admiration and sympathy the world has been lavishing on this precious pair; Robinson Crusoe and his girl Saturday! That puts a different face on it."
"Another great moral character exploded," murmured the shadowy shape, mixing itself up with the motes of a sunbeam and drifting out through the window. Then Richard fell to laughing in his sleep, and so awoke. He was still confused with the dream as he sat on the edge of his bed, pulling himself together in the broad daylight.
"Well," he muttered at length, "I shouldn't wonder! There's nothing too bad to be believed of that man."
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Richard made an early start that morning in search of employment, and duplicated the failure of the previous day. Nobody wanted him. If nobody wanted him in the village where he was born and bred, a village of counting-rooms and workshops, was any other place likely to need him? He had only one hope, if it could be called a hope; at any rate, he had treated it tenderly as such and kept it for the last. He would apply to Rowland Slocum. Long ago, when Richard was an urchin making pot-hooks in the lane, the man used occasionally to pat him on the head and give him pennies. This was not a foundation on which to rear a very lofty castle; but this was all he had.
It was noon when Richard approached the marble yard, and the men were pouring out into the street through the wide gate in the rough deal fence which inclosed the works,--heavy, brawny men, covered with fine white dust, who shouldered each other like cattle, and took the sidewalk to themselves. Richard stepped aside to let them pass, eying them curiously as possible comrades. Suddenly a slim dark fellow, who had retained his paper cap and leather apron, halted and thrust forth a horny hand. The others went on.
"Hullo, Dick Shackford!"
"What, is that you, Will? _You_ here?"
"Been here two years now. One of Slocum's apprentices," added Durgin, with an air of easy grandeur.
"Two years? How time flies--when it doesn't crawl! Do you like it?"
"My time will be out next--Oh, the work? Well, yes; it's not bad, and there's a jolly set in the yard. But how about you? I heard last night you'd got home. Been everywhere and come back wealthy? The boys used to say you was off pirating."
"No such luck," answered Richard, with a smile. "I didn't prey on the high seas,--quite the contrary. The high sea captured my kit and four years' savings. I will tell you about it some day. If I have a limb to my name and a breath left to my body, it is no thanks to the Indian Ocean. That is all I have got, Will, and I am looking around for bread and butter,--literally bread and butter."
"No? and the old gentleman so rich!"
Durgin said this with sincere indignation, and was perhaps unconscious himself of experiencing that nameless, shadowy satisfaction which Rochefoucauld says we find in the adversity of our best friends. Certainly Richard looked very seedy in his suit of slop-shop clothes.
"I was on my way to Mr. Slocum's to see if I could do anything with him," Richard continued.
"To get a job, do you mean?"
"Yes, to get work,--to learn _how_ to work; to master a trade, in short."
"You can't be an apprentice, you know," said Durgin.
"Why not?"
"Slocum has two."
"Suppose he should happen to want another? He might."
"The Association wouldn't allow it."
"What Association?"
"The Marble Workers' Association, of course."
_"They_ wouldn't allow it! How is that?"
"This the way of it. Slocum is free to take on two apprentices every year, but no more. That prevents workmen increasing too fast, and so keeps up wages. The Marble Workers' Association is a very neat thing, I can tell you."
"But doesn't Mr. Slocum own the yard? I thought he did."
"Yes, he owns the yard."
"If he wished to extend the business, couldn't he employ more hands?"
"As many as he could get,--skilled workmen; but not apprentices."
"And Mr. Slocum agrees to that?" inquired Richard.
"He does."
"And likes it?"
"Not he,--he hates it; but he can't help himself."
"Upon my soul, I don't see what prevents him taking on as many apprentices as he wants to."
"Why, the Association, to be sure," returned Durgin, glancing at the town clock, which marked seven minutes past the hour.
"But how could they stop him?"
"In plenty of ways. Suppose Slocum has a lot of unfinished contracts on hand,--he always has fat contracts,--and the men was to knock off work. That would be kind of awkward, wouldn't it?"
"For a day or two, yes. He could send out of town for hands," suggested Richard.
"And they wouldn't come, if the Association said 'Stay where you are.' They are mostly in the ring. Some outsiders might come, though."
"Then what?"
"Why, then the boys would make it pretty hot for them in Stillwater. Don't you notice?"
"I notice there is not much chance for me," said Richard, despondingly. "Isn't that so?"
"Can't say. Better talk with Slocum. But I must get along; I have to be back sharp at one. I want to hear about your knocking around the worst kind. Can't we meet somewhere tonight,--at the tavern?"
"The tavern? That didn't used to be a quiet place."
"It isn't quiet now, but there's nowhere else to go of a night. It's a comfortable den, and there's always some capital fellows dropping in. A glass of lager with a mate is not a bad thing after a hard day's work."
"Both are good things when they are of the right sort."
"That's like saying I'm not the right sort, isn't it?"
"I meant nothing of the kind. But I don't take to the tavern. Not that I'm squeamish; I have lived four years among sailors, and have been in rougher places than you ever dreamed of; but all the same I am afraid of the tavern. I've seen many a brave fellow wrecked on that reef."
"You always was a bit stuck up," said Durgin candidly.
"Not an inch. I never had much reason to be; and less now than ever, when I can scarcely afford to drink water, let alone beer. I will drop round to your mother's some evening--I hope she's well,--and tell you of my ups and downs. That will be pleasanter for all hands."
"Oh, as you like."
"Now for Mr. Slocum, though you have taken the wind out of me."
The two separated, Durgin with a half smile on his lip, and Richard in a melancholy frame of mind. He passed from the grass-fringed street into the deserted marble yard, where it seemed as if the green summer had suddenly turned into white winter, and threading his way between the huge drifts of snowy stone, knocked at the door of Mr. Slocum's private office.
William Durgin had summed up the case fairly enough as it stood between the Marble Workers' Association and Rowland Slocum. The system of this branch of the trades-union kept trained workmen comparatively scarce, and enabled them to command regular and even advanced prices at periods when other trades were depressed. The older hands looked upon a fresh apprentice in the yard with much the same favor as workingmen of the era of Jacquard looked upon the introduction of a new piece of machinery. Unless the apprentice had exceptional tact, he underwent a rough novitiate. In any case he served a term of social ostracism before he was admitted to full comradeship. Mr. Slocum could easily have found openings each year for a dozen learners, had the matter been under his control; but it was not. "I am the master of each man individually," he declared, "but collectively they are my master." So his business, instead of naturally spreading and becoming a benefit to the many, was kept carefully pruned down to the benefit of the few. He was often forced to decline important contracts, the filling of which would have resulted to the advantage of every person in the village.
Mr. Slocum recognized Richard at once, and listened kindly to his story. It was Mr. Slocum's way to listen kindly to every one; but he was impressed with Richard's intelligence and manner, and became desirous, for several reasons, to assist him. In the first place, there was room in the shops for another apprentice; experienced hands were on jobs that could have been as well done by beginners; and, in the second place, Mr. Slocum had an intuition that Lemuel Shackford was not treating the lad fairly, though Richard had said nothing to this effect. Now, Mr. Slocum and Mr. Shackford were just then at swords' points.
"I don't suppose I could annoy Shackford more," was Mr. Slocum's reflection, "than by doing something for this boy, whom he has always shamelessly neglected."
The motive was not a high one; but Richard would have been well satisfied with it, if he could have divined it. He did divine that Mr. Slocum was favorably inclined towards him, and stood watching that gentleman's face with hopeful anxiety.
"I have my regulation number of young men, Richard," said Mr. Slocum, "and there will be no vacancy until autumn. If you could wait a few months."
Richard's head drooped.
"Can't do that? You write a good hand, you say. Perhaps you could assist the book-keeper until there's a chance for you in the yard."
"I think I could, sir," said Richard eagerly.
"If you were only a draughtsman, now, I could do something much better for you. I intend to set up a shop for ornamental carving, and I want some one to draw patterns. If you had a knack at designing, if you could draw at all"-- Richard's face lighted up.
"Perhaps you _have_ a turn that way. I remember the queer things you used to scratch in the mud in the court, when you were a little shaver. Can you draw?"
"Why, that is the one thing I can do!" cried Richard,--"in a rough fashion, of course," he added, fearing he had overstated it.
"It is a rough fashion that will serve. You must let me see some of your sketches."
"I haven't any, sir. I had a hundred in my sea-chest, but that was lost,--pencillings of old archways, cathedral spires, bits of frieze, and such odds and ends as took my fancy in the ports we touched at. I recollect one bit. I think I could do it for you now. Shall I?"
Mr. Slocum nodded assent, smiling at the young fellow's enthusiasm, and only partially suspecting his necessity. Richard picked up a pen and began scratching on a letter sheet which lay on the desk. He was five or six minutes at the work, during which the elder man watched him with an amused expression.
"It's a section of cornice on the façade of the Hindoo College at Calcutta," said Richard, handing him the paper,--"no, it's the custom-house. I forget which; but it doesn't matter."
The amused look gradually passed out of Mr. Slocum's countenance as he examined the sketch. It was roughly but clearly drawn, and full of facility. "Why, that's very clever!" he said, holding it at arms'-length; and then, with great gravity, "I hope you are not a genius, Richard; that would be too much of a fine thing. If you are not, you can be of service to me in my plans."
Richard laughingly made haste to declare that to the best of his knowledge and belief he was not a genius, and it was decided on the spot that Richard should assist Mr. Simms, the bookkeeper, and presently try his hand at designing ornamental patterns for the carvers, Mr. Slocum allowing him apprentice wages until the quality of his work should be ascertained.
"It is very little," said Mr. Slocum, "but it will pay your board, if you do not live at home."
"I shall not remain at my cousin's," Richard replied, "if you call that home."
"I can imagine it is not much of a home. Your cousin, not to put too fine a point on it, is a wretch."
"I am sorry to hear you say that, sir; he's my only living kinsman."
"You are fortunate in having but one, then. However, I am wrong to abuse him to you; but I cannot speak of him with moderation, he has just played me such a despicable trick. Look here."
Mr. Slocum led Richard to the door, and pointing to a row of new workshops which extended the entire length of one side of the marble yard, said,-- "I built these last spring. After the shingles were on we discovered that the rear partition, for a distance of seventy-five feet, overlapped two inches on Shackford's meadow. I was ready to drop when I saw it, your cousin is such an unmanageable old fiend. Of course I went to him immediately, and what do you think? He demanded five hundred dollars for that strip of land! Five hundred dollars for a few inches of swamp meadow not worth ten dollars the acre! 'Then take your disreputable old mill off my property!' says Shackford,--he called it a disreputable old mill! I was hasty, perhaps, and I told him to go to the devil. He said he would, and he did; for he went to Blandmann. When the lawyers got hold of it, they bothered the life out of me; so I just moved the building forward two inches, at an expense of seven hundred dollars. Then what does the demon do but board up all my windows opening on the meadow! Richard, I make it a condition that you shall not lodge at Shackford's."
"Nothing could induce me to live another day in the same house with him, sir," answered Richard, suppressing an inclination to smile; and then seriously, "His bread is bitter."
Richard went back with a light heart to Welch's Court. At the gate of the marble yard he met William Durgin returning to work. The steam-whistle had sounded the call, and there was no time for exchange of words; so Richard gave his comrade a bright nod and passed by. Durgin turned and stared after him.
"Looks as if Slocum had taken him on; but it never can be as apprentice; he wouldn't dare do it."
Mr. Shackford had nearly finished his frugal dinner when Richard entered. "If you can't hit it to be in at your meals," said Mr. Shackford, helping himself absently to the remaining chop, "perhaps you had better stop away altogether."
"I can do that now, cousin," replied Richard sunnily. "I have engaged with Slocum."
The old man laid down his knife and fork.
"With Slocum! A Shackford a miserable marble-chipper!"
There was so little hint of the aristocrat in Lemuel Shackford's sordid life and person that no one suspected him of even self-esteem. He went as meanly dressed as a tramp, and as careless of contemporary criticism; yet clear down in his liver, or somewhere in his anatomy, he nourished an odd abstract pride in the family Shackford. Heaven knows why! To be sure, it dated far back; its women had always been virtuous, and its men, if not always virtuous, had always been ship-captains. But beyond this the family had never amounted to anything, and now there was so very little left of it. For Richard as Richard Lemuel cared nothing; for Richard as a Shackford he had a chaotic feeling that defied analysis and had never before risen to the surface. It was therefore with a disgust entirely apart from the hatred of Slocum or regard for Richard that the old man exclaimed, "A Shackford a miserable marble-chipper!"
"That is better than hanging around the village with my hands in my pockets. Isn't it?"
"I don't know that anybody has demanded that you should hang around the village."
"I ought to go away, you mean? But I have found work here, and I might not find it elsewhere."
"Stillwater is not the place to begin life in. It's the place to go away from, and come back to."
"Well, I have come back."
"And how? With one shirt and a lot of bad sailor habits."
"My one shirt is my only very bad habit," said Richard, with a laugh,--he could laugh now,--"and I mean to get rid of that."
Mr. Shackford snapped his fingers disdainfully.
"You ought to have stuck to the sea; that's respectable. In ten years you might have risen to be master of a bark; that would have been honorable. You might have gone down in a gale,--you probably would,--and that would have been fortunate. But a stone-cutter! You can understand," growled Mr. Shackford, reaching out for his straw hat, which he put on and crushed over his brows, "I don't keep a boarding-house for Slocum's hands."
"Oh, I'm far from asking it!" cried Richard. "I am thankful for the two nights' shelter I have had."
"That's some of your sarcasm, I suppose," said Mr. Shackford, half turning, with his hands on the door-knob.
"No, it is some of my sincerity. I am really obliged to you. You weren't very cordial, to be sure, but I did not deserve cordiality."
"You have figured that out correctly."
"I want to begin over again, you see, and start fair."
"Then begin by dropping Slocum."
"You have not given me a chance to tell you what the arrangement is. However, it's irrevocable."
"I don't want to hear. I don't care a curse, so long as it is an arrangement," and Mr. Shackford hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Then Richard, quite undisturbed by his cousin's unreasonableness, sat himself down to eat the last meal he was ever to eat under that roof,--a feat which his cousin's appetite had rendered comparatively easy.
While engaged in this, Richard resolved in his mind several questions as to his future abode. He could not reconcile his thought to any of the workingmen's boarding-houses, of which there were five or six in the slums of the village, where the doorways were greasy, and women flitted about in the hottest weather with thick woolen shawls over their heads. Yet his finances did not permit him to aspire to lodgings much more decent. If he could only secure a small room somewhere in a quiet neighborhood. Possibly Mrs. Durgin would let him have a chamber in her cottage. He was beginning life over again, and it struck him as nearly an ideal plan to begin it on the identical spot where he had, in a manner, made his first start. Besides, there was William Durgin for company, when the long nights of the New England winter set in. The idea smiled so pleasantly in Richard's fancy that he pushed the plate away from him impatiently, and picked up his hat which lay on the floor beside the chair.
That evening he moved from the Shackford house to Mrs. Durgin's cottage in Cross Street. It was not an imposing ceremony. With a small brown-paper parcel under his arm, he walked from one threshold to the other, and the thing was done.
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The six months which followed Richard's installment in the office at Slocum's Yard were so crowded with novel experience that he scarcely noted their flight. The room at the Durgins, as will presently appear, turned out an unfortunate arrangement; but everything else had prospered. Richard proved an efficient aid to Mr. Simms, who quietly shifted the pay-roll to the younger man's shoulders. This was a very complicated account to keep, involving as it did a separate record of each employee's time and special work. An ancient bookkeeper parts lightly with such trifles when he has a capable assistant. It also fell to Richard's lot to pay the hands on Saturdays. William Durgin blinked his surprise on the first occasion, as he filed in with the others and saw Richard posted at the desk, with the pay-roll in his hand and the pile of greenbacks lying in front of him.
"I suppose you'll be proprietor next," remarked Durgin, that evening, at the supper table.
"When I am, Will," answered Richard cheerily, "you will be on the road to foreman of the finishing shop."
"Thank you," said Durgin, not too graciously. It grated on him to play the part of foreman, even in imagination, with Dick Shackford as proprietor. Durgin could not disconnect his friend from that seedy, half-crestfallen figure to whom, a few months earlier, he had given elementary instruction on the Marble Workers' Association.
Richard did not find his old schoolmate so companionable as memory and anticipation had painted him. The two young men moved on different levels. Richard's sea life, now that he had got at a sufficient distance from it, was a perspective full of pleasant color; he had a taste for reading, a thirst to know things, and his world was not wholly shut in by the Stillwater horizon. It was still a pitifully narrow world, but wide compared with Durgin's, which extended no appreciable distance in any direction from the Stillwater hotel. He spent his evenings chiefly there, returning home late at night, and often in so noisy a mood as to disturb Richard, who slept in an adjoining apartment. This was an annoyance; and it was an annoyance to have Mrs. Durgin coming to him with complaints of William. Other matters irritated Richard. He had contrived to replenish his wardrobe, and the sunburn was disappearing from his hands, which the nature of his occupation left soft and unscarred. Durgin was disposed at times to be sarcastic on these changes, but always stopped short of actual offense; for he remembered that Shackford when a boy, amiable and patient as he was, had had a tiger's temper at bottom. Durgin had seen it roused once or twice, and even received a chance sweep of the paw. Richard liked Durgin's rough wit as little as Durgin relished Richard's good-natured bluntness. It was a mistake, that trying to pick up the dropped thread of old acquaintance.
As soon as the permanency of his position was assured, and his means warranted the step, Richard transported himself and his effects to a comfortable chamber in the same house with Mr. Pinkham, the school-master, the perpetual falsetto of whose flute was positively soothing after four months of William Durgin's bass. Mr. Pinkham having but one lung, and that defective, played on the flute.
"You see what you've gone and done, William," remarked Mrs. Durgin plaintively, "with your ways. There goes the quietest young man in Stillwater, and four dollars a week!"
"There goes a swell, you'd better say. He was always a proud beggar; nobody was ever good enough for him."
"You shouldn't say that, William. I could cry, to lose him and his cheerfulness out of the house," and Mrs. Durgin began to whimper.
"Wait till he's out of luck again, and he'll come back to us fast enough. That's when his kind remembers their friends. Blast him! he can't even take a drop of beer with a chum at the tavern."
"And right, too. There's beer enough taken at the tavern without him."
"If you mean me, mother, I'll get drunk tonight."
"No, no!" cried Mrs. Durgin, pleadingly, "I didn't mean you, William, but Peters and that set."
"I thought you couldn't mean me," said William, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his monkey-jacket, and sauntering off in the direction of the Stillwater hotel, where there was a choice company gathered, it being Saturday night, and the monthly meeting of the Union.
Mr. Slocum had wasted no time in organizing a shop for his experiment in ornamental carving. Five or six men, who had worked elsewhere at this branch, were turned over to the new department, with Stevens as foreman and Richard as designer. Very shortly Richard had as much as he could do to furnish the patterns required. These consisted mostly of scrolls, wreaths, and mortuary dove-wings for head-stones. Fortunately for Richard he had no genius, but plenty of a kind of talent just abreast with Mr. Slocum's purpose. As the carvers became interested in their work, they began to show Richard the respect and good-will which at first had been withheld, for they had not quite liked being under the supervision of one who had not served at the trade. His youth had also told against him; but Richard's pleasant, off-hand manner quickly won them. He had come in contact with rough men on shipboard; he had studied their ways, and he knew that with all their roughness there is no class so sensitive. This insight was of great service to him. Stevens, who had perhaps been the least disposed to accept Richard, was soon his warm ally.
"See what a smooth fist the lad has!" he said one day holding up a new drawing to the shop. "A man with a wreath of them acorns on his head-stone oughter be perfectly happy, damn him!"
It was, however, an anchor with a broken chain pendent--a design for a monument to the late Captain Septimius Salter, who had parted his cable at sea--which settled Richard's status with Stevens.
"Boys, that Shackford is what _I_ call a born genei."
After all, is not the one-eyed man who is king among the blind the most fortunate of monarchs? Your little talent in a provincial village looms a great deal taller than your mighty genius in a city. Richard Shackford working for Rowland Slocum at Stillwater was happier than Michaelangelo in Rome with Pope Julius II. at his back. And Richard was the better paid, too!
One day he picked up a useful hint from a celebrated sculptor, who had come to the village in search of marble for the base of a soldiers' monument. Richard was laboriously copying a spray of fern, the delicacy of which eluded his pencil. The sculptor stood a moment silently observing him.
"Why do you spend an hour doing only passably well what you could do perfectly in ten minutes?"
"I suppose it is because I am stupid, sir," said Richard.
"No stupid man ever suspected himself of being anything but clever. You can draw capitally; but nature beats you out and out at designing ferns. Just ask her to make you a fac-simile in plaster, and see how handily she will lend herself to the job. Of course you must help her a little."
"Oh, I am not above giving nature a lift," said Richard modestly.
"Lay a cloth on your table, place the fern on the cloth, and pour a thin paste of plaster of Paris over the leaf,--do that gently, so as not to disarrange the spray. When the plaster is set, there's your mold; remove the leave, oil the matrix, and pour in fresh plaster. When that is set, cut away the mold carefully, and there's your spray of fern, as graceful and perfect as if nature had done it all by herself. You get the very texture of the leaf by this process."
After that, Richard made casts instead of drawings for the carvers, and fancied he was doing a new thing, until he visited some marble-works in the great city.
At this period, whatever change subsequently took place in his feeling, Richard was desirous of establishing friendly relations with his cousin. The young fellow's sense of kinship was singularly strong, and it was only after several repulses at the door of the Shackford house and on the street that he relinquished the hope of placating the sour old man. At times Richard was moved almost to pity him. Every day Mr. Shackford seemed to grow shabbier and more spectral. He was a grotesque figure now, in his napless hat and broken-down stock. The metal button-holes on his ancient waistcoat had worn their way through the satin coverings, leaving here and there a sparse fringe around the edges, and somehow suggesting little bald heads. Looking at him, you felt that the inner man was as threadbare and dilapidated as his outside; but in his lonely old age he asked for no human sympathy or companionship, and, in fact, stood in no need of either. With one devouring passion he set the world at defiance. He loved his gold,--the metal itself, the weight an color and touch of it. In his bedroom on the ground-floor Mr. Shackford kept a small iron-clamped box filled to the lid with bright yellow coins. Often, at the dead of night, with door bolted and curtain down, he would spread out the glittering pieces on the table, and bend over them with an amorous glow in his faded eyes. These were his blond mistresses; he took a fearful joy in listening to their rustling, muffle laughter as he drew them towards him with eager hands. If at that instant a blind chanced to slam, or a footfall to echo in the lonely court, then the withered old sultan would hurry his slaves back into their iron-bound seraglio, and extinguish the light. It would have been a wasted tenderness to pity him. He was very happy in his own way, that Lemuel Shackford.
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"id": "5435"
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Towards the close of his second year with Mr. Slocum, Richard was assigned a work-room by himself, and relieved of his accountant's duties. His undivided energies were demanded by the carving department, which had proved a lucrative success.
The rear of the lot on which Mr. Slocum's house stood was shut off from the marble yard by a high brick wall pierced with a private door for Mr. Slocum's convenience. Over the kitchen in the extension, which reached within a few feet of the wall, was a disused chamber, approachable on the outside by a flight of steps leading to a veranda. To this room Richard and his traps were removed. With a round table standing in the center, with the plaster models arranged on shelves and sketches in pencil and crayon tacked against the whitewashed walls, the apartment was transformed into a delightful atelier. An open fire-place, with a brace of antiquated iron-dogs straddling the red brick hearth, gave the finishing touch. The occupant was in easy communication with the yard, from which the busy din of clinking chisels came musically to his ear, and was still beyond the reach of unnecessary interruption. Richard saw clearly all the advantages of this transfer, but he was far form having any intimation that he had made the most important move of his life.
The room had two doors: one opened on the veranda, and the other into a narrow hall connecting the extension with the main building. Frequently, that first week after taking possession, Richard detected the sweep of a broom and the rustle of drapery in this passage-way, the sound sometimes hushing itself quite close to the door, as if some one had paused a moment just outside. He wondered whether it was the servant-maid or Margaret Slocum, whom he knew very well by sight. It was, in fact, Margaret, who was dying with the curiosity of fourteen to peep into the studio, so carefully locked whenever the young man left it,--dying with curiosity to see the workshop, and standing in rather great awe of the workman.
In the home circle her father had a habit of speaking with deep respect of young Shackford's ability, and once she had seen him at their table,--at a Thanksgiving. On this occasion Richard had appalled her by the solemnity of his shyness,--poor Richard, who was so unused to the amenities of a handsomely served dinner, that the chill which came over him cooled the Thanksgiving turkey on his palate.
When it had been decided that he was to have the spare room for his workshop, Margaret, with womanly officiousness, had swept it and dusted it and demolished the cobwebs; but since then she had not been able to obtain so much as a glimpse of the interior. A ten minutes' sweeping had sufficed for the chamber, but the passage-way seemed in quite an irreclaimable state, judging by the number of times it was necessary to sweep it in the course of a few days. Now Margaret was not an unusual mixture of timidity and daring; so one morning, about a week after Richard was settled, she walked with quaking heart up to the door of the studio, and knocked as bold as brass.
Richard opened the door, and smiled pleasantly at Margaret standing on the threshold with an expression of demure defiance in her face. Did Mr. Shackford want anything more in the way of pans and pails for his plaster? No, Mr. Shackford had everything he required of the kind. But would not Miss Margaret walk in? Yes, she would step in for a moment, but with a good deal of indifference, though, giving an air of chance to her settled determination to examine that room from top to bottom.
Richard showed her his drawings and casts, and enlightened her on all the simple mysteries of the craft. Margaret, of whom he was a trifle afraid at first, amused him with her candor and sedateness, seeming now a mere child, and now an elderly person gravely inspecting matters. The frankness and simplicity were hers by nature, and the oldish ways--notably her self-possession, so quick to assert itself after an instant's forgetfulness--came perhaps of losing her mother in early childhood, and the premature duties which that misfortune entailed. She amused him, for she was only fourteen; but she impressed him also, for she was Mr. Slocum's daughter. Yet it was not her lightness, but her gravity, that made Richard smile to himself.
"I am not interrupting you?" she asked presently.
"Not in the least," said Richard. "I am waiting for these molds to harden. I cannot do anything until then."
"Papa says you are very clever," remarked Margaret, turning her wide black eyes full upon him. _"Are_ you?"
"Far from it," replied Richard, laughing to veil his confusion, "but I am glad your father thinks so."
"You should not be glad to have him think so," returned Margaret reprovingly, "if you are not clever. I suppose you are, though. Tell the truth, now."
"It is not fair to force a fellow into praising himself."
"You are trying to creep out!"
"Well, then, there are many cleverer persons than I in the world, and a few not so clever."
"That won't do," said Margaret positively.
"I don't understand what you mean by cleverness, Miss Margaret. There are a great many kinds and degrees. I can make fairly honest patterns for the men to work by; but I am not an artist, if you mean that."
"You are not an artist?"
"No; an artist creates, and I only copy, and that in a small way. Any one can learn to prepare casts; but to create a bust or a statue--that is to say, a fine one--a man must have genius."
"You have no genius?"
"Not a grain."
"I am sorry to hear that," said Margaret, with a disappointed look. "But perhaps it will come," she added encouragingly. "I have read that nearly all great artists and poets are almost always modest. They know better than anybody else how far they fall short of what they intend, and so they don't put on airs. You don't, either. I like that in you. May be you have genius without knowing it, Mr. Shackford."
"It is quite without knowing it, I assure you!" protested Richard, with suppressed merriment. "What an odd girl!" he thought. "She is actually talking to me like a mother!"
The twinkling light in the young man's eyes, or something that jarred in his manner, caused Margaret at once to withdraw into herself. She went silently about the room, examining the tools and patterns; then, nearing the door, suddenly dropped Richard a quaint little courtesy, and was gone.
This was the colorless beginning of a friendship that was destined speedily to be full of tender lights and shadows, and to flow on with unsuspected depth. For several days Richard saw nothing more of Margaret, and scarcely thought of her. The strangle little figure was fading out of his mind, when, one afternoon, it again appeared at his door. This time Margaret had left something of her sedateness behind; she struck Richard as being both less ripe and less immature than he had fancied; she interested rather than amused him. Perhaps he had been partially insulated by his own shyness on the first occasion, and had caught only a confused and inaccurate impression of Margaret's personality. She remained half an hour in the workshop, and at her departure omitted the formal courtesy.
After this, Margaret seldom let a week slip without tapping once or twice at the studio, at first with some pretext or other, and then with no pretense whatever. When Margaret had disburdened herself of excuses for dropping in to watch Richard mold his leaves and flowers, she came oftener, and Richard insensibly drifted into the habit of expecting her on certain days, and was disappointed when she failed to appear. His industry had saved him, until now, from discovering how solitary his life really was; for his life was as solitary--as solitary as that of Margaret, who lived in the great house with only her father, the two servants, and an episodical aunt. The mother was long ago dead; Margaret could not recollect when that gray headstone, with blotches of rusty-green moss breaking out over the lettering, was not in the churchyard; and there never had been any brothers or sisters.
To Margaret Richard's installation in the empty room, where as a child she had always been afraid to go, was the single important break she could remember in the monotony of her existence; and now a vague yearning for companionship, the blind sense of the plant reaching towards the sunshine, drew her there. The tacitly prescribed half hour often lengthened to an hour. Sometimes Margaret brought a book with her, or a piece of embroidery, and the two spoke scarcely ten words, Richard giving her a smile now and then, and she returning a sympathetic nod as the cast came out successfully.
Margaret at fifteen--she was fifteen now--was not a beauty. There is the loveliness of the bud and the loveliness of the full-blown flower; but Margaret as a blossom was not pretty. She was awkward and angular, with prominent shoulder-blades, and no soft curves anywhere in her slimness; only her black hair, growing low on the forehead, and her eyes were fine. Her profile, indeed, with the narrow forehead and the sensitive upper lip, might fairly have suggested the mask of Clytie which Richard had bought of an itinerant image-dealer, and fixed on a bracket over the mantel-shelf. But her eyes were her specialty, if one may say that. They were fringed with such heavy lashes that the girl seemed always to be in half-mourning. Her smile was singularly sweet and bright, perhaps because it broke through so much somber coloring.
If there was a latent spark of sentiment between Richard and Margaret in those earlier days, neither was conscious of it; they had seemingly begun where happy lovers generally end,--by being dear comrades. He liked to have Margaret sitting there, with her needle flashing in the sunlight, or her eyelashes making a rich gloom above the book as she read aloud. It was so agreeable to look up from his work, and not be alone. He had been alone so much. And Margaret found nothing in the world pleasanter than to sit there and watch Richard making his winter garden, as she called it. By and by it became her custom to pass every Saturday afternoon in that employment.
Margaret was not content to be merely a visitor; she took a housewifely care of the workshop, resolutely straightening out its chronic disorder at unexpected moments, and fighting the white dust that settled upon everything. The green-paper shade, which did not roll up very well, at the west window was of her devising. An empty camphor vial on Richard's desk had always a clove pink, or a pansy, or a rose, stuck into it, according to the season. She hid herself away and peeped out in a hundred feminine things in the room. Sometimes she was a bit of crochet-work left on a chair, and sometimes she was only a hair-pin, which Richard gravely picked up and put on the mantel-piece.
Mr. Slocum threw no obstacles in the path of this idyllic friendship; possibly he did not observe it. In his eyes Margaret was still a child,--a point of view that necessarily excluded any consideration of Richard. Perhaps, however, if Mr. Slocum could have assisted invisibly at a pretty little scene which took place in the studio, one day, some twelve or eighteen months after Margaret's first visit to it, he might have found food for reflection.
It was a Saturday afternoon. Margaret had come into the workshop with her sewing, as usual. The papers on the round table had been neatly cleared away, and Richard was standing by the window, indolently drumming on the glass with a palette-knife.
"Not at work this afternoon?"
"I was waiting for you."
"That is no excuse at all," said Margaret, sweeping across the room with a curious air of self-consciousness, and arranging her drapery with infinite pains as she seated herself.
Richard looked puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed, "Margaret, you have got on a long dress!"
"Yes," said Margaret, with dignity. "Do you like it,--the train?"
"That's a train?"
"Yes," said Margaret, standing up and glancing over her left shoulder at the soft folds of maroon-colored stuff, which, with a mysterious feminine movement of the foot, she caused to untwist itself and flow out gracefully behind her. There was really something very pretty in the hesitating lines of the tall, slender figure, as she leaned back that way. Certain unsuspected points emphasized themselves so cunningly.
"I never saw anything finer," declared Richard. "It was worth waiting for."
"But you shouldn't have waited," said Margaret, with a gratified flush, settling herself into the chair again. "It was understood that you were never to let me interfere with your work."
"You see you have, by being twenty minutes late. I've finished that acorn border for Stevens's capitals, and there's nothing more to do for the yard. I am going to make something for myself, and I want you to lend me a hand."
"How can I help you, Richard?" Margaret asked, promptly stopping the needle in the hem.
"I need a paper-weight to keep my sketches from being blown about, and I wish you literally to lend me a hand,--a hand to take a cast of."
"Really?"
"I think that little white claw would make a very neat paper-weight," said Richard.
Margaret gravely rolled up her sleeve to the elbow, and contemplated the hand and wrist critically.
"It is like a claw, isn't it. I think you can find something better than that."
"No; that is what I want, and nothing else. That, or no paper-weight for me."
"Very well, just as you choose. It will be a fright."
"The other hand, please."
"I gave you the left because I've a ring on this one."
"You can take off the ring, I suppose."
"Of course I can take it off."
"Well, then, do."
"Richard," said Margaret severely, "I hope you are not a fidget."
"A what?"
"A fuss, then,--a person who always wants everything some other way, and makes just twice as much trouble as anybody else."
"No, Margaret, I am not that. I prefer your right hand because the left is next to the heart, and the evaporation of the water in the plaster turns it as cold as snow. Your arm will be chilled to the shoulder. We don't want to do anything to hurt the good little heart, you know."
"Certainly not," said Margaret. "There!" and she rested her right arm on the table, while Richard placed the hand in the desired position on a fresh napkin which he had folded for the purpose.
"Let your hand lie flexible, please. Hold it naturally. Why do you stiffen the fingers so?"
"I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who ever does?"
After a minute the fingers relaxed, and settled of their own accord into an easy pose. Richard laid his hand softly on her wrist.
"Don't move now."
"I'll be as quiet as a mouse," said Margaret giving a sudden queer little glance at his face.
Richard emptied a paper of white powder into a great yellow bowl half filled with water and fell to stirring it vigorously, like a pastry-cook beating eggs. When the plaster was of the proper consistency he began building it up around the hand, pouring on a spoonful at a time, here and there, carefully. In a minute or two the inert white fingers were completely buried. Margaret made a comical grimace.
"Is it cold?"
"Ice," said Margaret, shutting her eyes involuntarily.
"If it is too disagreeable we can give it up," suggested Richard.
"No, don't touch it!" she cried, waving him back with her free arm. "I don't mind; but it's as cold as so much snow. How curious! What does it?"
"I suppose a scientific fellow could explain the matter to you easily enough. When the water evaporates a kind of congealing process sets in,--a sort of atmospheric change, don't you know? The sudden precipitation of the--the"-- "You're as good as Tyndall on Heat," said Margaret demurely.
"Oh, Tyndall is well enough in his way," returned Richard, "but of course he doesn't go into things so deeply as I do."
"The idea of telling me that 'a congealing process set in,' when I am nearly frozen to death!" cried Margaret, bowing her head over the imprisoned arm.
"Your unseemly levity, Margaret, makes it necessary for me to defer my remarks on natural phenomena until some more fitting occasion."
"Oh, Richard, don't let an atmospherical change come over _you!" _ "When you knocked at my door, months ago," said Richard, "I didn't dream you were such a satirical little piece, or may be you wouldn't have got in. You stood there as meek as Moses, with your frock reaching only to the tops of your boots. You were a deception, Margaret."
"I was dreadfully afraid of you, Richard."
"You are not afraid of me nowadays."
"Not a bit."
"You are showing your true colors. That long dress, too! I believe the train has turned your head."
"But just now you said you admired it."
"So I did, and do. It makes you look quite like a woman, though."
"I want to be a woman. I would like to be as old--as old as Mrs. Methuselah. Was there a Mrs. Methuselah?"
"I really forget," replied Richard, considering. "But there must have been. The old gentleman had time enough to have several. I believe, however, that history is rather silent about his domestic affairs."
"Well, then," said Margaret, after thinking it over, "I would like to be as old as the youngest Mrs. Methuselah."
"That was probably the last one," remarked Richard, with great profundity. "She was probably some giddy young thing of seventy or eighty. Those old widowers never take a wife of their own age. I shouldn't want you to be seventy, Margaret,--or even eighty."
"On the whole, perhaps, I shouldn't fancy it myself. Do you approve of persons marrying twice?"
"N--o, not at the same time."
"Of course I didn't mean that," said Margaret, with asperity. "How provoking you can be!"
"But they used to,--in the olden time, don't you know?"
"No, I don't."
Richard burst out laughing. "Imagine him," he cried,--"imagine Methuselah in his eight or nine hundredth year, dressed in his customary bridal suit, with a sprig of century-plant stuck in his button-hole!"
"Richard," said Margaret solemnly, "you shouldn't speak jestingly of a scriptural character."
At this Richard broke out again. "But gracious me!" he exclaimed, suddenly checking himself. "I am forgetting you all this while!"
Richard hurriedly reversed the mass of plaster on the table, and released Margaret's half-petrified fingers. They were shriveled and colorless with the cold.
"There isn't any feeling in it whatever," said Margaret, holding up her hand helplessly, like a wounded wing.
Richard took the fingers between his palms, and chafed them smartly for a moment or two to restore the suspended circulation.
"There, that will do," said Margaret, withdrawing her hand.
"Are you all right now?"
"Yes, thanks;" and then she added, smiling, "I suppose a scientific fellow could explain why my fingers seem to be full of hot pins and needles shooting in every direction."
"Tyndall's your man--Tyndall on Heat," answered Richard, with a laugh, turning to examine the result of his work. "The mold is perfect, Margaret. You were a good girl to keep so still."
Richard then proceeded to make the cast, which was soon placed on the window-ledge to harden in the sun. When the plaster was set, he cautiously chipped off the shell with a chisel, Margaret leaning over his shoulder to watch the operation,--and there was the little white claw, which ever after took such dainty care of his papers, and ultimately became so precious to him as a part of Margaret's very self that he would not have exchanged it for the Venus of Milo.
But as yet Richard was far enough from all that.
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{
"id": "5435"
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Three years glided by with Richard Shackford as swiftly as those periods of time which are imagined to elapse between the acts of a play. They were eventless, untroubled years, and have no history. Nevertheless, certain changes had taken place. Little by little Mr. Slocum had relinquished the supervision of the workshops to Richard, until now the affairs of the yard rested chiefly on his shoulders. It was like a dream to him when he looked directly back to his humble beginning, though as he reflected upon it, and retraced his progress step by step, he saw there was nothing illogical or astonishing in his good fortune. He had won it by downright hard work and the faithful exercise of a sufficing talent.
In his relations with Margaret, Richard's attitude had undergone no appreciable change. Her chance visits to the studio through the week and those pleasant, half-idle Saturday afternoons had become to both Richard and Margaret a matter of course, like the sunlight, or the air they breathed.
To Richard, Margaret Slocum at nineteen was simply a charming, frank girl,--a type of gracious young womanhood. He was conscious of her influence; he was very fond of Margaret; but she had not yet taken on for him that magic individuality which makes a woman the one woman in the world to her lover. Though Richard had scant experience in such matters, he was not wrong in accepting Margaret as the type of a class of New England girls, which, fortunately for New England, is not a small class. These young women for the most part lead quiet and restricted lives so far as the actualities are concerned, but very deep and full lives in the world of books and imagination, to which they make early escapes. They have the high instincts that come of good blood, the physique that naturally fits fine manners; and when chance takes one of these maidens from her island country home or from some sleepy town on the sea-board, and sets her amid the complications of city existence, she is an unabashed and unassuming lady. If in Paris, she differs from the Parisiennes only in the greater delicacy of her lithe beauty, her innocence which is not ignorance, and her French pronunciation; if in London, she differs from English girls only in the matter of rosy cheeks and the rising inflection. Should none of these fortunate transplantings befall her, she always merits them by adorning with grace and industry and intelligence the narrower sphere to which destiny has assigned her.
Destiny had assigned Margaret Slocum to a very narrow sphere; it had shut her up in an obscure New England manufacturing village, with no society, strictly speaking, and no outlets whatever to large experiences. To her father's affection, Richard's friendship, and her household duties she was forced to look for her happiness. If life held wider possibilities for her, she had not dreamed of them. She looked up to Richard with respect,--perhaps with a dash of sentiment in the respect; there was something at once gentle and virile in his character which she admired and leaned upon; in his presence the small housekeeping troubles always slipped from her; but her heart, to use a pretty French phrase, had not consciously spoken,--possibly it had murmured a little, incoherently, to itself, but it had not spoken out aloud, as perhaps it would have done long ago if an impediment had been placed in the way of their intimacy. With all her subtler intuitions, Margaret was as far as Richard from suspecting the strength and direction of the current with which they were drifting. Freedom, habit, and the nature of their environment conspired to prolong this mutual lack of perception. The hour had sounded, however, when these two were to see each other in a different light.
One Monday morning in March, at the close of the three years in question, as Richard mounted the outside staircase leading to his studio in the extension, the servant-maid beckoned to him from the kitchen window.
Margaret had failed to come to the studio the previous Saturday afternoon. Richard had worked at cross-purposes and returned to his boarding-house vaguely dissatisfied, as always happened to him on those rare occasions when she missed the appointment; but he had thought little of the circumstance. Nor had he been disturbed on Sunday at seeing the Slocum pew vacant during both services. The heavy snow-storm which had begun the night before accounted for at least Margaret's absence.
"Mr. Slocum told me to tell you that he shouldn't be in the yard to-day," said the girl. "Miss Margaret is very ill."
"Ill!" Richard repeated, and the smile with which he had leaned over the rail towards the window went out instantly on his lip.
"Dr. Weld was up with her until five o'clock this morning," said the girl, fingering the corner of her apron. "She's that low."
"What is the matter?"
"It's a fever."
"What kind of fever?"
"I don't mind me what the doctor called it. He thinks it come from something wrong with the drains."
"He didn't say typhoid?"
"Yes, that's the name of it."
Richard ascended the stairs with a slow step, and a moment afterwards stood stupidly in the middle of the workshop. "Margaret is going to die," he said to himself, giving voice to the dark foreboding that had instantly seized upon him, and in a swift vision he saw the end of all that simple, fortunate existence which he had lived without once reflecting it could ever end. He mechanically picked up a tool from the table, and laid it down again. Then he seated himself on the low bench between the windows. It was Margaret's favorite place; it was not four days since she sat there reading to him. Already it appeared long ago,--years and years ago. He could hardly remember when he did not have this heavy weight on his heart. His life of yesterday abruptly presented itself to him as a reminiscence; he saw now how happy that life had been, and how lightly he had accepted it. It took to itself all that precious quality of things irrevocably lost.
The clamor of the bell in the South Church striking noon, and the shrilling of the steam-whistle softened by the thick-falling snow, roused Richard from his abstraction. He was surprised that it was noon. He rose from the bench and went home through the storm, scarcely heeding the sleet that snapped in his face like whip-lashes. Margaret was going to die!
For four or five weeks the world was nearly a blank to Richard Shackford. The insidious fever that came and went, bringing alternate despair and hope to the watchers in the hushed room, was in his veins also. He passed the days between his lonely lodgings in Lime Street and the studio, doing nothing, restless and apathetic by turns, but with always a poignant sense of anxiety. He ceased to take any distinct measurement of time further than to note that an interval of months seemed to separate Monday from Monday. Meanwhile, if new patterns had been required by the men, the work in the carving departments would have come to a dead lock.
At length the shadow lifted, and there fell a day of soft May weather when Margaret, muffled in shawls and as white as death, was seated once more in her accustomed corner by the west window. She had insisted on being brought there the first practicable moment; nowhere else in the house was such sunshine, and Mr. Slocum himself had brought her in his arms. She leaned back against the pillows, smiling faintly. Her fingers lay locked on her lap, and the sunlight showed through the narrow transparent palace. It was as if her hands were full of blush-roses.
Richard breathed again, but not with so free a heart as before. What if she had died? He felt an immense pity for himself when he thought of that, and he thought of it continually as the days wore on.
Either a great alteration had wrought itself in Margaret, or Richard beheld her through a clearer medium during the weeks of convalescence that followed. Was this the slight, sharp-faced girl he used to know? The eyes and the hair were the same; but the smile was deeper, and the pliant figure had lost its extreme slimness without a sacrifice to its delicacy. The spring air was filling her veins with abundant health, and mantling her cheeks with a richer duskiness than they had ever worn. Margaret was positively handsome. Her beauty had come all in a single morning, like the crocuses. This beauty began to awe Richard; it had the effect of seeming to remove her further and further from him. He grew moody and restless when they were together, and was wretched alone. His constraint did not escape Margaret. She watched him, and wondered at his inexplicable depression when every one in the household was rejoicing in her recovery. By and by this depression wounded her, but she was too spirited to show the hurt. She always brought a book with her now, in her visits to the studio; it was less awkward to read than to sit silent and unspoken to over a piece of needle-work.
"How very odd you are!" said Margaret, one afternoon, closing the volume which she had held mutely for several minutes, waiting for Richard to grasp the fact that she was reading aloud.
"I odd!" protested Richard, breaking with a jerk from one of his long reveries. "In what way?"
"As if I could explain--when you put the quotation suddenly, like that."
"I didn't intend to be abrupt. I was curious to know. And then the charge itself was a trifle unexpected, if you will look at it. But never mind," he added with a smile; "think it over, and tell me to-morrow."
"No, I will tell you now, since you are willing to wait."
"I wasn't really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't pretend to be I should never get it out of you."
"Very well, then; your duplicity is successful. Richard, I was puzzled where to begin with your oddities."
"Begin at the beginning."
"No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable enough to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to her. That is a deference you owe to the author, when it happens to be Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady."
"But I _have_ been listening, Margaret. Every word!"
"Where did I leave off?"
"It was where--where the"--and Richard knitted his brows in the vain effort to remember--"where the young daguerreotypist, what's-his-name, took up his residence in the House of the Seven Gables."
"No, sir! You stand convicted. It was ten pages further on. The last words were,"--and Margaret read from the book,-- "'Good-night, cousin,' said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepsibah's manner. 'If you being to love me, I am glad.'"
"There, sir! what do you say to that?"
Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and shot a rapid glance at Margaret coolly enjoying her triumph.
"In the next place," she continued soberly, after a pause, "I think it very odd in you not to reply to me,--oh, not now, for of course you are without a word of justification; but at other times. Frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so," making a vacant little face, "and then suddenly disappear,--I don't mean bodily, but mentally."
"I am no great talker at best," said Richard with a helpless air. "I seldom speak unless I have something to say."
"But other people do. I, for instance."
"Oh, you, Margaret; that is different. When you talk I don't much mind what you are talking about."
"I like a neat, delicate compliment like that!"
"What a perverse girl you are to-day!" cried Richard. "You won't understand me. I mean that your words and your voice are so pleasant they make anything interesting, whether it's important or not."
"If no one were to speak until he had something important to communicate," observed Margaret, "conversation in this world would come to a general stop." Then she added, with a little ironical smile, "Even you, Richard, wouldn't be talking all the time."
Formerly Margaret's light sarcasms, even when the struck him point-blank, used to amuse Richard, but now he winced at being merely grazed.
Margaret went on: "But it's not a bit necessary to be circular or instructive--with me. I am interested in trivial matters,--in the weather, in my spring hat, in what you are going to do next, and the like. One must occupy one's self with something. But you, Richard, nowadays you seem interested in nothing, and have nothing whatever to say."
Poor Richard! He had a great deal to say, but he did not know how, nor if it were wise to breathe it. Just three little words, murmured or whispered, and the whole conditions would be changed. With those fateful words uttered, what would be Margaret's probable attitude, and what Mr. Slocum's? Though the line which formerly drew itself between employer and employee had grown faint with time, it still existed in Richard's mind, and now came to the surface with great distinctness, like a word written in sympathetic ink. If he spoke, and Margaret was startled or offended, then there was an end to their free, unembarrassed intercourse,--perhaps an end to all intercourse. By keeping his secret in his breast he at least secured the present. But that was to risk everything. Any day somebody might come and carry Margaret off under his very eyes. As he reflected on this, the shadow of John Dana, the son of the rich iron-manufacturer, etched itself sharply upon Richard's imagination. Within the week young Dana had declared in the presence of Richard that "Margaret Slocum was an awfully nice little thing," and the Othello in Richard's blood had been set seething. Then his thought glanced from John Dana to Mr. Pinkham and the Rev. Arthur Langly, both of whom were assiduous visitors at the house. The former had lately taken to accompanying Margaret on the piano with his dismal little flute, and the latter was perpetually making a moth of himself about her class at Sunday-school.
Richard stood with the edge of his chisel resting idly upon the plaster mold in front of him, pondering these things. Presently he heard Margaret's voice, as if somewhere in the distance, saying,-- "I have not finished yet, Richard."
"Go on," said Richard, falling to work again with a kind of galvanic action. "Go on, please."
"I have a serious grievance. Frankly, I am hurt by your preoccupation and indifference, your want of openness or cordiality,--I don't know how to name it. You are the only person who seems to be unaware that I escaped a great danger a month ago. I am obliged to remember all the agreeable hours I have spent in the studio to keep off the impression that during my illness you got used to not seeing me, and that now my presence somehow obstructs your work and annoys you."
Richard threw his chisel on the bench, and crossed over to the window where Margaret was.
"You are as wrong as you can be," he said, looking down on her half-lifted face, from which a quick wave of color was subsiding; for the abruptness of Richard's movement had startled her.
"I am glad if I am wrong."
"It is nearly an unforgivable thing to be as wide of the mark as you are. Oh, Margaret, if you had died that time!"
"You would have been very sorry?"
"Sorry? No. That doesn't express it; one outlives mere sorrow. If anything had happened to you, I should never have got over it. You don't know what those five weeks were to me. It was a kind of death to come to this room day after day, and not find you."
Margaret rested her eyes thoughtfully on the space occupied by Richard rather than on Richard himself, seeming to look through and beyond him, as if he were incorporeal.
"You missed me like that?" she said slowly.
"I missed you like that."
Margaret meditated a moment. "In the first days of my illness I wondered if you didn't miss me a little; afterwards everything was confused in my mind. When I tried to think, I seemed to be somebody else,--I seemed to be _you_ waiting for me here in the studio. Wasn't that singular? But when I recovered, and returned to my old place, I began to suspect I had been bearing your anxiety,--that I had been distressed by the absence to which you had grown accustomed."
"I never got used to it, Margaret. It became more and more unendurable. This workshop was full of--of your absence. There wasn't a sketch or a cast or an object in the room that didn't remind me of you, and seem to mock at me for having let the most precious moments of my life slip away unheeded. That bit of geranium in the glass yonder seemed to say with its dying breath, 'You have cared for neither of us as you ought to have cared; my scent and her goodness have been all one to you,--things to take or to leave. It was for no merit of yours that she was always planning something to make life smoother and brighter for you. What had you done to deserve it? How unselfish and generous and good she has been to you for years and years! What would have become of you without her? She left me here on purpose'--it's the geranium leaf that is speaking all the while, Margaret--'to say this to you, and to tell you that she was not half appreciated; but now you have lost her.'"
As she leaned forward listening, with her lips slightly parted, Margaret gave an unconscious little approbative nod of the head. Richard's fanciful accusation of himself caused her a singular thrill of pleasure. He had never before spoken to her in just this fashion; the subterfuge which his tenderness had employed, the little detour it had made in order to get at her, was a novel species of flattery. She recognized the ring of a distinctly new note in his voice; but, strangely enough, the note lost its unfamiliarity in an instant. Margaret recognized that fact also, and as she swiftly speculate on the phenomenon her pulse went one or two strokes faster.
"Oh, you poor boy!" she said, looking up with a laugh, and a flush so interfused that they seemed one, "that geranium took a great deal upon itself. It went quite beyond its instructions, which were simply to remind you of me now and then. One day, while you were out,--the day before I was taken ill,--I placed the flowers on the desk there, perhaps with a kind of premonition that I was going away from you for a time."
"What if you had never come back?"
"I wouldn't think of that if I were you," said Margaret softly.
"But it haunts me,--that thought. Sometimes of a morning, after I unlock the workshop door, I stand hesitating, with my hand on the latch, as one might hesitate a few seconds before stepping into a tomb. There were days last month, Margaret, when this chamber did appear to me like a tomb. All that was happy in my past seemed to lie buried here; it was something visible and tangible; I used to steal in and look upon it."
"Oh, Richard!"
"If you only knew what a life I led as a boy in my cousin's house, and what a doleful existence for years afterwards, until I found you, perhaps you would understand my despair when I saw everything suddenly slipping away from me. Margaret! the day your father brought you in here, I had all I could do not to kneel down at your feet"--Richard stopped short. "I didn't mean to tell you that," he added, turning towards the work-table. Then he checked himself, and came and stood in front of her again. He had gone too far not to go further. "While you were ill I made a great discovery."
"What was that, Richard?"
"I discovered that I had been blind for two or three years."
"Blind?" repeated Margaret.
"Stone-blind. I discovered it by suddenly seeing--by seeing that I had loved you all the while, Margaret! Are you offended?"
"No," said Margaret, slowly; she was a moment finding her voice to say it. "I--ought I to be offended?"
"Not if you are not!" said Richard.
"Then I am not. I--I've made little discoveries myself," murmured Margaret, going into full mourning with her eyelashes.
But it was only for an instant. She refused to take her happiness shyly or insincerely; it was something too sacred. She was a trifle appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that past month, and she had diligently disciplined herself to accept Richard's friendship, since it seemed all he had to give. Indeed, it had seemed at times as if he had not even that.
When Margaret lifted her eyes to him, a second after her confession, they were full of a sweet seriousness, and she had no thought of withdrawing the hands which Richard had taken, and was holding lightly, that she might withdraw them if she willed. She felt no impulse to do so, though as Margaret looked up she saw her father standing a few paces behind Richard.
With an occult sense of another presence in the room, Richard, turned at the same instant.
Mr. Slocum had advanced two steps into the apartment, and had been brought to a dead halt by the surprising tableau in the embrasure of the window. He stood motionless, with an account-book under his arm, while a dozen expressions chased each other over his countenance.
"Mr. Slocum," said Richard, who saw that only one course lay open to him, "I love Margaret, and I have been telling her."
At that the flitting shadows on Mr. Slocum's face settled into one grave look. He did not reply immediately, but let his glance wander from Margaret to Richard, and back again to Margaret, slowly digesting the fact. It was evident he had not relished it. Meanwhile the girl had risen from the chair and was moving towards her father.
"This strikes me as very extraordinary," he said at last. "You have never given any intimation that such a feeling existed. How long has this been going on?"
"I have always been fond of Margaret, sir; but I was not aware of the strength of the attachment until the time of her illness, when I--that is, we--came near to losing her."
"And you, Margaret?"
As Mr. Slocum spoke he instinctively put one arm around Margaret, who had crept closely to his side.
"I don't know when I began to love Richard," said Margaret simply.
"You don't know!"
"Perhaps it was while I was ill; perhaps it was long before that; may be my liking for him commenced as far back as the time he made the cast of my hand. How can I tell, papa? I don't know."
"There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance here!"
Margaret bit her lip, and kept still. Her father was taking it a great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long, awkward silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking uneasily, "Nothing has been or was to be concealed from you. Before going to sleep to-night, Margaret would have told you all I've said to her."
"You should have consulted with me before saying anything."
"I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope you will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret, though I see as plainly as you do that I am not worthy of her."
"I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely different ground. Margaret is too young. A girl of seventeen or eighteen"-- "Nineteen," said Margaret, parenthetically.
"Of nineteen, then,--has no business to bother her head with such matters. Only yesterday she was a child!"
Richard glanced across at Margaret, and endeavored to recall her as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked defiantly at the workshop door to inquire if he wanted any pans and pails; but he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude little figure with the glossy black head, all eyes and beak, like a young hawk's.
"My objection is impersonal," continued Mr. Slocum. "I object to the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have disliked it--years hence; I don't say; but I dislike it now."
Richard's face brightened. "It will be years hence in a few years!"
Mr. Slocum replied with a slow, grave smile, "I am not going to be unreasonable in a matter where I find Margaret's happiness concerned; and yours, Richard, I care for that, too; but I'll have no entanglements. You and she are to be good friends, and nothing beyond. I prefer that Margaret should not come to the studio so often; you shall see her whenever you like at our fireside, of an evening. I don't think the conditions hard."
Mr. Slocum had dictated terms, but it was virtually a surrender. Margaret listened to him with her cheek resting against his arm, and a warm light nestled down deep under her eyelids.
Mr. Slocum drew a half-pathetic sigh. "I presume I have not done wisely. Every one bullies me. The Marble Workers' Association ruins my yard for me, and now my daughter is taken off my hands. By the way, Richard," he said, interrupting himself brusquely, and with an air of dismissing the subject, "I forgot what I came for. I've been thinking over Torrini's case, and have concluded that you had better make up his account and discharge him."
"Certainly, sir," replied Richard, with a shadow of dissent in his manner, "if you wish it."
"He causes a deal of trouble in the yard."
"I am afraid he does. Such a clean workman when he's sober!"
"But he is never sober."
"He has been in a bad way lately, I admit."
"His example demoralizes the men. I can see it day by day."
"I wish he were not so necessary at this moment," observed Richard. "I don't know who else could be trusted with the frieze for the Soldiers' Monument. I'd like to keep him on a week or ten days longer. Suppose I have a plain talk with Torrini?"
"Surely we have enough good hands to stand the loss of one."
"For a special kind of work there is nobody in the yard like Torrini. That is one reason why I want to hold on to him for a while, and there are other reasons."
"Such as what?"
"Well, I think it would not be wholly politic to break with him just now."
"Why not now as well as any time?"
"He has lately been elected secretary of the Association."
"What of that?"
"He has a great deal of influence there."
"If we put him out of the works it seems to me he would lose his importance, if he really has any to speak of."
"You are mistaken if you doubt it. His position gives him a chance to do much mischief, and he would avail himself of it very adroitly, if he had a personal grievance."
"I believe you are actually afraid of the fellow."
Richard smiled. "No, I am not afraid of him, but I don't underrate him. The men look up to Torrini as a sort of leader; he's an effective speaker, and knows very well how to fan a dissatisfaction. Either he or some other disturbing element has recently been at work among the men. There's considerable grumbling in the yard."
"They are always grumbling, aren't they?"
"Most always, but this is more serious than usual; there appears to be a general stir among the trades in the village. I don't understand it clearly. The marble workers have been holding secret meetings."
"They mean business, you think?"
"They mean increased wages, perhaps."
"But we are now paying from five to ten per cent more than any trade in the place. What are they after?"
"So far as I can gather, sir, the finishers and the slab-sawers want an advance,--I don't know how much. Then there's some talk about having the yard closed an hour earlier on Saturdays. All this is merely rumor; but I am sure there is something in it."
"Confound the whole lot! If we can't discharge a drunken hand without raising the pay of all the rest, we had better turn over the entire business to the Association. But do as you like, Richard. You see how I am bullied, Margaret. He runs everything! Come, dear."
And Mr. Slocum quitted the workshop, taking Margaret with him. Richard remained standing awhile by the table, in a deep study, with his eyes fixed on the floor. He thought of his early days in the sepulchral house in Welch's Court, of his wanderings abroad, his long years of toil since then, and this sudden blissful love that had come to him, and Mr. Slocum's generosity. Then he thought of Torrini, and went down into the yard gently to admonish the man, for Richard's heart that hour was full of kindness for all the world.
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In spite of Mr. Slocum's stipulations respecting the frequency of Margaret's visits to the studio, she was free to come and go as she liked. It was easy for him to say, Be good friends, and nothing beyond; but after that day in the workshop it was impossible for Richard and Margaret to be anything but lovers. The hollowness of pretending otherwise was clear even to Mr. Slocum. In the love of a father for a daughter there is always a vague jealousy which refuses to render a coherent explanation of itself. Mr. Slocum did not escape this, but he managed, nevertheless, to accept the inevitable with very fair grace, and presently to confess to himself that the occurrence which had at first taken him aback was the most natural in the world. That Margaret and Richard, thrown together as they had been, should end by falling in love with each other was not a result to justify much surprise. Indeed, there was a special propriety in their doing so. The Shackfords had always been reputable people in the village,--down to Lemuel Shackford, who of course as an old musk-rat. The family attributes of amiability and honesty had skipped him, but they had reappeared in Richard. It was through his foresight and personal energy that the most lucrative branch of the trade had been established. His services entitled him to a future interest in the business, and Mr. Slocum had intended he should have it. Mr. Slocum had not dreamed of throwing in Margaret also; but since that addition had suggested itself, it seemed to him one of the happy features of the arrangement. Richard would thus be doubly identified with the yard, to which, in fact, he had become more necessary than Mr. Slocum himself.
"He has more backbone with the men than I have," acknowledged Mr. Slocum. "He knows how to manage them, and I don't."
As soft as Slocum was a Stillwater proverb. Richard certainly had plenty of backbone; it was his only capital. In Mr. Slocum's estimation it was sufficient capital. But Lemuel Shackford was a very rich man, and Mr. Slocum could not avoid seeing that it would be decent in Richard's only surviving relative if, at this juncture, he were to display a little interest in the young fellow's welfare.
"If he would only offer to advance a few thousand dollars for Richard," said Mr. Slocum, one evening, to Margaret, with whom he had been talking over the future--"the property must all come to him some time,--it would be a vast satisfaction to me to tell the old man that we can get along without any of his ill-gotten gains. He made the bulk of his fortune during the war, you know. The old sea-serpent," continued Mr. Slocum, with hopeless confusion of metaphor, "had a hand in fitting out more than one blockade-runner. They used to talk of a ship that got away from Charleston with a cargo of cotton that netted the share-holders upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. He denies it now, but everybody knows Shackford. He'd betray his country for fifty cents in postage-stamps."
"Oh, papa! you are too hard on him."
In words dropped cursorily from time to time, Margaret imparted to Richard the substance of her father's speech, and it set Richard reflecting. It was not among the probabilities that Lemuel Shackford would advance a dollar to establish Richard, but if he could induce his cousin even to take the matter into consideration, Richard felt that it would be a kind of moral support to him circumstanced as he was. His pride revolted at the idea of coming quite unbacked and disowned, as well as empty-handed, to Mr. Slocum.
For the last twelve months there had been a cessation of ordinary courtesies between the two cousins. They now passed each other on the street without recognition. A year previously Mr. Shackford had fallen ill, and Richard, aware of the inefficient domestic arrangements in Welch's Court, had gone to the house out of sheer pity. The old man was in bed, and weak with fever, but at seeing Richard he managed to raise himself on one elbow.
"Oh, it's you!" he exclaimed, mockingly. "When a rich man is sick the anxious heirs crowd around him; but they're twice as honestly anxious when he is perfectly well."
"I came to see if I could do anything for you!" cried Richard, with a ferocious glare, and in a tone that went curiously with his words, and shook to the foundations his character of Good Samaritan.
"The only thing you can do for me is to go away."
"I'll do that with pleasure," retorted Richard bitterly.
And Richard went, vowing he would never set foot across the threshold again. He could not help having ugly thoughts. Why should all the efforts to bring about a reconciliation and all the forbearance be on his side? Thenceforth the crabbed old man might go to perdition if he wanted to.
And now here was Richard meditating a visit to that same house to beg a favor!
Nothing but his love for Margaret could have dragged him to such a banquet of humble-pie as he knew was spread for his delectation, the morning he passed up the main street of Stillwater and turned into Welch's Court.
As Richard laid his hand on the latch of the gate, Mr. Shackford, who was digging in the front garden, looked up and saw him. Without paying any heed to Richard's amicable salutation, the old man left the shovel sticking in the sod, and walked stiffly into the house. At another moment this would have amused Richard, but now he gravely followed his kinsman, and overtook him at the foot of the staircase.
"Cousin Shackford, can you spare me five or ten minutes?"
"Don't know as I can," said Mr. Shackford, with one foot on the lower stair. "Time is valuable. What do you want? You want something."
"Certainly, or I wouldn't think of trespassing on your time."
"Has Slocum thrown you over?" inquired the old man, turning quickly. A straw which he held between his thin lips helped to give him a singularly alert expression.
"No; Mr. Slocum and I agree the best in the world. I want to talk with you briefly on certain matters; I want to be on decent terms with you, if you will let me."
"Decent terms means money, doesn't it?" asked Mr. Shackford, with a face as wary and lean as a shark's.
"I do wish to talk about money, among other things," returned Richard, whom this brutal directness disconcerted a little,--"money on satisfactory security."
"You can get it anywhere with that."
"So I might, and be asking no favor; but I would rather get it of you, and consider it an obligation."
"I would rather you wouldn't."
"Listen to me a moment."
"Well, I'm listening."
Mr. Shackford stood in an attitude of attention, with his head canted on one side, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and the straw between his teeth tilted up at an angle of forty degrees.
"I have, as you know, worked my way in the marble yard to the position of general manager," began Richard.
"I didn't know," said Mr. Shackford, "but I understand. You're a sort of head grave-stone maker."
"That is taking a rather gloomy view of it," said Richard, "but no matter. The point is, I hold a responsible position, and I now have a chance to purchase a share in the works."
"Slocum is willing to take you in, eh?"
"Yes."
"Then the concern is hit."
"Hit?"
"Slocum is going into bankruptcy."
"You are wrong there. The yard was never so prosperous; the coming year we shall coin money like a mint."
"You ought to know," said Mr. Shackford, ruminatively. "A thing as good as a mint must be a good thing."
"If I were a partner in the business, I could marry Margaret."
"Who's Margaret?"
"Mr. Slocum's daughter."
"That's where the wind is! Now how much capital would it take to do all that?" inquired Mr. Shackford, with an air of affable speculation.
"Three or four thousand dollars,--perhaps less."
"Well, I wouldn't give three or four cents to have you marry Slocum's daughter. Richard, you can't pull any chestnuts out of the fire with my paw."
Mr. Shackford's interrogation and his more than usual conciliatory manner had lighted a hope which Richard had not brought with him. Its sudden extinguishment was in consequence doubly aggravating.
"Slocum's daughter!" repeated Mr. Shackford. "I'd as soon you would marry Crazy Nan up at the work-house."
The association of Crazy Nan with Margaret sent a red flush into Richard's cheek. He turned angrily towards the door, and then halted, recollecting the resolve he had made not to lose his temper, come what would. If the interview was to end there it had better not have taken place.
"I had no expectation that you would assist me pecuniarily," said Richard, after a moment. "Let us drop the money question; it shouldn't have come up between us. I want you to aid me, not by lending me money, but by giving me your countenance as the head of the family,--by showing a natural interest in my affairs, and seeming disposed to promote them."
"By just seeming?"
"That is really all I desire. If you were to propose to put capital into the concern, Mr. Slocum would refuse it."
"Slocum would refuse it! Why in the devil should he refuse it?"
"Because"--Richard hesitated, finding himself unexpectedly on delicate ground--"because he would not care to enter into business relations with you, under the circumstances."
Mr. Shackford removed the straw from his mouth, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger peered steadily through his half-closed eyelids at Richard.
"I don't understand you."
"The dispute you had long ago, over the piece of meadow land behind the marble yard. Mr. Slocum felt that you bore on him rather heavily in that matter, and has not quite forgiven you for forcing him to rebuild the sheds."
"Bother Slocum and his sheds! I understand him. What I don't understand is _you_. I am to offer Slocum three or four thousand dollars to set you up, and he is to decline to take it. Is that it?"
"That is not it at all," returned Richard. "My statement was this: If you were to propose purchasing a share for me in the works, Mr. Slocum would not entertain the proposition, thinking--as I don't think--that he would mortify you by the refusal of your money."
"The only way Slocum could mortify me would be by getting hold of it. But what are you driving at, anyhow? In one breath you demand several thousand dollars, and in the next breath you tell me that nobody expects it, or wants it, or could be induced to have it on any terms. Perhaps you will inform me what you are here for?"
"That is what you will never discover!" cried Richard. "It is not in you to comprehend the ties of sympathy that ought to hold between two persons situated as we are. In most families this sympathy binds closely at times,--at christenings, or burials, or when some member is about to take an important step in life. Generally speaking, blood is thicker than water; but your blood, cousin Shackford, seems to be a good deal thinner. I came here to consult with you as my sole remaining kinsman, as one authorized by years and position to give me wise counsel and kindly encouragement at the turning point in my fortune. I didn't wish to go among those people like a tramp, with neither kith nor kin to say a word for me. Of course you don't understand that. How should you? A sentiment of that kind is something quite beyond your conception."
Richard's words went into one ear and out the other, without seeming for an instant to arrest Mr. Shackford's attention. The idea of Slocum not accepting money--anybody's money--presented itself to Mr. Shackford in so facetious a light as nearly to throw him into good humor. His foot was on the first step of the staircase, which he now began slowly to mount, giving vent, as he ascended, to a series of indescribable chuckles. At the top of the landing he halted, and leaned over the rail.
"To think of Slocum refusing,--that's a good one!"
In the midst of his jocularity a sudden thought seemed to strike Mr. Shackford; his features underwent a swift transformation, and as he grasped the rail in front of him with both hands a malicious cunning writhed and squirmed in every wrinkle of his face.
"Sir!" he shrieked, "it was a trap! Slocum would have taken it! If I had been ass enough to make any such offer, he would have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? You're a pair of rascals!"
Richard staggered back, bewildered and blinded, as if he had received a blow in the eyes.
"No," continued Mr. Shackford, with a gesture of intense contempt, "you are less than rascals. You are fools. A rascal has to have brains!"
"You shameless old man!" cried Richard, as soon as he could get his voice.
To do Mr. Shackford justice, he was thoroughly convinced that Richard had lent himself to a preposterous attempt to obtain money from him. The absence of ordinary shrewdness in the method stamped it at once as belonging to Slocum, of whose mental calibre Mr. Shackford entertained no flattering estimate.
"Slocum!" he muttered, grinding the word between his teeth. "Family ties!" he cried, hurling the words scornfully over the banister as he disappeared into one of the upper chambers.
Richard stood with one hand on the newel-post, white at the lip with rage. For a second he had a wild impulse to spring up the staircase, but, controlling this, he turned and hurried out of the house.
At the gate he brushed roughly against a girl, who halted and stared. It was a strange thing to see Mr. Richard Shackford, who always had a pleasant word for a body, go by in that blind, excited fashion, striking one fist into the palm of the other hand, and talking to his own self! Mary Hennessey watched him until he wheeled out of Welch's Court, and then picking up her basket, which she had rested on the fence, went her way.
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At the main entrance to the marble works Richard nearly walked over a man who was coming out, intently mopping his forehead with a very dirty calico handkerchief. It was an English stone-dresser named Denyven. Richard did not recognize him at first.
"That you, Denyven! ... what has happened!"
"I've 'ad a bit of a scrimmage, sir."
"A scrimmage in the yard, in work hours!"
The man nodded.
"With whom?"
"Torrini, sir,--he's awful bad this day."
"Torrini,--it is always Torrini! It seems odd that one man should be everlastingly at the bottom of everything wrong. How did it happen? Give it to me straight, Denyven; I don't want a crooked story. This thing has got to stop in Slocum's Yard."
"The way of it was this, sir: Torrini wasn't at the shop this morning. He 'ad a day off."
"I know."
"But about one o'clock, sir, he come in the yard. He 'ad been at the public 'ouse, sir, and he was hummin'. First he went among the carvers, talking Hitalian to 'em and making 'em laugh, though he was in a precious bad humor hisself. By and by he come over to where me and my mates was, and began chaffin' us, which we didn't mind it, seeing he was 'eavy in the 'ead. He was as clear as a fog 'orn all the same. But when he took to banging the tools on the blocks, I sings out, ''Ands off!' and then he fetched me a clip. I was never looking for nothing less than that he'd hit me. I was a smiling at the hinstant."
"He must be drunker than usual."
"Hevidently, sir. I went down between two slabs as soft as you please. When I got on my pins, I was for choking him a bit, but my mates hauled us apart. That's the 'ole of it, sir. They'll tell you the same within."
"Are you hurt, Denyven?"
"Only a bit of a scratch over the heye, sir,--and the nose," and the man began mopping his brow tenderly. "I'd like to 'ave that Hitalian for about ten minutes, some day when he's sober, over yonder on the green."
"I'm afraid he would make the ten minutes seem long to you."
"Well, sir, I'd willingly let him try his 'and."
"How is it, Denyven," said Richard, "that you and sensible workingmen like you, have permitted such a quarrelsome and irresponsible fellow to become a leader in the Association? He's secretary, or something, isn't he?"
"Well, sir, he writes an uncommonly clean fist, and then he's a born horator. He's up to all the parli'mentary dodges. Must 'ave 'ad no end of hexperience in them sort of things on the other side."
"No doubt,--and that accounts for him being over here."
"As for horganizing a meeting, sir"-- "I know. Torrini has a great deal of that kind of ability; perhaps a trifle too much for his own good or anybody else's. There was never any trouble to speak of among the trades in Stillwater till he and two or three others came here with foreign grievances. These men get three times the pay they ever received in their own land, and are treated like human beings for the first time in their lives. But what do they do? They squander a quarter of their week's wages at the tavern,--no rich man could afford to put a fourth of his income into drink,--and make windy speeches at the Union. I don't say all of them, but too many of them. The other night, I understand, Torrini compared Mr. Slocum to Nero,--Mr. Slocum, the fairest and gentlest man that ever breathed! What rubbish!"
"It wasn't just that way, sir. His words was, and I 'eard him,--'from Nero down to Slocum.'"
"It amounts to the same thing, and is enough to make one laugh, if he didn't make one want to swear. I hear that that was a very lively meeting the other night. What was that nonsense about 'the privileged class'?"
"Well, there is a privileged class in the States."
"So there is, but it's a large class, Denyven. Every soul of us has the privilege of bettering out condition if we have the brain and the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to the front, and have the right to be there. A skillful workman gets double the pay of a bungler, and deserves it. Of course there will always be rich and poor, and sick and sound, and I don't see how that can be changed. But no door is shut against ability, black or white. Before the year 2400 we shall have a chrome-yellow president and a black-and-tan secretary of the treasury. But, seriously, Denyven, whoever talks about privileged classes here does it to make mischief. There are certain small politicians who reap their harvest in times of public confusion, just as pickpockets do. Nobody can play the tyrant or the bully in this country,--not even a workingman. Here's the Association dead against an employer who, two years ago, ran his yard full-handed for a twelvemonth at a loss, rather than shut down, as every other mill and factory in Stillwater did. For years and years the Association has prevented this employer from training more than two apprentices annually. The result is, eighty hands find work, instead of a hundred and eighty. Now, that can't last."
"It keeps wages fixed in Stillwater, sir."
"It keeps out a hundred workmen. It sends away capital."
"Torrini says, sir"-- "Steer clear of Torrini and what he says. He's a dangerous fellow--for his friends. It is handsome in you, Denyven, to speak up for him--with that eye of yours."
"Oh, I don't love the man, when it comes to that; but there's no denying he's right smart," replied Denyven, who occasionally marred his vernacular with Americanisms. "The Association couldn't do without him."
"But Slocum's Yard can," said Richard, irritated to observe the influence Torrini exerted on even such men as Denyven.
"That's between you and him, sir, of course, but"-- "But what?"
"Well, sir, I can't say hexactly; but if I was you I would bide a bit."
"No, I think Torrini's time has come."
"I don't make bold to advise you, sir. I merely throws out the hobservation."
With that Denyven departed to apply to his bruises such herbs and simples as a long experience had taught him to be efficacious.
He had gone only a few rods, however, when it occurred to him that there were probabilities of a stormy scene in the yard; so he turned on his tracks, and followed Richard Shackford.
Torrini was a Neapolitan, who had come to the country seven or eight years before. He was a man above the average intelligence of his class; a marble worker by trade, but he had been a fisherman, a mountain guide among the Abruzzi, a soldier in the papal guard, and what not, and had contrived to pick up two or three languages, among the rest English, which he spoke with purity. His lingual gift was one of his misfortunes.
Among the exotics in Stillwater, which even boasted a featureless Celestial, who had unobtrusively extinguished himself with a stove-pipe hat, Torrini was the only figure that approached picturesqueness. With his swarthy complexion and large, indolent eyes, in which a southern ferocity slept lightly, he seemed to Richard a piece out of his own foreign experience. To him Torrini was the crystallization of Italy, or so much of that Italy as Richard had caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the town-folks Torrini perhaps vaguely suggested hand-organs and eleemosynary pennies; but Richard never looked at the straight-limbed, handsome fellow without recalling the Phrygian-capped sailors of the Mediterranean. On this account, and for other reasons, Richard had taken a great fancy to the man. Torrini had worked in the ornamental department from the first, and was a rapid and expert carver when he chose. He had carried himself steadily enough in the beginning, but in these later days, as Mr. Slocum had stated, he was scarcely ever sober. Richard had stood between him and his discharge on several occasions, partly because he was so skillful a workman, and partly through pity for his wife and children, who were unable to speak a word of English. But Torrini's influence on the men in the yard,--especially on the younger hands, who needed quite other influences,--and his intemperate speeches at the trades-union, where he had recently gained a kind of ascendancy by his daring, were producing the worst effects.
At another hour Richard might have been inclined to condone this last offense, as he had condoned others; but when he parted from Denyven, Richard's heart was still hot with his cousin's insult. As he turned into the yard, not with his usual swinging gait, but with a quick, wide step, there was an unpleasant dilation about young Shackford's nostrils.
Torrini was seated on a block of granite in front of the upper sheds, flourishing a small chisel in one hand and addressing the men, a number of whom had stopped work to listen to him. At sight of Richard they made a show of handling their tools, but it was so clear something grave was going to happen that the pretense fell through. They remained motionless, resting on their mallets, with their eyes turned towards Richard. Torrini followed the general glance, and pause din his harangue.
"Talk of the devil!" he muttered, and then, apparently continuing the thread of his discourse, broke into a strain of noisy declamation.
Richard walked up to him quietly.
"Torrini," he said, "you can't be allowed to speak here, you know."
"I can speak where I like," replied Torrini gravely. He was drunk, but the intoxication was not in his tongue. His head, as Denyven had asserted, was as clear as a fog-horn.
"When you are sober, you can come to the desk and get your pay and your kit. You are discharged from the yard."
Richard was standing within two paces of the man, who looked up with an uncertain smile, as if he had not quite taken in the sense of the words. Then, suddenly straightening himself, he exclaimed,-- "Slocum don't dare do it!"
"But I do."
"You!"
"When I do a thing Mr. Slocum backs me."
"But who backs Slocum,--the Association, may be?"
"Certainly the Association ought to. I want you to leave the yard now."
"He backs Slocum," said Torrini, settling himself on the block again, "and Slocum backs down," at which there was a laugh among the men.
Richard made a step forward.
"Hands off!" cried a voice from under the sheds.
"Who said that?" demanded Richard, wheeling around. No one answered, but Richard had recognized Durgin's voice. "Torrini, if you don't quit the yard in two minutes by the clock yonder, I shall put you out by the neck. Do you understand?"
Torrini glared about him confusedly for a moment, and broke into voluble Italian; then, without a warning gesture, sprung to his feet and struck at Richard. A straight red line, running vertically the length of his cheek, showed where the chisel had grazed him. The shops were instantly in a tumult, the men dropping their tools and stumbling over the blocks, with cries of "Keep them apart!" "Shame on you!" "Look out, Mr. Shackford!"
"Is it mad ye are, Torrany!" cried Michael Hennessey, hurrying from the saw-bench. Durgin held him back by the shoulders.
"Let them alone," said Durgin.
The flat steel flashed again in the sunlight, but fell harmlessly, and before the blow could be repeated, Richard had knitted his fingers in Torrini's neckerchief and twisted it so tightly that the man gasped. Holding him by this, Richard dragged Torrini across the yard, and let him drop on the sidewalk outside the gate, where he lay in a heap, inert.
"That was nate," said Michael Hennessey, sententiously.
Richard stood leaning on the gate-post to recover he breath. His face was colorless, and the crimson line defined itself sharply against the pallor; but the rage was dead within him. It had been one of his own kind of rages,--like lightning out of a blue sky. As he stood there a smile was slowly gathering on his lip.
A score or two of the men had followed him, and now lounged in a half-circle a few paces in the rear. When Richard was aware of their presence, the glow came into his eyes again.
"Who ordered you to knock off work?"
"That was a foul blow of Torrini's, sir," said Stevens, stepping forward, "and I for one come to see fair play."
"Give us your 'and, mate!" cried Denyven; "there's a pair of us."
"Thanks," said Richard, softening at once, "but there's no need. Every man can go to his job. Denyven may stay, if he likes."
The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the sheds in silence.
Presently Torrini stretched out one leg, then the other, and slowly rose to his feet, giving a stupid glance at his empty hands as he did so.
"Here's your tool," said Richard, stirring the chisel with the toe of his boot, "if that's what you're looking for."
Torrini advanced a step as if to pick it up, then appeared to alter his mind, hesitated perhaps a dozen seconds, and turning abruptly on his heel walked down the street without a stagger.
"I think his legs is shut off from the rest of his body by water-tight compartments," remarked Denyven, regarding Torrini's steady gait with mingled amusement and envy. "Are you hurt, sir?"
"Only a bit of a scratch of the heye," replied Richard, with a laugh.
"As I hobserved just now to Mr. Stevens, sir, there's a pair of us!"
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After a turn through the shops to assure himself that order was restored, Richard withdrew in the direction of his studio. Margaret was standing at the head of the stairs, half hidden by the scarlet creeper which draped that end of the veranda.
"What are you doing there?" said Richard looking up with a bright smile.
"Oh, Richard, I saw it all!"
"You didn't see anything worth having white cheeks about."
"But he struck you ... with the knife, did he not?" said Margaret, clinging to his arm anxiously.
"He didn't have a knife, dear; only a small chisel, which couldn't hurt any one. See for yourself; it is merely a cat-scratch."
Margaret satisfied herself that it was nothing more; but she nevertheless insisted on leading Richard into the workshop, and soothing the slight inflammation with her handkerchief dipped in arnica and water. The elusive faint fragrance of Margaret's hair as she busied herself about him would of itself have consoled Richard for a deep wound. All this pretty solicitude and ministration was new and sweet to him, and when the arnica turned out to be cologne, and scorched his cheek, Margaret's remorse was so delicious that Richard half wished the mixture had been aquafortis.
"You shouldn't have been looking into the yard," he said. "If I had known that you were watching us it would have distracted me. When I am thinking of you I cannot think of anything else, and I had need of my wits for a moment."
"I happened to be on the veranda, and was too frightened to go away. Why did you quarrel?"
In giving Margaret an account of the matter, Richard refrained from any mention of his humiliating visit to Welch's Court that morning. He could neither speak of it nor reflect upon it with composure. The cloud which shadowed his features from time to time was attributed by Margaret to the affair in the yard.
"But this is the end of it, is it not?" she asked, with troubled eyes. "You will not have any further words with him?"
"You needn't worry. If Torrini had not been drinking he would never have lifted his hand against me. When he comes out of his present state, he will be heartily ashamed of himself. His tongue is the only malicious part of him. If he hadn't a taste for drink and oratory,--if he was not 'a born horator,' as Denyven calls him,--he would do well enough."
"No, Richard, he's a dreadful man. I shall never forget his face,--it was some wild animal's. And you, Richard," added Margaret softly, "it grieved me to see you look like that."
"I was wolfish for a moment, I suppose. Things had gone wrong generally. But if you are going to scold me, Margaret, I would rather have some more--arnica."
"I am not going to scold; but while you stood there, so white and terrible,--so unlike yourself,--I felt that I did not know you, Richard. Of course you had to defend yourself when the man attacked you, but I thought for an instant you would kill him."
"Not I," said Richard uneasily, dreading anything like a rebuke from Margaret. "I am mortified that I gave up to my anger. There was no occasion."
"If an intoxicated person were to wander into the yard, papa would send for a constable, and have the person removed."
"Your father is an elderly man," returned Richard, not relishing this oblique criticism of his own simpler method. "What would be proper in his case would be considered cowardly in mine. It was my duty to discharge the fellow, and not let him dispute my authority. I ought to have been cooler, of course. But I should have lost caste and influence with the men if I had shown the least personal fear of Torrini,--if, for example, I had summoned somebody else to do what I didn't dare do myself. I was brought up in the yard, remember, and to a certain extent I have to submit to being weighed in the yard's own scales."
"But a thing cannot be weighed in a scale incapable of containing it," answered Margaret. "The judgment of these rough, uninstructed men is too narrow for such as you. They quarrel and fight among themselves, and have their ideas of daring; but there is a higher sort of bravery, the bravery of self-control, which I fancy they do not understand very well; so their opinion of it is not worth considering. However, you know better than I." "No, I do not," said Richard. "Your instinct is finer than my reason. But you _are_ scolding me, Margaret."
"No, I am loving you," she said softly. "How can I do that more faithfully than by being dissatisfied with anything but the best in you?"
"I wasn't at my best a while ago?"
"No, Richard."
"I can never hope to be worthy of you."
But Margaret protested against that. Having forced him to look at his action through her eyes, she outdid him in humility, and then the conversation drifted off into half-breathed nothings, which, though they were satisfactory enough for these two, would have made a third person yawn.
The occurrence at Slocum's Yard was hotly discussed that night at the Stillwater hotel. Discussions in that long, low bar-room, where the latest village scandal always came to receive the finishing gloss, were apt to be hot. In their criticism of outside men and measures, as well as in their mutual vivisections, there was an unflinching directness among Mr. Snelling's guests which is not to be found in more artificial grades of society. The popular verdict on young Shackford's conduct was as might not have been predicted, strongly in his favor. He had displayed pluck, and pluck of the tougher fibre was a quality held in so high esteem in Stillwater that any manifestation of it commanded respect. And young Shackford had shown a great deal; he had made short work of the most formidable man in the yard, and given the rest to understand that he was not to be tampered with. This had taken many by surprise, for hitherto an imperturbable amiability had been the leading characteristic of Slocum's manager.
"I didn't think he had it in him," declared Dexter.
"Well, ye might," replied Michael Hennessey. "Look at the lad's eye, and the muscles of him. He stands on his own two legs like a monumint, so he does."
"Never saw a monument with two legs, Mike."
"Didn't ye? Wait till ye're layin' at the foot of one. But ye'll wait many a day, me boy. Ye'll be lucky if ye're supploid with a head-stone made out of a dale-board."
"Couldn't get a wooden head-stone short of Ireland, Mike." Retorted Dexter, with a laugh. "You'd have to import it."
"An' so I will; but it won't be got over in time, if ye go on interruptin' gintlemen when they're discoorsin'. What was I sayin', any way, when the blackguard chipped in?" continued Mr. Hennessey, appealing to the company, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe by knocking the bowl in the side of his chair.
"You was talking of Dick Shackford's muscle," said Durgin, "and you never talked wider of the mark. It doesn't take much muscle, or much courage either, to knock a man about when he's in liquor. The two wasn't fairly matched."
"You are right there, Durgin," said Stevens, laying down his newspaper. "They weren't fairly matched. Both men have the same pounds and inches, but Torrini had a weapon and that mad strength that comes to some folks with drink. If Shackford hadn't made a neat twist on the neckerchief, he wouldn't have got off with a scratch."
"Shackford had no call to lay hands on him."
"There you are wrong, Durgin," replied Stevens. "Torrini had no call in the yard; he was making a nuisance of himself. Shackford spoke to him, and told him to go, and when he didn't go Shackford put him out; and he put him out handsomely,--'with neatness and dispatch,' as Slocum's prospectuses has it."
"He was right all the time," said Piggott. "He didn't strike Torrini before or after he was down, and stood at the gate like a gentleman, ready to give Torrini his chance if he wanted it."
"Torrini didn't want it," observed Jemmy Willson. "Ther' isn't nothing mean about Torrini."
"But he 'ad a dozen minds about coming back," said Denyven.
"We ought to have got him out of the place quietly," said Jeff Stavers; "that was our end of the mistake. He is not a bad fellow, but he shouldn't drink."
"He was crazy to come to the yard."
"When a man 'as a day off," observed Denyven, "and the beer isn't narsty, he 'ad better stick to the public 'ouse."
"Oh, you!" exclaimed Durgin. "Your opinion don't weigh. You took a black eye of him."
"Yes, I took a black heye,--and I can give one, in a hemergency. Yes, I gives and takes."
"That's where we differ," returned Durgin. "I do a more genteel business; I give, and don't take."
"Unless you're uncommon careful," said Denyven, pulling away at his pipe, "you'll find yourself some day henlarging your business."
Durgin pushed back his stool.
"Gentlemen! gentlemen!" interposed Mr. Snelling, appearing from behind the bar with a lemon-squeezer in his hand, "we'll have no black eyes here that wasn't born so. I am partial to them myself when nature gives them; and I propose the health of Miss Molly Hennessey," with a sly glance at Durgin, who colored, "to be drank at the expense of the house. Name your taps, gentlemen."
"Snelling, me boy, ye'd win the bird from the bush with yer beguilin' ways. Ye've brought proud tears to the eyes of an aged parent, and I'll take a sup out of that high-showldered bottle which you kape under the counter for the gentle-folk in the other room."
A general laugh greeted Mr. Hennessey's selection, and peace was restored; but the majority of those present were workmen from Slocum's, and the event of the afternoon remained the uppermost theme.
"Shackford is a different build from Slocum," said Piggott.
"I guess the yard will find that out when he gets to be proprietor," rejoined Durgin, clicking his spoon against the empty glass to attract Snelling's attention.
"Going to be proprietor, is he?"
"Some day or other," answered Durgin. "First he'll step into the business, and then into the family. He's had his eye on Slocum's girl these four or five years. Got a cast of her fist up in his workshop. Leave Dick Shackford alone for lining his nest and making it soft all round."
"Why shouldn't he?" asked Stevens. "He deserves a good girl, and there's none better. If sickness or any sort of trouble comes to a poor man's door, she's never far off with her kind words and them things the rich have when they are laid up."
"Oh, the girl is well enough."
"You couldn't say less. Before your mother died,"--Mrs. Durgin had died the previous autumn,--"I see that angil going to your house many a day with a little basket of comforts tucked under her wing. But she's too good to be praised in such a place as this," added Stevens. After a pause he inquired, "What makes you down on Shackford? He has always been a friend to you."
"One of those friends who walk over your head," replied Durgin. "I was in the yard two years before him, and see where he is."
"Lord love you," said Stevens, leaning back in his chair and contemplating Durgin thoughtfully, "there is marble and marble; some is Carrara marble, and some isn't. The fine grain takes a polish you can't get on to the other."
"Of course, he is statuary marble, and I'm full of seams and feldspar."
"You are like the most of us,--not the kind that can be worked up into anything very ornamental."
"Thank you for nothing," said Durgin, turning away. "I came from as good a quarry as ever Dick Shackford. Where's Torrini to-night?"
"Nobody has seen him since the difficulty," said Dexter, "except Peters. Torrini sent for him after supper."
As Dexter spoke, the door opened and Peters entered. He went directly to the group composed chiefly of Slocum's men, and without making any remark began to distribute among them certain small blue tickets, which they pocketed in silence. Glancing carelessly at his piece of card-board, Durgin said to Peters,-- "Then it's decided?"
Peters nodded.
"How's Torrini?"
"He's all right."
"What does he say?"
"Nothing in perticular," responded Peters, "and nothing at all about his little skylark with Shackford."
"He's a cool one!" exclaimed Durgin.
Though the slips of blue pasteboard had been delivered and accepted without comment, it was known in a second through the bar-room that a special meeting had been convened for the next night by the officers of the Marble Workers' Association.
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On the third morning after Torrini's expulsion from the yard, Mr. Slocum walked into the studio with a printed slip in his hand. A similar slip lay crumpled under a work-bench, where Richard had tossed it. Mr. Slocum's kindly visage was full of trouble and perplexity as he raised his eyes from the paper, which he had been re-reading on the way up-stairs.
"Look at that!"
"Yes," remarked Richard, "I have been honored with one of those documents."
"What does it mean?"
"It means business."
The paper in question contained a series of resolutions unanimously adopted at a meeting of the Marble Workers' Association of Stillwater, held in Grimsey's Hall the previous night. Dropping the preamble, these resolutions, which were neatly printed with a type-writing machine on a half letter sheet, ran as follows:-- _Resolved,_ That on and after the First of June proximo, the pay of carvers in Slocum's Marble Yard shall be $2.75 per day, instead of $2.50 as heretofore.
_Resolved,_ That on and after the same date, the rubbers and polishers shall have $2.00 per day, instead of $1.75 as heretofore.
_Resolved,_ That on and after the same date the millmen are to have $2.00 per day, instead of $1.75 as heretofore.
_Resolved,_ That during the months of June, July, and August the shops shall knock off work on Saturdays at five P.M., instead of at six P.M. _Resolved,_ That a printed copy of these Resolutions be laid before the Proprietor of Slocum's Marble Yard, and that his immediate attention to them be respectfully requested. _Per order of Committee M. W. A._ "Torrini is at the bottom of that," said Mr. Slocum.
"I hardly think so. This arrangement, as I told you the other day before I had the trouble with him, has been in contemplation several weeks. Undoubtedly Torrini used his influence to hasten the movement already planned. The Association has too much shrewdness to espouse the quarrel of an individual."
"What are we to do?"
"If you are in the same mind you were when we talked over the possibility of an unreasonable demand like this, there is only one thing to do."
"Fight it?"
"Fight it."
"I have been resolute, and all that sort of thing, in times past," observed Mr. Slocum, glancing out of the tail of his eye at Richard, "and have always come off second best. The Association has drawn up most of my rules for me, and had its own way generally."
"Since my time you have never been in so strong a position to make a stand. We have got all the larger contracts out of the way. Foreseeing what was likely to come, I have lately fought shy of taking new ones. Here are heavy orders from Rafter & Son, the Builders' Company, and others. We must decline them by to-night's mail."
"Is it really necessary?" asked Mr. Slocum, knitting his forehead into what would have been a scowl if his mild pinkish eyebrows had permitted it.
"I think so."
"I hate to do that."
"Then we are at the mercy of the Association."
"If we do not come to their terms, you seriously believe they will strike?"
"I do," replied Richard, "and we should be in a pretty fix."
"But these demands are ridiculous."
"The men are not aware of our situation; they imagine we have a lot of important jobs on hand, as usual at this season. Formerly the foreman of a shop had access to the order-book, but for the last year or two I have kept it in the safe here. The other day Dexter came to me and wanted to see what work was set down ahead in the blotter; but I had an inspiration and didn't let him post himself."
"Is not some kind of compromise possible?" suggested Mr. Slocum, looking over the slip again. "Now this fourth clause, about closing the yard an hour early on Saturdays, I don't strongly object to that, though with eighty hands it means, every week, eighty hours' work which the yard pays for and doesn't get."
"I should advise granting that request. Such concessions are never wasted. But, Mr. Slocum, this is not going to satisfy them. They have thrown in one reasonable demand merely to flavor the rest. I happen to know that they are determined to stand by their programme to the last letter."
"You know that?"
"I have a friend at court. Of course this is not to be breathed, but Denyven, without being at all false to his comrades, talks freely with me. He says they are resolved not to give an inch."
"Then we will close the works."
"That is what I wanted you to say, sir!" cried Richard.
"With this new scale of prices and plenty of work, we might probably come out a little ahead the next six months; but it wouldn't pay for the trouble and the capital invested. Then when trade slackened, we should be running at a loss, and there'd be another wrangle over a reduction. We had better lie idle."
"Stick to that, sir, and may be it will not be necessary."
"But if they strike"-- "They won't all strike. At least," added Richard, "I hope not. I have indirectly sounded several of the older hands, and they have half promised to hold on; only half promised, for every man of them at heart fears the trades-union more than No-bread--until No-bread comes."
"Whom have you spoken with?"
"Lumley, Giles, Peterson, and some others,--your pensioners, I call them."
"Yes, they were in the yard in my father's time; they have not been worth their salt these ten years. When the business was turned over to me I didn't discharge any old hand who had given his best days to the yard. Somehow I couldn't throw away the squeezed lemons. An employer owes a good workman something beyond the wages paid."
"And a workman owes a good employer something beyond the work done. You stood by these men after they outlived their usefulness, and if they do not stand by you now, they're a shabby set."
"I fancy they will, Richard."
"I think they had better, and I wish they would. We have enough odds and ends to keep them busy awhile, and I shouldn't like to have the clinking of chisels die out altogether under the old sheds."
"Nor I," returned Mr. Slocum, with a touch of sadness in his intonation. "It has grown to be a kind of music to me," and he paused to listen to the sounds of ringing steel that floated up from the workshop.
"Whatever happens, that music shall not cease in the yard except on Sundays, if I have to take the mallet and go at a slab all alone."
"Slocum's Yard with a single workman in it would be a pleasing spectacle," said Mr. Slocum, smiling ruefully.
"It wouldn't be a bad time for _that_ workman to strike," returned Richard with a laugh.
"He could dictate his own terms," returned Mr. Slocum, soberly. "Well, I suppose you cannot help thinking about Margaret; but don't think of her now. Tell me what answer you propose to give the Association,--how you mean to put it; for I leave the matter wholly to you. I shall have no hand in it, further than to indorse your action."
"To-morrow, then," said Richard, "for it is no use to hurry up a crisis, I shall go to the workshops and inform them that their request for short hours on Saturdays is granted, but that the other changes they suggest are not to be considered. There will never be a better opportunity, Mr. Slocum, to settle another question which has been allowed to run too long."
"What's that?"
"The apprentice question."
"Would it be wise to touch on that at present?"
"While we are straightening out matters and putting things on a solid basis, it seems to me essential to settle that. There was never a greater imposition, or one more short-sighted, than this rule which prevents the training of sufficient workmen. The trades-union will discover their error some day when they have succeeded in forcing manufacturers to import skilled labor by the wholesale. I would like to tell the Marble Workers' Association that Slocum's Yard has resolved to employ as many apprentices each year as there is room for."
"I wouldn't dare risk it!"
"It will have to be done, sooner or later. It would be a capital flank movement now. They have laid themselves open to an attack on that quarter."
"I might as well close the gates for good and all."
"So you will, if it comes to that. You can afford to close the gates, and they can't afford to have you. In a week they'd be back, asking you to open them. Then you could have your pick of the live hands, and drop the dead wood. If Giles or Peterson or Lumley or any of those desert us, they are not to be let on again. I hope you will promise me that, sir."
"If the occasion offers, you shall reorganize the shops in your own way. I haven't the nerve for this kind of business, though I have seen a great deal of it in the villages, first and last. Strikes are terrible mistakes. Even when they succeed, what pays for the lost time and the money squandered over the tavern-bar? What makes up for the days or weeks when the fire was out on the hearth and the children had no bread? That is what happens, you know."
"There is no remedy for such calamities," Richard answered. "Yet I can imagine occasions when it would be better to let the fire go out and the children want for bread."
"You are not advocating strikes!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum.
"Why not?"
"I thought you were for fighting them."
"So I am, in this instance; but the question has two sides. Every man has the right to set a price on his own labor, and to refuse to work for less; the wisdom of it is another matter. He puts himself in the wrong only when he menaces the person or the property of the man who has an equal right not to employ him. That is the blunder strikers usually make in the end, and one by which they lose public sympathy even when they are fighting an injustice. Now, sometimes it _is_ an injustice that is being fought, and then it is right to fight it with the only weapon a poor man has to wield against a power which possesses a hundred weapons,--and that's a strike. For example, the smelters and casters in the Miantowona Iron Works are meanly underpaid."
"What, have they struck?"
"There's a general strike threatened in the village; foundry-men, spinners, and all."
"So much the worse for everybody! I did not suppose it was as bad as that. What has become of Torrini?"
"The day after he left us he was taken on as forgeman at Dana's."
"I am glad Dana has got him!"
"At the meeting, last night, Torrini gave in his resignation as secretary of the Association; being no longer a marble worker, he was not qualified to serve."
"We unhorsed him, then?"
"Rather. I am half sorry, too."
"Richard," said Mr. Slocum, halting in one of his nervous walks up and down the room, "you are the oddest composition of hardness and softness I ever saw."
"Am I?"
"One moment you stand braced like a lion to fight the whole yard, and the next moment you are pitying a miscreant who would have laid your head open without the slightest compunction."
"Oh, I forgive him," said Richard. "I was a trifle hasty myself. Margaret thinks so too."
"Much Margaret knows about it!"
"I was inconsiderate, to say the least. When a man picks up a tool by the wrong end he must expect to get cut."
"You didn't have a choice."
"I shouldn't have touched Torrini. After discharging him and finding him disposed to resist my order to leave the yard, I ought to have called in a constable. Usually it is very hard to anger me; but three or four times in my life I have been carried away by a devil of a temper which I couldn't control, it seized me so unawares. That was one of the times."
The mallets and chisels were executing a blithe staccato movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces of the men as they bent over their tasks, would have suspected that they were awaiting the word that meant bread and meat and home to them.
As Richard passed through the shops, dropping a word to a workman here and there, the man addressed looked up cheerfully and made a furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard returned the salute smilingly; but he was sad within. "The foolish fellows," he said to himself, "they are throwing away a full loaf and are likely to get none at all." Giles and two or three of the ancients were squaring a block of marble under a shelter by themselves. Richard made it a point to cross over and speak to them. In past days he had not been exacting with these old boys, and they always had a welcome for him.
Slocum's Yard seldom presented a serener air of contented industry than it wore that morning; but in spite of all this smooth outside it was a foregone conclusion with most of the men that Slocum, with Shackford behind him, would never submit to the new scale of wages. There were a few who had protested against these resolutions and still disapproved of them, but were forced to go with the Association, which had really been dragged into the current by the other trades.
The Dana Mills and the Miantowona Iron Works were paying lighter wages than similar establishments nearer the great city. The managers contended that they were paying as high if not higher rates, taking into consideration the cheaper cost of living in Stillwater. "But you get city prices for your wares," retorted the union; "you don't pay city rents, and you shall pay city wages." Meetings were held at Grimsey's Hall and the subject was canvassed, at first calmly and then stormily. Among the molders, and possibly the sheet-iron workers, there was cause for dissatisfaction; but the dissatisfaction spread to where no grievance existed; it seized upon the spinners, and finally upon the marble workers. Torrini fanned the flame there. Taking for his text the rentage question, he argued that Slocum was well able to give a trifle more for labor than his city competitors. "The annual rent of a yard like Slocum's would be four thousand or five thousand dollars in the city. It doesn't cost Slocum two hundred dollars. It is no more than just that the laborer should have a share--he only asks a beggarly share--of the prosperity which he has helped to build up." This was specious and taking. Then there came down from the great city a glib person disguised as The Workingman's Friend,--no workingman himself, mind you, but a ghoul that lives upon subscriptions and sucks the senses out of innocent human beings,--who managed to set the place by the ears. The result of all which was that one May morning every shop, mill, and factory in Stillwater was served with a notice from the trades-union, and a general strike threatened.
But our business at present is exclusively with Slocum's Yard.
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"Since we are in for it," said Mr. Slocum the next morning, "put the case to them squarely."
Mr. Slocum's vertebræ had stiffened over night.
"Leave that to me, sir," Richard replied. "I have been shaping out in my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover the points. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we are about to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the men quieter."
"I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't any doubt as to the issue."
"The clearest-headed have no doubt; they know as well as you and I do the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads are in a fog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased; if a simple fellow is told five or six hundred times that his wages ought to be raised, the idea is so agreeable and insidious that by and by he begins to believe himself grossly underpaid, though he may be getting twice what he is worth. He doesn't reason about it; that's the last thing he'll do for you. In this mood he lets himself be flown away by the breath of some loud-mouthed demagogue, who has no interest in the matter beyond hearing his own talk and passing round the hat after the meeting is over. That is what has happened to our folks below. But they _are_ behaving handsomely."
"Yes, and I don't like it."
Since seven o'clock the most unimpeachable decorum had reigned in the workshops. It was now nine, and this brief dialogue had occurred between Mr. Slocum and Richard on the veranda, just as the latter was on the point of descending into the yard to have his talk with the men.
The workshops--or rather the shed in which the workshops were, for it was one low structure eighteen or twenty feet wide and open on the west side--ran the length of the yard, and with the short extension at the southerly end formed the letter L. There were no partitions, an imaginary line separating the different gangs of workers. A person standing at the head of the building could make himself heard more or less distinctly in the remotest part.
The grating lisp of the wet saws eating their way into the marble boulder, and the irregular quick taps of the seventy or eighty mallets were not suspended as Richard took his stand beside a tall funereal urn at the head of the principal workshop. After a second's faltering he rapped smartly on the lip of the urn with the key of his studio-door.
Instantly every arm appeared paralyzed, and the men stood motionless, with the tools in their hands.
Richard began in a clear but not loud voice, though it seemed to ring on the sudden silence:-- "Mr. Slocum has asked me to say a few words to you, this morning, about those resolutions, and one or two other matters that have occurred to him in this connection. I am no speech-maker; I never learned that trade"-- "Never learned any trade," muttered Durgin, inaudibly.
--"but I think I can manage some plain, honest talk, for straight-forward men."
Richard's exordium was listened to with painful attention.
"In the first place," he continued, "I want to remind you, especially the newer men, that Slocum's Yard has always given steady work and prompt pay to Stillwater hands. No hand has ever been turned off without sufficient cause, or kept on through mere favoritism. Favors have been shown, but they have been shown to all alike. If anything has gone crooked, it has been straightened out as soon as Mr. Slocum knew of it. That has been the course of the yard in the past, and the Proprietor doesn't want you to run away with the idea that that course is going to be changed. One change, for the time being, is going to be made at our own suggestion. From now, until the 1st of September, this yard will close gates on Saturdays at five P.M. instead of six P.M." Several voices cried, "Good for Slocum!" "Where's Slocum?" "Why don't Slocum speak for himself?" cried one voice.
"It is Mr. Slocum's habit," answered Richard, "to give his directions to me, I give them to the foremen, and the foremen to the shops. Mr. Slocum follows that custom on this occasion. With regard to the new scale of wages which the Association has submitted to him, the Proprietor refuses to accept it, or any modification of it."
A low murmur ran through the workshops.
"What's a modificashun, sir?" asked Jemmy Willson, stepping forward, and scratching his left ear diffidently.
"A modification," replied Richard, considerably embarrassed to give an instant definition, "is a--a"-- "A splitting of the difference, by--!" shouted somebody in the third shop.
"Thank you," said Richard, glancing in the direction of his impromptu Webster's Unabridged. "Mr. Slocum does not propose to split the difference. The wages in every department are to be just what they are,--neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to make a remark," he added, observing a restlessness in several of the men, "I beg he will hold on until I get through. I shall not detain you much longer, as the parson says before he has reached the middle of his sermon.
"What I say now, I was charged to make particularly clear to you. It is this: In future Mr. Slocum intends to run Slocum's Yard himself. Neither you, nor I, nor the Association will be allowed to run it for him. [Sensation.] Until now the Association has tied him down to two apprentices a year. From this hour, out, Mr. Slocum will take on, not two, or twenty, but two hundred apprentices if the business warrants it."
The words were not clearly off Richard's lips when the foreman of the shop in which he was speaking picked up a couple of small drills, and knocked them together with a sharp click. In an instant the men laid aside their aprons, bundled up their tools, and marched out of the shed two by two, in dead silence. That same click was repeated almost simultaneously in the second shop, and the same evolution took place. Then click, click, click! went the drills, sounding fainter and fainter in the distant departments; and in less than three minutes there was not a soul left in Slocum's Yard except the Orator of the Day.
Richard had anticipated some demonstration, either noisy or violent, perhaps both; but this solemn, orderly desertion dashed him.
He stepped into the middle of the yard, and glancing up beheld Margaret and Mr. Slocum standing on the veranda. Even at that distance he could perceive the pallor on one face, and the consternation written all over the other.
Hanging his head with sadness, Richard crossed the yard, which gave out mournful echoes to his footfalls, and swung to the large gate, nearly catching old Giles by the heel as he did so. Looking through the slats, he saw Lumley and Peterson hobbling arm in arm down the street,--after more than twenty-five years of kindly treatment.
"Move number one," said Richard, lifting the heavy cross-piece into its place and fastening it with a wooden pin. "Now I must go and prop up Mr. Slocum."
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There is no solitude which comes so near being tangible as that of a vast empty workshop, crowded a moment since. The busy, intense life that has gone from it mysteriously leaves behind enough of itself to make the stillness poignant. One might imagine the invisible ghost of doomed Toil wandering from bench to bench, and noiselessly fingering the dropped tools, still warm from the workman's palm. Perhaps this impalpable presence is the artisan's anxious thought, stolen back to brood over the uncompleted task.
Though Mr. Slocum had spoken lightly of Slocum's Yard with only one workman in it, when he came to contemplate the actual fact he was struck by the pathos of it, and the resolution with which he awoke that morning began to desert him.
"The worst is over," exclaimed Richard, joining his two friends on the veranda, "and everything went smoother than I expected."
"Everything went, sure enough," said Mr. Slocum, gloomily; "they all went,--old Giles, and Lumley, and everybody."
"We somewhat expected that, you know."
"Yes, I expected it, and wasn't prepared for it."
"It was very bad," said Richard, shaking his head.
The desertion of Giles and his superannuated mates especially touched Mr. Slocum.
"Bad is no word; it was damnable."
"Oh, papa!"
"Pardon me, dear; I couldn't help it. When a man's pensioners throw him over, he must be pretty far gone!"
"The undertow was too strong for them, sir, and they were swept away with the rest. And they all but promised to stay. They will be the very first to come back."
"Of course we shall have to take the old fellows on again," said Mr. Slocum, relenting characteristically.
"Never!" cried Richard.
"I wish I had some of your grit."
"I have none to spare. To tell the truth, when I stood up there to speak, with every eye working on me, like a half-inch drill, I would have sold myself at a low figure."
"But you were a perfect what's-his-name,--Demosthenes," said Mr. Slocum, with a faint smile. "We could hear you."
"I don't believe Demosthenes ever moved an audience as I did mine!" cried Richard gaily. "If his orations produced a like effect, I am certain that the Grecian lecture-bureau never sent him twice to the same place."
"I don't think, Richard, I would engage you over again."
"I am sure Richard spoke very well," interrupted Margaret. "His speech was short"-- "Say shortened, Margaret, for I hadn't got through when they left."
"No, I will not jest about it. It is too serious for jesting. What is to become of the families of all these men suddenly thrown out of employment?"
"They threw themselves out, Mag," said her father.
"That does not mend the matter, papa. There will be great destitution and suffering in the village with every mill closed; and they are all going to close, Bridget says. Thank Heaven that this did not happen in the winter!"
"They always pick their weather," observed Mr. Slocum.
"It will not be for long," said Richard encouragingly. "Our own hands and the spinners, who had no ground for complaint, will return to work shortly, and the managers of the iron mills will have to yield a point or two. In a week at the outside everything will be running smoothly, and on a sounder foundation than before. I believe the strike will be an actual benefit to everybody in the end."
By dint of such arguments and his own sanguine temperament, Richard succeeded in reassuring Mr. Slocum for the time being, though Richard did not hide from himself the gravity of the situation. There was a general strike in the village. Eight hundred men were without work. That meant, or would mean in a few days, two or three thousand women and children without bread. It does not take the wolf long to reach a poor man's door when it is left ajar.
The trades-union had a fund for emergencies of this sort, and some outside aid might be looked for; but such supplies are in their nature precarious and soon exhausted. It is a noticeable feature of strikes that the moment the workman's pay stops his living expenses increase. Even the more economical becomes improvident. If he has money, the tobacco shop and the tavern are likely to get more of it than the butcher's cart. The prolonged strain is too great to be endured without stimulant.
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During the first and second days of the strike, Stillwater presented an animated and even a festive appearance. Throngs of operatives in their Sunday clothes strolled through the streets, or lounged at the corners chatting with other groups; some wandered into the suburbs, and lay in the long grass under the elms. Others again, though these were few, took to the turnpike or the railroad track, and tramped across country.
It is needless to say that the bar-room of the tavern was crowded from early morning down to the hour when the law compelled Mr. Snelling to shut off his gas. After which, John Brown's "soul" could be heard "marching on" in the darkness, through various crooked lanes and alleys, until nearly daybreak.
Among the earliest to scent trouble in the air was Han-Lin, the Chinaman before mentioned. He kept a small laundry in Mud Lane, where his name was painted perpendicularly on a light of glass in the basement window of a tenement house. Han-Lin intended to be buried some day in a sky-blue coffin in his own land, and have a dozen packs of firecrackers decorously exploded over his remains. In order to reserve himself for this and other ceremonies involving the burning of a great quantity of gilt paper, he quietly departed for Boston at the first sign of popular discontent. As Dexter described it, "Han-Lin coiled up his pig-tail, put forty grains of rice in a yallar bag,--enough to last him a month! --and toddled off in his two-story wooden shoes." He could scarcely have done a wiser thing, for poor Han-Lin's laundry was turned wrong side out within thirty-six hours afterwards.
The strike was popular. The spirit of it spread, as fire and fever and all elemental forces spread. The two apprentices in Brackett's bakery had a dozen minds about striking that first morning. The younger lad, Joe Wiggin, plucked up courage to ask Brackett for a day off, and was lucky enough to dodge a piece of dough weighing nearly four pounds.
Brackett was making bread while the sun shone. He knew that before the week was over there would be no cash customers, and he purposed then to shut up shop.
On the third and fourth days there was no perceptible fall in the barometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in front of the post-office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsey's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly. Torrini advanced some Utopian theories touching a universal distribution of wealth, which were listened to attentively, but failed to produce deep impression.
"That's a healthy idea of Torrini's about dervidin' up property," said Jemmy Willson. "I've heerd it afore; but it's sing'ler I never knowd a feller with any property to have that idea."
"Ther' 's a great dale in it, I can tell ye," replied Michael Hennessey, with a well-blackened Woodstock pipe between his teeth and his hands tucked under his coat-tails. "Isn't ther', Misther Stavens?"
When Michael had on his bottle-green swallow-tailed coat with the brass buttons, he invariably assumed a certain lofty air of ceremony in addressing his companions.
"It is sorter pleasant to look at," returned Stevens, "but it don't seem to me an idea that would work. Suppose that, after all the property was divided, a fresh shipload of your friends was to land at New York or Boston; would there be a new deal?"
"No, sir! by no means!" exclaimed Michael excitedly. "The furreners is counted out!"
"But you're a foreigner yourself, Mike."
"Am I, then? Bedad, I'm not! I'm a rale American Know Nothing."
"Well, Mike," said Stevens maliciously, "when it comes to a reg'lar division of lands and greenbacks in the United States, I go in for the Chinese having their share."
"The Chinese!" shouted Michael. "Oh, murther, Misther Stevens! Ye wouldn't be fur dividin' with thim blatherskites!"
"Yes, with them,--as well as the rest," returned Stevens, dryly.
Meanwhile the directors and stockholders of the various mills took counsel in a room at the rear of the National Bank. Mr. Slocum, following Richard's advice, declined to attend the meeting in person, or to allow his name to figure on the list of vice-presidents.
"Why should we hitch our good cause to their doubtful one?" reflected Richard. "We have no concessions or proposals to make. When our men are ready to come back to us, they will receive just wages and fair treatment. They know that. We do not want to fight the molders. Let the iron-mills do their own fighting;" and Richard stolidly employed himself in taking an account of stock, and forwarding by express to their destination the ten or twelve carved mantel-pieces that happily completed the last contract.
Then his responsibilities shrunk to winding up the office clock and keeping Mr. Slocum firmly on his legs. The latter was by far the more onerous duty, for Mr. Slocum ran down two or three times in the course of every twenty-four hours, while the clock once wound was fixed for the day.
"If I could only have a good set of Waltham works put into your father," said Richard to Margaret, after one of Mr. Slocum's relapses, "he would go better."
"Poor papa! he is not a fighter, like you."
"Your father is what I call a belligerent non-combatant."
Richard was seeing a great deal of Margaret these days. Mr. Slocum had invited him to sleep in the studio until the excitement was past. Margaret was afraid to have him take that long walk between the yard and his lodgings in Lime Street, and then her father was an old man to be without any protection in the house in such untoward times.
So Richard slept in the studio, and had his plate at table, like one of the family. This arrangement was favorable to many a stolen five minutes with Margaret, in the hall or on the staircase. In these fortuitous moments he breathed an atmosphere that sustained him in his task of dispelling Mr. Slocum's recurrent fits of despondency. Margaret had her duties, too, at this period, and the forenoons were sacred to them.
One morning as she passed down the street with a small wicker basket on her arm, Richard said to Mr. Slocum,-- "Margaret has joined the strikers."
The time had already come to Stillwater when many a sharp-faced little urchin--as dear to the warm, deep bosom that had nursed it as though it were a crown prince--would not have had a crust to gnaw if Margaret Slocum had not joined the strikers. Sometimes her heart drooped on the way home from these errands, upon seeing how little of the misery she could ward off. On her rounds there was one cottage in a squalid lane where the children asked for bread in Italian. She never omitted to halt at that door.
"Is it quite prudent for Margaret to be going about so?" queried Mr. Slocum.
"She is perfectly safe," said Richard,--"as safe as a Sister of Charity, which she is."
Indeed, Margaret might then have gone loaded with diamonds through the streets at midnight. There was not a rough man in Stillwater who would not have reached forth an arm to shield her.
"It is costing me nearly as much as it would to carry on the yard," said Mr. Slocum, "but I never put out any stamps more willingly."
"You never took a better contract, sir, than when you agreed to keep Margaret's basket filled. It is an investment in real estate--hereafter."
"I hope so," answered Mr. Slocum, "and I know it's a good thing now."
Of the morals of Stillwater at this time, or at any time, the less said the better. But out of the slime and ooze below sprang the white flower of charity.
The fifth day fell on a Sabbath, and the churches were crowded. The Rev. Arthur Langly selected his text from St. Matthew, chap. xxii, v. 21: "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's." But as he did not make it quite plain which was Cæsar,--the trades-union or the Miantowona Iron Works,--the sermon went for nothing, unless it could be regarded as a hint to those persons who had stolen a large piece of belting from the Dana Mills. On the other hand, Father O'Meara that morning bravely told his children to conduct themselves in an orderly manner while they were out of work, or they would catch it in this world and in the next.
On the sixth day a keen observer might have detected a change in the atmosphere. The streets were thronged as usual, and the idlers still wore their Sunday clothes, but the holiday buoyancy of the earlier part of the week had evaporated. A turn-out on the part of one of the trades, though it was accompanied by music and a banner with a lively inscription, failed to arouse general enthusiasm. A serious and even a sullen face was not rare among the crowds that wandered aimlessly up and down the village.
On the seventh day it required no penetration to see the change. There was decidedly less good-natured chaffing and more drunkenness, though Snelling had invoked popular contumely and decimated his bar-room by refusing to trust for drinks. Bracket had let his ovens cool, and his shutters were up. The treasury of the trades-union was nearly drained, and there were growlings that too much had been fooled away on banners and a brass band for the iron men's parade the previous forenoon. It was when Brackett's eye sighted the banner with "Bread or Blood" on it, that he had put up his shutters.
Torrini was now making violent harangues at Grimsey's Hall to largely augmented listeners, whom his words irritated without convincing. Shut off from the tavern, the men flocked to hear him and the other speakers, for born orators were just then as thick as unripe whortleberries. There was nowhere else to go. At home were reproaches that maddened, and darkness, for the kerosene had given out.
Though all the trades had been swept into the movement, it is not to be understood that every workman was losing his head. There were men who owned their cottages and had small sums laid by in the savings-bank; who had always sent their children to the district school, and listened themselves to at least one of Mr. Langly's sermons or one of Father O'Meara's discourses every Sunday. These were anchored to good order; they neither frequented the bar-room nor attended the conclaves at Grimsey's Hall, but deplored as deeply as any one the spirit that was manifesting itself. They would have returned to work now--if they had dared. To this class belonged Stevens.
"Why don't you come up to the hall, nights?" asked Durgin, accosting him on the street, one afternoon. "You'd run a chance of hearing me hold forth some of these evenings."
"You've answered your own question, William. I shouldn't like to see you making an idiot of yourself."
"This is a square fight between labor and capital," returned Durgin with dignity, "and every man ought to take a hand in it."
"William," said Stevens meditatively, "do you know about the Siamese twins?"
"What about 'em,--they're dead, ain't they?" replied Durgin, with surprise.
"I believe so; but when they was alive, if you was to pinch one of those fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was to black the eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap wouldn't have been able to see for a week. When either of 'em fetched the other a clip, he knocked himself down. Labor and capital is jined just as those two was. When you've got this fact well into your skull, William, I shall be pleased to listen to your ideas at Grimsey's Hall or anywhere else."
Such conservatism as Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept out of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a state bordering on panic,--all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his flapping linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford was seen darting excitedly from street to street and hovering about the feverish crowds, like the stormy petrel wheeling on the edges of a gale. Usually as chary of his sympathies as of his gold, he astonished every one by evincing an abnormal interest in the strikers. The old man declined to put down anything on the subscription paper then circulating; but he put down his sympathies to any amount. He held no stock in the concerns involved; he hated Slocum, and he hated the directors of the Miantowona Iron Works. The least he hoped was that Rowland Slocum would be laid out.
So far the strikers had committed no overt act of note, unless it was the demolition of Han-Lin's laundry. Stubbs, the provision dealer, had been taught the rashness of exposing samples of potatoes in his door-way, and the "Tonsorial Emporium" of Professor Brown, a colored citizen, had been invaded by two humorists, who, after having their hair curled, refused to pay for it, and the professor had been too agitated to insist. The story transpiring, ten or twelve of the boys had dropped in during the morning, and got shaved on the same terms. "By golly, gen'l'men!" expostulated the professor, "ef dis yah thing goes on, dis darkey will be cleaned cl'ar out fo de week's done." No act of real violence had been perpetrated as yet; but with bands of lawless men roaming over the village at all hours of the day and night, the situation was critical.
The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater had ceased to revolve. With the single exception of Lemuel Shackford, the more respectable inhabitants kept in-doors as much as practicable. From the first neither Mr. Craggie nor Lawyer Perkins had gone to the hotel to consult the papers in the reading-room, and Mr. Pinkham did not dare to play on his flute of an evening. The Rev. Arthur Langly found it politic to do but little visiting in the parish. His was not the pinion to buffet with a wind like this, and indeed he was not explicitly called upon to do so. He sat sorrowfully in his study day by day, preparing the weekly sermon,--a gentle, pensive person, inclined in the best of weather to melancholia. If Mr. Langly had gone into arboriculture instead of into the ministry, he would have planted nothing but weeping-willows.
In the mean time the mill directors continued their deliberations in the bank building, and had made several abortive attempts to effect an arrangement with the leaders of the union. This seemed every hour less possible and more necessary.
On the afternoon of the seventh day of the strike a crowd gathered in front of the residence of Mr. Alexander, the superintendent of the Miantowona Iron Works, and began groaning and hooting. Mr. Alexander sought out Mr. Craggie, and urged him, as a man of local weight and one accustomed to addressing the populace, to speak a few words to the mob. That was setting Mr. Craggie on the horns of a cruel dilemma. He was afraid to disoblige the representative of so powerful a corporation as the Miantowona Iron Works, but he equally dreaded to risk his popularity with seven or eight hundred voters; so, like the crafty chancellor in Tennyson's poem, he dallied with his golden chain, and, smiling, but the question by.
"Drat the man!" muttered Mr. Craggie, "does he want to blast my whole political career! _I_ can't pitch into our adopted countrymen."
There was a blot on the escutcheon of Mr. Craggie which he was very anxious not to have uncovered by any chance in these latter days,--his ancient affiliation with the deceased native American party.
The mob dispersed without doing damage, but the fact that it had collected and had shown an ugly temper sent a thrill of apprehension through the village. Mr. Slocum came in a great flurry to Richard.
"This thing ought to be stopped," said Mr. Slocum.
"I agree to that," replied Richard, bracing himself not to agree to anything else.
"If we were to drop that stipulation as to the increase of apprentices, no doubt many of the men would give over insisting on an advance."
"Our only salvation is to stick to our right to train as many workmen as we choose. The question of wages is of no account compared with that; the rate of wages will adjust itself."
"If we could manage it somehow with the marble workers," suggested Mr. Slocum, "that would demoralize the other trades, and they'd be obliged to fall in."
"I don't see that they lack demoralization."
"If something isn't done, they'll end up by knocking in our front doors or burning us all up."
"Let them."
"It's very well to say let them," exclaimed Mr. Slocum, petulantly, "when you haven't any front door to be knocked in!"
"But I have you and Margaret to consider, if there were actual danger. When anything like violence threatens, there's an honest shoulder for every one of the hundred and fifty muskets in the armory."
"Those muskets might get on the wrong shoulders."
"That isn't likely. You do not seem to know, sir, that there is a strong guard at the armory day and night."
"I was not aware of that."
"It is a fact all the same," said Richard; and Mr. Slocum went away easier in his mind, and remained so--two or three hours.
On the eighth, ninth, and tenth days the clouds lay very black along the horizon. The marble workers, who began to see their mistake, were reproaching the foundry men with enticing them into to coalition, and the spinners were hot in their denunciations of the molders. Ancient personal antagonisms that had been slumbering started to their feet. Torrini fell out of favor, and in the midst of one of his finest perorations uncomplimentary missiles, selected from the animal kingdom, had been thrown at him. The grand torchlight procession on the night of the ninth culminated in a disturbance, in which many men got injured, several badly, and the windows of Brackett's bakery were stove in. A point of light had pierced the darkness,--the trades were quarreling among themselves!
The selectmen had sworn in special constables among the citizens, and some of the more retired streets were now patrolled after dark, for there had been threats of incendiarism.
Bishop's stables burst into flames one midnight,--whether fired intentionally or accidentally was not known; but the giant bellows at Dana's Mills was slit and two belts were cut at the Miantowona Iron Works that same night.
At this juncture a report that out-of-town hands were coming to replace the strikers acted on the public mind like petroleum on fire. A large body of workmen assembled near the railway station,--to welcome them. There was another rumor which caused the marble workers to stare at each other aghast. It was to the effect that Mr. Slocum, having long meditated retiring from business, had now decided to do so, and was consulting with Wyndham, the keeper of the green-house, about removing the division wall and turning the marble yard into a peach garden. This was an unlooked-for solution of the difficulty. Stillwater without any Slocum's Marble Yard was chaos come again.
"Good Lord, boys!" cried Piggott, "if Slocum should do that!"
Meanwhile, Snelling's bar had been suppressed by the authorities, and a posse of policemen, borrowed from South Millville, occupied the premises. Knots of beetle-browed men, no longer in holiday gear, but chiefly in their shirt-sleeves, collected from time to time at the head of the main street, and glowered threateningly at the single policeman pacing the porch of the tavern. The Stillwater Grays were under arms in the armory over Dundon's drugstore. The thoroughfare had ceased to be safe for any one, and Margaret's merciful errands were necessarily brought to an end. How the poor creatures who had depended on her bounty now continued to exist was a sorrowful problem.
Matters were at this point, when on the morning of the thirteenth day Richard noticed the cadaverous face of a man peering into the yard through the slats of the main gate. Richard sauntered down there, with his hands in his pockets. The man was old Giles, and with him stood Lumley and Peterson, gazing thoughtfully at the sign outside,-- NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS.
The roughly lettered clapboard, which they had heedlessly passed a thousand times, seemed to have taken a novel significance to them.
_Richard_. What's wanted there?
_Giles. [Very affably.] _ We was lookin' round for a job, Mr. Shackford.
_Richard_. We are not taking on any hands at present.
_Giles_. Didn't know but you was. Somebody said you was.
_Richard_. Somebody is mistaken.
_Giles_. P'rhaps to-morrow, or nex' day?
_Richard_. Rather doubtful, Giles.
_Giles. [Uneasily.] _ Mr. Slocum ain't goin' to give up business, is he?
_Richard_. Why shouldn't he, if it doesn't pay? The business is carried on for his amusement and profit; when the profit stops it won't be amusing any longer. Mr. Slocum is not going to run the yard for the sake of the Marble Workers' Association. He would rather drive a junk-cart. He might be allowed to steer that himself.
_Giles_. Oh!
_Richard_. Good-morning, Giles.
_Gikles_. 'Mornin', Mr. Shackford.
Richard rushed back to Mr. Slocum.
"The strike is broken, sir!"
"What do you mean?"
"The thing has collapsed! The tide is turning, _and has washed in a lot of dead wood!" _ "Thank God!" cried Mr. Slocum.
An hour or so later a deputation of four, consisting of Stevens, Denyven, Durgin, and Piggott, waited upon Mr. Slocum in his private office, and offered, on behalf of all the departments, to resume work at the old rates.
Mr. Slocum replied that he had not objected to the old rates, but the new, and that he accepted their offer--conditionally.
"You have overlooked one point, Mr. Stevens."
"Which one, sir?"
"The apprentices."
"We thought you might not insist there, sir."
"I insist on conducting my own business in my own way."
The voice was the voice of Slocum, but the backbone was Richard's.
"Then, sir, the Association don't object to a reasonable number of apprentices."
"How many is that?"
"As many as you want, I expect, sir," said Stevens, shuffling his feet.
"Very well, Stevens. Go round to the front gate and Mr. Shackford will let you in."
There were two doors to the office, one leading into the yard, and the other, by which the deputation had entered and was now making its exit, opened upon the street.
Richard heaved a vast sigh of relief as he took down the beam securing the principal entrance.
"Good-morning, boys," he chirped, with a smile as bright as newly minted gold. "I hope you enjoyed yourselves."
The quartet ducked their heads bashfully, and Stevens replied, "Can't speak for the others, Mr. Shackford, but I never enjoyed myself worse."
Piggott lingered a moment behind the rest, and looking back over his shoulder said, "That peach garden was what fetched us!"
Richard gave a loud laugh, for the peach garden had been a horticultural invention of his own.
In the course of the forenoon the majority of the hands presented themselves at the office, dropping into the yard in gangs of five or six, and nearly all were taken on. To dispose definitely of Lumley, Giles, and Peterson, they were not taken on at Slocum's Yard, though they continued to be, directly or indirectly, Slocum's pensioners, even after they were retired to the town farm.
Once more the chisels sounded merrily under the long shed. That same morning the spinners went back to the mules, but the molders held out until nightfall, when it was signified to them that they demands would be complied with.
The next day the steam-whistles of the Miantowona Iron Works and Dana's Mills sent the echoes flying beyond that undulating line of pines and hemlocks which half encircles Stillwater, and falls away loosely on either side, like an unclasped girdle.
A calm, as if from out the cloudless blue sky that arched it day after day, seemed to drift down upon the village. Han-Lin, with no more facial expression than an orange, suddenly reappeared on the streets, and went about repairing his laundry, unmolested. The children were playing in the sunny lanes again, unafraid, and mothers sat on doorsteps in the summer twilights, singing softly to the baby in arm. There was meat on the table, and the tea-kettle hummed comfortably at the back of the stove. The very winds that rustled through the fragrant pines, and wandered fitfully across the vivid green of the salt marshes, breathed peace and repose.
Then, one morning, this blissful tranquility was rudely shattered. Old Mr. Lemuel Shackford had been found murdered in his own house in Welch's Court.
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The general effect on Stillwater of Mr. Shackford's death and the peculiar circumstances attending the tragedy have been set forth in the earlier chapters of this narrative. The influence which that event exerted upon several persons then but imperfectly known to the reader is now to occupy us.
On the conclusion of the strike, Richard had returned, in the highest spirits, to his own rooms in Lime Street; but the quiet week that followed found him singularly depressed. His nerves had been strung to their utmost tension during those thirteen days of suspense; he had assumed no light responsibility in the matter of closing the yard, and there had been moments when the task of sustaining Mr. Slocum had appeared almost hopeless. Now that the strain was removed a reaction set in, and Richard felt himself unnerved by the fleeing shadow of the trouble which had not caused him to flinch so long as it faced him.
On the morning and at the moment when Mary Hennessey was pushing open the scullery door of the house in Welch's Court, and was about to come upon the body of the forlorn old man lying there in his night-dress, Richard sat eating his breakfast in a silent and preoccupied mood. He had retired very late the previous night, and his lack-lustre eyes showed the effect of insufficient sleep. His single fellow-boarder, Mr. Pinkham, had not returned from his customary early walk, and only Richard and Mrs. Spooner, the landlady, were at table. The former was in the act of lifting the coffee-cup to his lips, when the school-master burst excitedly into the room.
"Old Mr. Shackford is dead!" he exclaimed, dropping into a chair near the door. "There's a report down in the village that he has been murdered. I don't know if it is true.... God forgive my abruptness! I didn't think!" and Mr. Pinkham turned an apologetic face towards Richard, who sat there deathly pale, holding the cup rigidly within an inch or two of his lip, and staring blankly into space like a statue.
"I--I ought to have reflected," murmured the school-master, covered with confusion at his maladroitness. "It was very reprehensible in Craggie to make such an announcement to me so suddenly, on a street corner. I--I was quite upset by it."
Richard pushed back his chair without replying, and passed into the hall, where he encountered a messenger from Mr. Slocum, confirming Mr. Pinkham's intelligence, but supplementing it with the rumor that Lemuel Shackford had committed suicide.
Richard caught up his hat from a table, and hurried to Welch's Court. Before reaching the house he had somewhat recovered his outward composure; but he was still pale and internally much agitated, for he had received a great shock, as Lawyer Perkins afterwards observed to Mr. Ward in the reading-room of the tavern. Both these gentlemen were present when Richard arrived, as were also several of the immediate neighbors and two constables. The latter were guarding the door against the crowd, which had already begun to collect in the front yard.
A knot of carpenters, with their tool-boxes on their shoulders, had halted at the garden gate on their way to Bishop's new stables, and were glancing curiously at the unpainted façade of the house, which seemed to have taken on a remote, bewildered expression, as if it had an inarticulate sense of the horror within. The men ceased their whispered conversation as Richard approached, and respectfully moved aside to let him pass.
Nothing had been changed in the cheerless room on the ground floor, with its veneered mahogany furniture and its yellowish leprous wall-paper, peeling off at the seams here and there. A cane-seated chair, overturned near the table, had been left untouched, and the body was still lying in the position in which the Hennessey girl had discovered it. A strange chill--something unlike any atmospherical sharpness, a chill that seemed to exhale from the thin, pinched nostrils--permeated the apartment. The orioles were singing madly outside, their vermilion bosoms glowing like live coals against the tender green of the foliage, and appearing to break into flame as they took sudden flights hither and thither; but within all was still. On entering the chamber Richard was smitten by the silence,--that silence which shrouds the dead, and is like no other. Lemuel Shackford had not been kind or cousinly; he had blighted Richard's childhood with harshness and neglect, and had lately heaped cruel insult upon him; but as he stood there alone, and gazed for a moment at the firmly shut lips, upon which the mysterious white dust of death had already settled,--the lips that were never to utter any more bitter things,--the tears gathered in Richard's eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks. After all said and done, Lemuel Shackford was his kinsman, and blood is thicker than water!
Coroner Whidden shortly appeared on the scene, accompanied by a number of persons; a jury was impaneled, and then began that inquest which resulted in shedding so very little light on the catastrophe.
The investigation completed, there were endless details to attend to,--papers to be hurriedly examined and sealed, and arrangements made for the funeral on the succeeding day. These matters occupied Richard until late in the afternoon, when he retired to his lodgings, looking in on Margaret for a few minutes on his way home.
"This is too dreadful!" said Margaret, clinging to his hand, with fingers nearly as icy as his own.
"It is unspeakably sad," answered Richard,--"the saddest thing I ever knew."
"Who--who could have been so cruel?"
Richard shook his head.
"No one knows."
The funeral took place on Thursday, and on Friday morning, as has been stated, Mr. Taggett arrived in Stillwater, and installed himself in Welch's Court, to the wonder of many in the village, who would not have slept a night in that house, with only a servant in the north gable, for half the universe. Mr. Taggett was a person who did not allow himself to be swayed by his imagination.
Here, then, he began his probing of a case which, on the surface, promised to be a very simple one. The man who had been seen driving rapidly along the turnpike sometime near daybreak, on Wednesday, was presumably the man who could tell him all about it. But it did not prove so. Neither Thomas Blufton, nor William Durgin, nor any of the tramps subsequently obliged to drop into autobiography could be connected with the affair.
These first failures served to stimulate Mr. Taggett; it required a complex case to stir his ingenuity and sagacity. That the present was not a complex case he was still convinced, after four days' futile labor upon it. Mr. Shackford had been killed--either with malice prepense or on the spur of the moment--for his money. The killing had likely enough not been premeditated; the old man had probably opposed the robbery. Now, among the exceptionally rough population of the town there were possibly fifty men who would not have hesitated to strike down Mr. Shackford if he had caught them _flagrante delicto_ and resisted them, or attempted to call for succor. That the crime was committed by some one in Stillwater or in the neighborhood Mr. Taggett had never doubted since the day of his arrival. The clumsy manner in which the staple had been wrenched from the scullery door showed the absence of a professional hand. Then the fact that the deceased was in the habit of keeping money in his bedchamber was a fact well known in the village, and not likely to be known outside of it, though of course it might have been. It was clearly necessary for Mr. Taggett to carry his investigation into the workshops and among the haunts of the class which was indubitably to furnish him with the individual he wanted. Above all, it was necessary that the investigation should be secret. An obstacle obtruded itself here: everybody in Stillwater knew everybody, and a stranger appearing on the streets or dropping frequently into the tavern would not escape comment.
The man with the greatest facility for making the requisite searches would of course be some workman. But a workman was the very agent not to be employed under the circumstances. How many times, and by what strange fatality, had a guilty party been selected to shadow his own movements, or those of an accomplice! No, Mr. Taggett must rely only on himself, and his plan forthwith matured. Its execution, however, was delayed several days, the cooperation of Mr. Slocum and Mr. Richard Shackford being indispensable.
At this stage Richard went to New York, where his cousin had made extensive investments in real estate. For a careful man, the late Mr. Shackford had allowed his affairs there to become strangely tangled. The business would detain Richard a fortnight.
Three days after his departure Mr. Taggett himself left Stillwater, having apparently given up the case; a proceeding which was severely criticized, not only in the columns of The Stillwater Gazette, but by the townsfolks at large, who immediately relapsed into a state of apprehension approximating that of the morning when the crime was discovered. Mr. Pinkham, who was taking tea that evening at the Danas', threw the family into a panic by asserting his belief that this was merely the first of a series of artistic assassinations in the manner of those Memorable Murders recorded by De Quincey. Mr. Pinkham may have said this to impress the four Dana girls with the variety of his reading, but the recollection of De Quincey's harrowing paper had the effect of so unhinging the young school-master that when he found himself, an hour or two afterwards, in the lonely, unlighted street he flitted home like a belated ghost, and was ready to drop at every tree-box.
The next forenoon a new hand was taken on at Slocum's Yard. The new hand, who had come on foot from South Millville, at which town he had been set down by the seven o'clock express that morning, was placed in the apprentice department,--there were five or six apprentices now. Though all this was part of an understood arrangement, Mr. Slocum nearly doubted the fidelity of his own eyes when Mr. Taggett, a smooth-faced young fellow of one and twenty, if so old, with all the traits of an ordinary workman down to the neglected fingernails, stepped up to the desk to have the name of Blake entered on the pay-roll. Either by chance or by design, Mr. Taggett had appeared but seldom on the streets of Stillwater; the few persons who had had anything like familiar intercourse with him in his professional capacity were precisely the persons with whom his present movements were not likely to bring him into juxtaposition, and he ran slight risk of recognition by others. With his hair closely cropped, and the overhanging brown mustache removed, the man was not so much disguised as transformed. "I shouldn't have known him!" muttered Mr. Slocum, as he watched Mr. Taggett passing from the office with his hat in his hand. During the ensuing ten or twelve days Mr. Slocum never wholly succeeded in extricating himself from the foggy uncertainty generated by that one brief interview. From the moment Mr. Taggett was assigned a bench under the sheds, Mr. Slocum saw little or nothing of him.
Mr. Taggett took lodging in a room in one of the most crowded of the low boarding-houses,--a room accommodating two beds besides his own: the first occupied by a brother neophyte in marble-cutting, and the second by a morose middle-aged man with one eyebrow a trifle higher than the other, as if it had been wrenched out of line by the strain of habitual intoxication. This man's name was Wollaston, and he worked at Dana's.
Mr. Taggett's initial move was to make himself popular in the marble yard, and especially at the tavern, where he spent money freely, though not so freely as to excite any remark except that the lad was running through pretty much all his small pay,--a recklessness which was charitably condoned in Snelling's bar-room. He formed multifarious friendships, and had so many sensible views on the labor problem, advocating the general extinguishment of capitalists, and so on, that his admittance to the Marble Workers' Association resolved itself into merely a question of time. The old prejudice against apprentices was already wearing off. The quiet, evasive man of few words was now a loquacious talker, holding his own with the hardest hitters, and very skillful in giving offense to no one. "Whoever picks up Blake for a fool," Dexter remarked one night, "will put him down again." Not a shadow of suspicion followed Mr. Taggett in his various comings and goings. He seemed merely a good-natured, intelligent devil; perhaps a little less devilish and a trifle more intelligent than the rest, but not otherwise different. Denyven, Peters, Dexter, Willson, and others in and out of the Slocum clique were Blake's sworn friends. In brief, Mr. Taggett had the amplest opportunities to prosecute his studies. Only for a pained look which sometimes latterly shot into his eyes, as he worked at the bench, or as he walked alone in the street, one would have imagined that he was thoroughly enjoying the half-vagabond existence.
The supposition would have been erroneous, for in the progress of those fourteen days' apprenticeship Mr. Taggett had received a wound in the most sensitive part of his nature: he had been forced to give up what no man ever relinquishes without a wrench,--his own idea.
With the exception of an accident in Dana's Mill, by which Torrini's hand had been so badly mangled that amputation was deemed necessary, the two weeks had been eventless outside of Mr. Taggett's personal experience. What that experience was will transpire in its proper place. Margaret was getting daily notes from Richard, and Mr. Slocum, overburdened with the secret of Mr. Taggett's presence in the yard,--a secret confined exclusively to Mr. Slocum, Richard, and Justice Beemis,--was restlessly awaiting developments.
The developments came that afternoon when Mr. Taggett walked into the office and startled Mr. Slocum, sitting at the desk. The two words which Mr. Taggett then gravely and coldly whispered in Mr. Slocum's ear were,-- "RICHARD SHACKFORD."
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Mr. Slocum, who had partly risen from the chair, sank back into his seat. "Good God!" he said, turning very pale. "Are you mad?"
Mr. Taggett realized the cruel shock which the pronouncing of that name must have caused Mr. Slocum. Mr. Taggett had meditated his line of action, and had decided that the most merciful course was brusquely to charge young Shackford with the crime, and allow Mr. Slocum to sustain himself for a while with the indignant disbelief which would be natural to him, situated as he was. He would then in a manner be prepared for the revelations which, if suddenly presented, would crush him.
If Mr. Taggett was without imagination, as he claimed, he was not without a certain feminine quickness of sympathy often found in persons engaged in professions calculated to blunt the finer sensibilities. In his intercourse with Mr. Slocum at the Shackford house, Mr. Taggett had been won by the singular gentleness and simplicity of the man, and was touched by his misfortune.
After his exclamation, Mr. Slocum did not speak for a moment or two, but with his elbows resting on the edge of the desk sat motionless, like a person stunned. Then he slowly lifted his face, to which the color had returned, and making a movement with his right hand as if he were sweeping away cobwebs in front of him rose from the chair.
"You are simply mad," he said, looking Mr. Taggett squarely and calmly in the eyes. "Are you aware of Mr. Richard Shackford's character and his position here?"
"Precisely."
"Do you know that he is to marry my daughter?"
"I am very sorry for you, sir."
"You may spare me that. It is quite unnecessary. You have fallen into some horrible delusion. I hope you will be able to explain it."
"I am prepared to do so, sir."
"Are you serious?"
"Very serious, Mr. Slocum."
"You actually imagine that Richard Shackford--Pshaw! It's simply impossible!"
"I am too young a man to wish even to seem wiser than you, but my experience has taught me that nothing is impossible."
"I begin to believe so myself. I suppose you have grounds, or something you consider grounds, for your monstrous suspicion. What are they? I demand to be fully informed of what you have been doing in the yard, before you bring disgrace upon me and my family by inconsiderately acting on some wild theory which perhaps ten words can refute."
"I should be in the highest degree criminal, Mr. Slocum, if I were to make so fearful an accusation against any man unless I had the most incontestable evidence in my hands."
Mr. Taggett spoke with such cold-blooded conviction that a chill crept over Mr. Slocum, in spite of him.
"What is the nature of this evidence?"
"Up to the present stage, purely circumstantial."
"I can imagine that," said Mr. Slocum, with a slight smile.
"But so conclusive as to require no collateral evidence. The testimony of an eye-witness of the crime could scarcely add to my knowledge of what occurred that Tuesday night in Lemuel Shackford's house."
"Indeed, it is all so clear! But of course a few eye-witnesses will turn up eventually," said Mr. Slocum, whose whiteness about the lips discounted the assurance of his sarcasm.
"That is not improbable," returned Mr. Taggett.
"And meanwhile what are the facts?"
"They are not easily stated. I have kept a record of my work day by day, since the morning I entered the yard. The memoranda are necessarily confused, the important and the unimportant being jumbled together; but the record as it stands will answer your question more fully than I could, even if I had the time--which I have not--to go over the case with you. I can leave these notes in your hands, if you desire it. When I return from New York"-- "You are going to New York!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, with a start. "When?"
"This evening."
"If you lay a finger on Richard Shackford, you will make the mistake of your life, Mr. Taggett!"
"I have other business there. Mr. Shackford will be in Stillwater to-morrow night. He engaged a state-room on the Fall River boat this morning."
"How can you know that?"
"Since last Tuesday none of his movements have been unknown to me."
"Do you mean to say that you have set your miserable spies upon him?" cried Mr. Slocum.
"I should not state the fact in just those words," Mr. Taggett answered. "The fact remains."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Slocum. "I am not quite myself. Can you wonder at it?"
"I do not wonder."
"Give me those papers you speak of, Mr. Taggett. I would like to look through them. I see that you are a very obstinate person when you have once got a notion into your head. Perhaps I can help you out of your error before it is irreparable." Then, after hesitating a second, Mr. Slocum added, "I may speak of this to my daughter? Indeed, I could scarcely keep it from her."
"Perhaps it is better she should be informed."
"And Mr. Shackford, when he returns to-morrow?"
"If he broaches the subject of his cousin's death, I advise you to avoid it."
"Why should I?"
"It might save you or Miss Slocum some awkwardness,--but you must use your own discretion. As the matter stands it makes no difference whether Mr. Shackford knows his position to-day or to-morrow. It is too late for him to avail himself of the knowledge. Otherwise, of course, I should not have given myself away in this fashion."
"Very well," said Mr. Slocum, with an impatient movement of his shoulders; "neither I nor my daughter will open our lips on this topic. In the mean while you are to take no further steps without advising me. That is understood?"
"That is perfectly understood," returned Mr. Taggett, drawing a narrow red note-book from the inner pocket of his workman's blouse, and producing at the same time a small nickel-plated door-key. "This is the key of Mr. Shackford's private workshop in the extension. I have not been able to replace it on the mantel-shelf of his sitting-room in Lime Street. Will you have the kindness to see that it is done at once?"
A moment later Mr. Slocum stood alone in the office, with Mr. Taggett's diary in his hand. It was one of those costly little volumes--gilt-edged and bound in fragrant crushed Levant morocco--with which city officials are annually supplied by a community of grateful taxpayers.
The dark crimson of the flexible covers, as soft and slippery to the touch as a snake's skin, was perhaps the fitting symbol of the darker story that lay coiled within. With a gesture of repulsion, as if some such fancy had flitted through his mind, Mr. Slocum tossed the note-book on the desk in front of him, and stood a few minutes moodily watching the _reflets_ of the crinkled leather as the afternoon sunshine struck across it. Beneath his amazement and indignation he had been chilled to the bone by Mr. Taggett's brutal confidence. It was enough to chill one, surely; and in spite of himself Mr. Slocum began to feel a certain indefinable dread of that little crimson-bound book.
Whatever it contained, the reading of those pages was to be a repellent task to him; it was a task to which he could not bring himself at the moment; to-night, in the privacy of his own chamber, he would sift Mr. Taggett's baleful fancies. Thus temporizing, Mr. Slocum dropped the volume into his pocket, locked the office door behind him, and wandered down to Dundon's drug-store to kill the intervening hour before supper-time. Dundon's was the aristocratic lounging place of the village,--the place where the only genuine Havana cigars in Stillwater were to be had, and where the favored few, the initiated, could get a dash of hochheimer or cognac with their soda-water.
At supper, that evening, Mr. Slocum addressed scarcely a word to Margaret, and Margaret was also silent. The days were dragging heavily with her; she was missing Richard. Her own daring travels had never extended beyond Boston or Providence; and New York, with Richard in it, seemed drearily far away. Mr. Slocum withdrew to his chamber shortly after nine o'clock, and, lighting the pair of candles on the dressing-table, began his examination of Mr. Taggett's memoranda.
At midnight the watchman on his lonely beat saw those two candles still burning.
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Mr. Taggett's diary was precisely a diary,--disjoined, full of curt, obscure phrases and irrelevant reflections,--for which reason it will not be reproduced here. Though Mr. Slocum pondered every syllable, and now and then turned back painfully to reconsider some doubtful passage, it is not presumed that the reader will care to do so. An abstract of the journal, with occasional quotation where the writer's words seem to demand it, will be sufficient for the narrative.
In the opening pages Mr. Taggett described his novel surroundings with a minuteness which contrasted oddly with the brief, hurried entries further on. He found himself, as he had anticipated, in a society composed of some of the most heterogeneous elements. Stillwater, viewed from a certain point, was a sort of microcosm, a little international rag-fair to which nearly every country on earth had contributed one of its shabby human products. "I am moving," wrote Mr. Taggett, "in an atmosphere in which any crime is possible. I give myself seven days at the outside to light upon the traces of Shackford's murder. I feel him in the air." The writer's theory was that the man would betray his identity in one of two ways: either by talking unguardedly, or by indulging in expenditures not warranted by his means and position. If several persons had been concerned in the crime, nothing was more likely than a disagreement over the spoil, and consequent treachery on the part of one of them. Or, again, some of the confederates might become alarmed, and attempt to save themselves by giving away their comrades. Mr. Taggett, however, leaned to the belief that the assassin had had no accomplices.
The sum taken from Mr. Shackford's safe was a comparatively large one,--five hundred dollars in gold and nearly double that amount in bank-notes. Neither the gold nor the paper bore any known mark by which it could be recognized; the burglar had doubtless assured himself of this, and would not hesitate to disburse the money. That was even a safer course, judiciously worked, than to secrete it. The point was, Would he have sufficient self-control to get rid of it by degrees? The chances, Mr. Taggett argued, were ten to one he would not.
A few pages further on Mr. Taggett compliments the Unknown on the adroit manner in which he is conducting himself. He has neither let slip a suspicious word, nor made an incautious display of his booty. Snelling's bar was doing an unusually light business. No one appeared to have any money. Many of the men had run deeply into debt during the late strike, and were now drinking moderately. In the paragraph which closes the week's record Mr. Taggett's chagrin is evident. He confesses that he is at fault. "My invisible friend does not _materialize_ so successfully as I expected," is Mr. Taggett's comment.
His faith in the correctness of his theory had not abated; but he continued his observation sin a less sanguine spirit. These observations were not limited to the bar-room or the workshop; he informed himself of the domestic surroundings of his comrades. Where his own scrutiny could not penetrate, he employed the aid of correspondents. He knew what workmen had money in the local savings-bank, and the amount of each deposit. In the course of his explorations of the shady side of Stillwater life, Mr. Taggett unearthed many amusing and many pathetic histories, but nothing that served his end. Finally, he began to be discouraged.
Returning home from the tavern, one night, in a rather desponding mood, he found the man Wollaston smoking his pipe in bed. Wollaston was a taciturn man generally, but this night he was conversational, and Mr. Taggett, too restless to sleep, fell to chatting with him. Did he know much about the late Mr. Shackford? Yes, he had known him well enough, in an off way,--not to speak of him; everybody knew him in Stillwater; he was a sort of miser, hated everybody, and bullied everybody. It was a wonder somebody didn't knock the old silvertop on the head years ago.
Thus Mr. Wollaston grimly, with his pores stopped up with iron-fillings,--a person to whom it would come quite easy to knock any one on the head for a slight difference of opinion. He amused Mr. Taggett in his present humor.
No, he wasn't aware that Shackford had had trouble with any particular individual; believed he did have a difficulty once with Slocum, the marble man; but he was always fetching suits against the town and shying lawyers at the mill directors,--a disagreeable old cuss altogether. Adopted his cousin, one time, but made the house so hot for him that the lad ran off to sea, and since then had had nothing to do with the old bilk.
Indeed! What sort of fellow was young Shackford? Mr. Wollaston could not say of his own knowledge; thought him a plucky chap; he had put a big Italian named Torrini out of the yard, one day, for talking back. Who was Torrini? The man that got hurt last week in the Dana Mill. Who were Richard Shackford's intimates? Couldn't say; had seen him with Mr. Pinkham, the school-master, and Mr. Craggie,--went with the upper crust generally. Was going to be partner in the marble yard and marry Slocum's daughter. Will Durgin knew him. They lived together one time. He, Wollaston, was going to turn in now.
Several of these facts were not new to Mr. Taggett, but Mr. Wollaston's presentation of them threw Mr. Taggett into a reverie.
The next evening he got Durgin alone in a corner of the bar-room. With two or three potations Durgin became autobiographical. Was he acquainted with Mr. Shackford outside the yard? Rather. Dick Shackford? His (Durgin's) mother had kept Dick from starving when he was a baby,--and no thanks for it. Went to school with him, and knew all about his running off to sea. Was near going with him. Old man Shackford never liked Dick, who was a proud beggar; they couldn't pull together, down to the last,--both of a piece. They had a jolly rumpus a little while before the old man was fixed.
Mr. Taggett pricked up his ears at this.
A rumpus? How did Durgin know that? A girl told him. What girl? A girl he was sweet on. What was her name? Well, he didn't mind telling her name; it was Molly Hennessey. She was going through Welch's Court one forenoon,--may be it was three days before the strike,--and saw Dick Shackford bolt out of the house, swinging his arms and swearing to himself at an awful rate. Was Durgin certain that Molly Hennessey had told him this? Yes, he was ready to take his oath on it.
Here, at last, was something that looked like a glimmer of daylight.
It was possible that Durgin or the girl had lied; but the story had an air of truth to it. If it were a fact that there had recently been a quarrel between these cousins, whose uncousinly attitude towards each other was fast becoming clear to Mr. Taggett, then here was a conceivable key to an enigma which had puzzled him.
The conjecture that Lemuel Shackford had himself torn up the will--if it was a will, for this still remained in dispute--had never been satisfactory to Mr. Taggett. He had accepted it because he was unable to imagine an ordinary burglar pausing in the midst of his work to destroy a paper in which he could have no concern. But Richard Shackford would have the liveliest possible interest in the destruction of a document that placed a vast estate beyond his reach. Here was a motive on a level with the crime. That money had been taken, and that the fragments of the will had been carelessly thrown into a waste-paper basket, just as if the old man himself had thrown them there, was a stroke of art which Mr. Taggett admired more and more as he reflected upon it.
He did not, however, allow himself to lay too much stress on these points; for the paper might turn out to be merely an expired lease, and the girl might have been quizzing Durgin. Mr. Taggett would have given one of his eye-teeth just then for ten minutes with Mary Hennessey. But an interview with her at this stage was neither prudent nor easily compassed.
"If I have not struck a trail," writes Mr. Taggett, "I have come upon what strongly resembles one; the least I can do is to follow it. My first move must be to inspect that private workshop in the rear of Mr. Slocum's house. How shall I accomplish it? I cannot apply to him for permission, for that would provoke questions which I am not ready to answer. Moreover, I have yet to assure myself that Mr. Slocum is not implicated. There seems to have been also a hostile feeling existing between him and the deceased. Why didn't some one tell me these things at the start! If young Shackford is the person, there is a tangled story to be unraveled. _Mem:_ Young Shackford is Miss Slocum's lover."
Mr. Slocum read this passage twice without drawing breath, and then laid down the book an instant to wipe the sudden perspiration from his forehead.
In the note which followed, Mr. Taggett described the difficulty he met with in procuring a key to fit the wall-door at the rear of the marble yard, and gave an account of his failure to effect an entrance into the studio. He had hoped to find a window unfastened; but the window, as well as the door opening upon the veranda, was locked, and in the midst of his operations, which were conducted at noon-time, the approach of a servant had obliged him to retreat.
Forced to lay aside, at least temporarily, his designs on the workshop, he turned his attention to Richard's lodgings in Lime Street. Here Mr. Taggett was more successful. On the pretext that he had been sent for certain drawings which were to be found on the table or in a writing-desk, he was permitted by Mrs. Spooner to ascend to the bedroom, where she obligingly insisted on helping him search for the apocryphal plans, and seriously interfered with his purpose, which was to find the key of the studio. While Mr. Taggett was turning over the pages of a large dictionary, in order to gain time, and was wondering how he could rid himself of the old lady's importunities, he came upon a half-folded note-sheet, at the bottom of which his eye caught the name of Lemuel Shackford. It was in the handwriting of the dead man. Mr. Taggett was very familiar with that handwriting. He secured the paper at a venture, and put it in his pocket without examination.
A few minutes later, it being impossible to prolong the pretended quest for the drawings, Mr. Taggett was obliged to follow Mrs. Spooner from the apartment. As he did so he noticed a bright object lying on the corner of the mantel-shelf,--a small nickel-plated key. In order to take it he had only to reach out his hand in passing. It was, as Mr. Taggett had instantly surmised, the key of Richard's workshop.
If it had been gold, instead of brass or iron, that bit of metal would have taken no additional value in Mr. Taggett's eyes. On leaving Mrs. Spooner's he held it tightly clasped in his fingers until he reached an unfrequented street, where he halted a moment in the shadow of a building to inspect the paper, which he had half forgotten in his satisfaction at having obtained the key. A stifled cry rose to Mr. Taggett's lips as he glanced over the crumpled note-sheet.
It contained three lines, hastily scrawled in lead-pencil, requesting Richard Shackford to call at the house in Welch's Court at eight o'clock on a certain Tuesday night. The note had been written, as the date showed, on the day preceding the Tuesday night in question--the night of the murder!
For a second or two Mr. Taggett stood paralyzed. Ten minutes afterwards a message in cipher was pulsing along the wires to New York, and before the sun went down that evening Richard Shackford was under the surveillance of the police.
The doubtful, unknown ground upon which Mr. Taggett had been floundering was now firm under his feet,--unexpected ground, but solid. Meeting Mary Hennessey in the street, on his way to the marble yard, Mr. Taggett no longer hesitated to accost her, and question her as to the story she had told William Durgin. The girl's story was undoubtedly true, and as a piece of circumstantial evidence was only less important than the elder Shackford's note. The two cousins had been for years on the worst of terms. At every step Mr. Taggett had found corroboration of Wollaston's statement to that effect.
"Where were Coroner Whidden's eyes and ears," wrote Mr. Taggett,--the words were dashed down impatiently on the page, as if he had sworn a little internally while writing them,--"when he conducted that inquest! In all my experience there was never a thing so stupidly managed."
A thorough and immediate examination of Richard Shackford's private workshop was now so imperative that Mr. Taggett resolved to make it even if he had to do so under the authority of a search-warrant. But he desired as yet to avoid publicity.
A secret visit to the studio seemed equally difficult by day and night. In the former case he was nearly certain to be deranged by the servants, and in the latter a light in the unoccupied room would alarm any of the household who might chance to awaken. From the watchman no danger was to be apprehended, as the windows of the extension were not visible from the street.
Mr. Taggett finally decided on the night as the more propitious time for his attempt,--a decision which his success justified. A brilliant moon favored the in-door part of the enterprise, though it exposed him to observation in his approach from the marble yard to the veranda.
With the dense moonlight streaming outside against the window-shades, he could safely have used a candle in the studio instead of the screened lantern which he had provided. Mr. Taggett passed three hours in the workshop,--the last hour in waiting for the moon to go down. Then he stole through the marble yard into the silent street, and hurried home, carrying two small articles concealed under his blouse. The first was a chisel with a triangular piece broken out of the centre of the bevel, and the other was a box of safety-matches. The peculiarity of this box of matches was--that just one match had been used from it.
Mr. Taggett's work was done.
The last seven pages of the diary were devoted to a review of the case, every detail of which was held up in various lights, and examined with the conscientious pains of a lapidary deciding on the value of a rare stone. The concluding entries ran as follow:-- _"Tuesday Night_. Here the case passes into other hands. I have been fortunate rather than skillful in unmasking the chief actor in one of the most singular crimes that ever came under my investigation. By destroying three objects, very easily destroyed, Richard Shackford would have put himself beyond the dream of suspicion. He neglected to remove these dumb witnesses, and now the dumb witnesses speak! If it could be shown that he was a hundred miles from Stillwater at the time of the murder, instead of in the village, as he was, he must still be held, in the face of the proofs against him, accessory to the deed. These proofs, roughly summarized, are:-- _"First_. The fact that he had had an altercation with his cousin a short time previous to the date of the murder,--a murder which may be regarded not as the result of a chance disagreement, but of long years of bitter enmity between the two men.
_"Secondly_. The fact that Richard Shackford had had an appointment with his cousin on the night the crime was committed, and had concealed that fact from the authorities at the time of the coroner's inquest.
_"Thirdly_. That the broken chisel found in the private workshop of the accused explains the peculiar shape of the wound which caused Lemuel Shackford's death, and corresponds in every particular with the plaster impression taken of that wound.
_"Fourthly_. That the partially consumed match found on the scullery floor when the body was discovered (a style of match not used in the house in Welch's Court) completes the complement of a box of safety-matches belonging to Richard Shackford, and hidden in a closet in his workshop.
"Whether Shackford had an accomplice or not is yet to be ascertained. There is nothing whatever to implicate Mr. Rowland Slocum. I make the statement because his intimate association with one party and his deep dislike of the other invited inquiry, and at first raised an unjust suspicion in my mind."
The little red book slipped from Mr. Slocum's grasp and fell at his feet. As he rose from the chair, the reflection which he caught of himself in the dressing-table mirror was that of a wrinkled, white old man.
Mr. Slocum did not believe, and no human evidence could have convinced him, that Richard had deliberately killed Lemuel Shackford; but as Mr. Slocum reached the final pages of the diary, a horrible probability insinuated itself in his mind. Could Richard have done it accidentally? Could he--in an instant of passion, stung to sudden madness by that venomous old man--have struck him involuntarily, and killed him? A certain speech which Richard had made in Mr. Slocum's presence not long before came back to him now with fearful emphasis:-- _"Three or four times in my life I have been carried away by a devil of a temper which I couldn't control, it seized me so unawares." _ "It seized me so unawares!" repeated Mr. Slocum, half aloud; and then with a swift, unconscious gesture, he pressed his hands over his ears, as if to shut out the words.
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Margaret must be told. It would be like stabbing her to tell her all this. Mr. Slocum had lain awake long after midnight, appalled by the calamity that was about to engulf them. At moments, as his thought reverted to Margaret's illness early in the spring, he felt that perhaps it would have been a mercy if she had died then. He had left the candles burning; it was not until the wicks sunk down in the sockets and went softly out that slumber fell upon him.
He was now sitting at the breakfast-table, absently crumbling bits of bread beside his plate and leaving his coffee untouched. Margaret glanced at him wistfully from time to time, and detected the restless night in the deepened lines of his face.
The house had not been the same since Lemuel Shackford's death; he had never crossed its threshold; Margaret had scarcely known him by sight, and Mr. Slocum had not spoken to him for years; but Richard's connection with the unfortunate old man had brought the tragic event very close to Margaret and her father. Mr. Slocum was a person easily depressed, but his depression this morning was so greatly in excess of the presumable cause that Margaret began to be troubled.
"Papa, has anything happened?"
"No, nothing new has happened; but I am dreadfully disturbed by some things which Mr. Taggett has been doing here in the village."
"I thought Mr. Taggett had gone."
"He did go; but he came back very quietly without anybody's knowledge. I knew it, of course; but no one else, to speak of."
"What has he done to disturb you?"
"I want you to be a brave girl, Margaret,--will you promise that?"
"Why, yes," said Margaret, with an anxious look. "You frighten me with your mysteriousness."
"I do not mean to be mysterious, but I don't quite know how to tell you about Mr. Taggett. He has been working underground in this matter of poor Shackford's death,--boring in the dark like a mole,--and thinks he has discovered some strange things."
"Do you mean he thinks he has found out who killed Mr. Shackford?"
"He believes he has fallen upon clews which will lead to that. The strange things I alluded to are things which Richard will have to explain."
"Richard? What has he to do with it?"
"Not much, I hope; but there are several matters which he will be obliged to clear up in order to save himself from very great annoyance. Mr. Taggett seems to think that--that"-- "Good heavens, papa! What does he think?"
"Margaret, he thinks that Richard knew something about the murder, and has not told it."
"What could he know? Is that all?"
"No, that is not all. I am keeping the full truth from you, and it is useless to do so. You must face it like a brave girl. Mr. Taggett suspects Richard of being concerned, directly or indirectly, with the crime."
The color went from Margaret's cheek for an instant. The statement was too horrible and sudden not to startle her, but it was also too absurd to have more than an instant's effect. Her quick recovery of herself reassured Mr. Slocum. Would she meet Mr. Taggett's specific charges with the like fortitude? Mr. Slocum himself had been prostrated by them; he prayed to Heaven that Margaret might have more strength than he, as indeed she had.
"The man has got together a lot of circumstantial evidence," continued Mr. Slocum cautiously; "some of it amounts to nothing, being mere conjecture; but some of it will look badly for Richard, to outsiders."
"Of course it is all a mistake," said Margaret, in nearly her natural voice. "It ought to be easy to convince Mr. Taggett of that."
"I have not been able to convince him."
"But you will. What has possessed him to fall into such a ridiculous error?"
"Mr. Taggett has written out everything at length in this memorandum-book, and you must read it for yourself. There are expressions and statements in these pages, Margaret, that will necessarily shock you very much; but you should remember, as I tried to while reading them, that Mr. Taggett has a heart of steel; without it he would be unable to do his distressing work. The cold impartiality with which he sifts and heaps up circumstances involving the doom of a fellow-creature appears almost inhuman; but it is his business. No, don't look at it here!" said Mr. Slocum, recoiling; he had given the book to Margaret. "Take it into the other room, and read it carefully by yourself. When you have finished, come back and tell me what you think."
"But, papa, surely you"-- "I don't believe anything, Margaret! I don't know the true from the false any more! I want you to help me out of my confusion, and you cannot do it until you have read that book."
Margaret made no response, but passed into the parlor and closed the folding-doors behind her.
After an absence of half an hour she reentered the breakfast room, and laid Mr. Taggett's diary on the table beside her father, who had not moved from his place during the interval. Margaret's manner was collected, but it was evident, by the dark circles under her eyes, and the set, colorless lips, that that half hour had been a cruel thirty minutes to her. In Margaret's self-possession Mr. Slocum recognized, not for the first time, the cropping out of an ancestral trait which had somehow managed to avoid him in its wayward descent.
"Well?" he questioned, looking earnestly at Margaret, and catching a kind of comfort from her confident bearing.
"It is Mr. Taggett's trade to find somebody guilty," said Margaret, "and he has been very ingenious and very merciless. He was plainly at his wits' ends to sustain his reputation, and would not have hesitated to sacrifice any one rather than wholly fail."
"But you have been crying, Margaret."
"How could I see Richard dragged down in the dust in this fashion, and not be mortified and indignant?"
"You don't believe anything at all of this?"
"Do _you?" _ asked Margaret, looking through and through him.
"I confess I am troubled."
"If you doubt Richard for a second," said Margaret, with a slight quiver of her lip, "that will be the bitterest part of it to me."
"I don't give any more credit to Mr. Taggett's general charges than you do, Margaret; but I understand their gravity better. A perfectly guiltless man, one able with a single word to establish his innocence, is necessarily crushed at first by an accusation of this kind. Now, can Richard set these matters right with a single word? I am afraid he has a world of difficulty before him."
"When he returns he will explain everything. How can you question it?"
"I do not wish to; but there are two things in Mr. Taggett's story which stagger me. The motive for the destruction of Shackford's papers,--that's not plain; the box of matches is a puerility unworthy of a clever man like Mr. Taggett, and as to the chisel he found, why, there are a hundred broken chisels in the village, and probably a score of them broken in precisely the same manner; but, Margaret, did Richard every breathe a word to you of that quarrel with his cousin?"
"No."
"He never mentioned it to me either. As matters stood between you and him, nothing was more natural than that he should have spoken of it to you,--so natural that his silence is positively strange."
"He may have considered it too unimportant. Mr. Shackford always abused Richard; it was nothing new. Then, again, Richard is very proud, and perhaps he did not care to come to us just at that time with family grievances. Besides, how do we know they quarreled? The village is full of gossip."
"I am certain there was a quarrel; it was only necessary for those two to meet to insure that. I distinctly remember the forenoon when Richard went to Welch's Court; it was the day he discharged Torrini."
A little cloud passed over Margaret's countenance.
"They undoubtedly had angry words together," continued Mr. Slocum, "and we are forced to accept the Hennessey girl's statement. The reason you suggest for Richard's not saying anything on the subject may suffice for us, but it will scarcely satisfy disinterested persons, and doesn't at all cover another circumstance which must be taken in the same connection."
"What circumstance?"
"His silence in regard to Lemuel Shackford's note,--a note written the day before the murder, and making an appointment for the very night of it."
The girl looked steadily at her father.
"Margaret!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, his face illuminated with a flickering hope as he met her untroubled gaze, "did Richard tell _you?" _ "No," replied Margaret.
"Then he told no one," said Mr. Slocum, with the light fading out of his features again. "It was madness in him to conceal the fact. He should not have lost a moment, after the death of his cousin, in making that letter public. It ought instantly to have been placed in Coroner Whidden's hands. Richard's action is inconceivable, unless--unless"-- "Do not say it!" cried Margaret. "I should never forgive you!"
In recapitulating the points of Mr. Taggett's accusation, Mr. Slocum had treated most of them as trivial; but he had not been sincere. He knew that that broken chisel had no duplicate in Stillwater, and that the finding of it in Richard's closet was a black fact. Mr. Slocum had also glossed over the quarrel; but that letter! --the likelihood that Richard kept the appointment, and his absolute silence concerning it,--here was a grim thing which no sophistry could dispose of. It would be wronging Margaret to deceive her as to the vital seriousness of Richard's position.
"Why, why did he hide it!" Mr. Slocum persisted.
"I do not see that he really hid it, papa. He shut the note in a book lying openly on the table,--a dictionary, to which any one in the household was likely to go. You think Mr. Taggett a person of great acuteness."
"He is a very intelligent person, Margaret."
"He appears to me very short-sighted. If Richard were the dreadful man Mr. Taggett supposes, that paper would have been burnt, and not left for the first comer to pick up. I scorn myself for stooping to the suggestion!"
"There is something in the idea," said Mr. Slocum slowly. "But why did Richard never mention the note,--to you, or to me, or to anybody?"
"He had a sufficient reason, you may be sure. Oh, papa, how ready you are to believe evil of him!"
"I am not, God knows!"
"How you cling to this story of the letter! Suppose it turns out to be some old letter, written two or three years ago? You could never look Richard in the face again."
"Unfortunately, Shackford dated it. It is useless for us to blindfold ourselves, Margaret. Richard has managed in some way to get himself into a very perilous situation, and we cannot help him by shutting our eyes. You misconceive me if you imagine I think him capable of coolly plotting his cousin's death; but it is not outside the limits of the possible that what has happened a thousand times may have happened once more. Men less impulsive than Richard"-- "I will not listen to it!" interrupted Margaret, drawing herself up. "When Richard returns he will explain the matter to you,--not to me. If I required a word of denial from him, I should care very little whether he was innocent or not."
Mr. Slocum threw a terrified glance at his daughter. Her lofty faith sent a chill to his heart. What would be the result of a fall from such a height? He almost wished Margaret had something less of that ancestral confidence and obstinacy the lack of which in his own composition he had so often deplored.
"We are not to speak of this to Richard," he said, after a protracted pause; "at least not until Mr. Taggett considers it best. I have pledged myself to something like that."
"Has Richard been informed of Mr. Taggett's singular proceeding?" asked Margaret, freezingly.
"Not yet; nothing is to be done until Mr. Taggett returns from New York, and then Richard will at once have an opportunity of clearing himself."
"It would have spared us all much pain and misunderstanding if he had been sent for in the first instance. Did he know that this person was here in the yard?"
"The plan was talked over before Richard left; the details were arranged afterwards. He heartily approved of the plan."
A leisurely and not altogether saint-like smile crept into the corners of Margaret's mouth.
"Yes, he approved of the plan," repeated Mr. Slocum. "Perhaps he"--Here Mr. Slocum checked himself, and left the sentence flying at loose ends. Perhaps Richard had looked with favor upon a method of inquiry which was so likely to lead to no result. But Mr. Slocum did not venture to finish the suggestion. He had never seen Margaret so imperious and intractable; it was impossible to reason or to talk frankly with her. He remained silent, sitting with one arm thrown dejectedly across the back of the chair.
Presently his abject attitude and expression began to touch Margaret; there was something that appealed to her in the thin gray hair fallowing over his forehead. Her eyes softened as they rested upon him, and a pitying little tremor came to her under lip.
"Papa," she said, stooping to his side, with a sudden rosy bloom in her cheeks, "I have all the proof I want that Richard knew nothing of this dreadful business."
"You have proof!" exclaimed Mr. Slocum, starting from his seat.
"Yes. The morning Richard went to New York"--Margaret hesitated.
"Well!"
"He put his arm around me and kissed me."
"Well!"
"Well?" repeated Margaret. "Could Richard have done that,--could he have so much as laid his hand upon me--if--if"-- Mr. Slocum sunk back in the chair with a kind of groan.
"Papa, you do not know him!"
"Oh, Margaret, I am afraid that that is not the kind of evidence to clear Richard in Mr. Taggett's eyes."
"Then Richard's word must do it," she said haughtily. "He will be home to-night."
"Yes, he is to return to-night," said Mr. Slocum, looking away from her.
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During the rest of the day the name of Richard Shackford was not mentioned again by either Margaret or her father. It was a day of suspense to both, and long before night-fall Margaret's impatience for Richard to come had resolved itself into a pain as keen as that with which Mr. Slocum contemplated the coming; for every hour augmented his dread of the events that would necessarily follow the reappearance of young Shackford in Stillwater.
On reaching his office, after the conversation with Margaret, Mr. Slocum found Lawyer Perkins waiting for him. Lawyer Perkins, who was as yet in ignorance of the late developments, had brought information of his own. The mutilated document which had so grimly clung to its secret was at last deciphered. It proved to be a recently executed will, in which the greater part of Lemuel Shackford's estate, real and personal, was left unconditionally to his cousin.
"That disposes of one of Mr. Taggett's theories," was Mr. Slocum's unspoken reflection. Certainly Richard had not destroyed the will; the old man himself had destroyed it, probably in some fit of pique. Yet, after all, the vital question was in no way affected by this fact; the motive for the crime remained, and the fearful evidence against Richard still held.
After the departure of Lawyer Perkins, who had been struck by the singular perturbation of his old friend, Mr. Slocum drew forth Mt. Taggett's journal, and re-read it from beginning to end. Margaret's unquestioning faith in Richard, her prompt and indignant rejection of the whole story, had shaken her father at moments that morning; but now his paralyzing doubts returned. This second perusal of the diary impressed him even more strongly than the first. Richard had killed Lemuel Shackford,--in self-defense, may be, or perhaps accidentally; but he had killed him! As Mr. Slocum passed from page to page, following the dark thread of narrative that darkened at each remove, he lapsed into that illogical frame of mind when one looks half expectantly for some providential interposition to avert the calamity against which human means are impotent. If Richard were to drop dead in the street! If he were to fall overboard off Point Judith in the night! If only anything would happen to prevent his coming back! Thus the ultimate disgrace might be spared them. But the ill thing is the sure thing; the letter with the black seal never miscarries, and Richard was bound to come! "There is no escape for him or for us," murmured Mr. Slocum, closing his finger in the book.
It was in a different mood that Margaret said to herself, "It is nearly four o'clock; he will be here at eight!" As she stood at the parlor window and watched the waning afternoon light making its farewells to the flower-beds in the little square front-gardens of the houses opposite, Margaret's heart was filled with the tenderness of the greeting she intended to give Richard. She had never been cold or shy in her demeanor with him, nor had she ever been quite demonstrative; but now she meant to put her arms around his neck in a wifely fashion, and recompense him so far as she could for all the injustice he was to suffer. When he came to learn of the hateful slander that had lifted its head during his absence, he should already be in possession of the assurance of her faith.
In the mean while the hands in Slocum's Yard were much exercised over the unaccountable disappearance of Blake. Stevens reported the matter to Mr. Slocum.
"Ah, yes," said Mr. Slocum, who had not provided himself with an explanation, and was puzzled to improvise one. "I discharged him,--that is to say, I let him go. I forgot to mention it. He didn't take to the trade."
"But he showed a good fist for a beginner," said Stevens. "He was head and shoulders the best of the new lot. Shall I put Stebbins in his place?"
"You needn't do anything until Mr. Shackford gets back."
"When will that be, sir?"
"To-night, probably."
The unceremonious departure of Blake formed the theme of endless speculation at the tavern that evening, and for the moment obscured the general interest in old Shackford's murder.
"Never to let on he was goin'!" said one.
"Didn't say good-by to nobody," remarked a second.
"It was devilish uncivil," added a third.
"It is kind of mysterious," said Mr. Peters.
"Some girl," suggested Mr. Willson, with an air of tender sentiment, which he attempted further to emphasize by a capricious wink.
"No," observed Dexter. "When a man vanishes in that sudden way his body is generally found in a clump of blackberry bushes, months afterwards, or left somewhere on the flats by an ebb tide."
"Two murders in Stillwater in one month would be rather crowding it, wouldn't it?" inquired Piggott.
"Bosh!" said Durgin. "There was always something shady about Blake. We didn't know where he hailed from, and we don't know where he's gone to. He'll take care of himself; that kind of fellow never lets anybody play any points on him." With this Durgin threw away the stump of his cigar, and lounged out at the street door.
"I couldn't get anything out of the proprietor," said Stevens; "but he never talks. May be Shackford when he"--Stevens stopped short to listen to a low, rumbling sound like distant thunder, followed almost instantly by two quick faint whistles. "He's aboard the train to-night."
Mr. Peters quietly rose from his seat and left the bar-room.
The evening express, due at eight, was only a few seconds behind time. As the screech of the approaching engine rung out from the dark wood-land, Margaret and her father exchanged rapid glances. It would take Richard ten minutes to walk from the railway station to the house,--for of course he would come there directly after sending his valise to Lime Street.
The ten minutes went by, and then twenty. Margaret bent steadily over her work, listening with covert intentness for the click of the street gate. Likely enough Richard had been unable to find any one to take charge of his hand-baggage. Presently Mr. Slocum could not resist the impulse to look at his watch. It was half past eight. He nervously unfolded The Stillwater Gazette, and sat with his eyes fastened on the paper.
After a seemingly interminable period the heavy bell of the South Church sounded nine, and then tolled for a few minutes, as the dismal custom is in New England country towns.
A long silence followed, unrelieved by any word between father and daughter,--a silence so profound that the heart of the old-fashioned time-piece, throbbing monotonously in its dusky case at the foot of the stairs, made itself audible through the room. Mr. Slocum's gaze continued fixed on the newspaper which he was not reading. Margaret's hands lay crossed over the work on her lap.
Ten o'clock.
"What can have kept him?" murmured Margaret.
"There was only that way out of it," reflected Mr. Slocum, pursuing his own line of thought.
Margaret's cheeks were flushed and hot, and her eyes dulled with disappointment, as she rose from the low rocking-chair and crossed over to kiss her father good-night. Mr. Slocum drew the girl gently towards him, and held her for a moment in silence. But Margaret, detecting the subtile commiseration in his manner, resented it, and released herself coldly.
"He has been detained, papa."
"Yes, something must have detained him!"
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When the down express arrived at Stillwater, that night, two passengers stepped from the rear car to the platform: one was Richard Shackford, and the other a commercial traveler, whose acquaintance Richard had made the previous evening on the Fall River boat.
There were no hacks in waiting at the station, and Richard found his politeness put to a severe test when he saw himself obliged to pilot his companion part of the way to the hotel, which lay--it seemed almost maliciously--in a section of the town remote from the Slocums'. Curbing his impatience, Richard led the stranger through several crooked, unlighted streets, and finally left him at the corner of the main thoroughfare, within pistol-shot of the red glass lantern which hung over the door of the tavern. This cost Richard ten good minutes. As he hurriedly turned into a cross-street on the left, he fancied that he heard his name called several times from somewhere in the darkness. A man came running towards him. It was Mr. Peters.
"Can I say a word to you, Mr. Shackford?"
"If it isn't a long one. I am rather pressed."
"It is about Torrini, sir."
"What of him?"
"He's mighty bad, sir."
"Oh, I can't stop to hear that," and Richard quickened his pace.
"The doctor took off his hand last Wednesday," said Peters, keeping alongside, "and he's been getting worse and worse."
Richard halted. "Took off his hand?"
"Didn't you know he was caught in the rolling-machine at Dana's? Well, it was after you went away."
"This is the first I've heard of it."
"It was hard lines for him, sir, with the woman and the two children, and nothing to eat in the house. The boys in the yard have done what they could, but with the things from the drug-store, and so on, we couldn't hold up our end. Mr. Dana paid the doctor's bill, but if it hadn't been for Miss Slocum I don't know what would have happened. I thought may be if I spoke to you, and told you how it was"-- "Did Torrini send you?"
"Lord, no! He's too proud to send to anybody. He's been so proud since they took off his hand that there has been no doing anything with him. If they was to take off his leg, he would turn into one mass of pride. No, Mr. Shackford, I came of myself."
"Where does Torrini live, now?"
"In Mitchell's Alley."
"I will go along with you," said Richard, with a dogged air. It seemed as if the fates were determined to keep him from seeing Margaret that night. Peters reached out a hand to take Richard's leather bag. "No, thank you, I can carry it very well." In a small morocco case in one of the pockets was a heavy plain gold ring for Margaret, and not for anything in the world would Richard have allowed any one else to carry the bag.
After a brisk five minutes' walk the two emerged upon a broad street crossing their path at right angles. All the shops were closed except Stubbs the provision dealer's and Dundon's drug-store. In the window of the apothecary a great purple jar, with a spray of gas jets behind it, was flaring on the darkness like a Bengal light. Richard stopped at the provision store and made some purchases; a little further on he halted at a fruit stand, kept by an old crone, who had supplemented the feeble flicker of the corner street lamp with a pitch-pine torch, which cast a yellow bloom over her apples and turned them all into oranges. She had real oranges, however, and Richard selected half a dozen, with a confused idea of providing the little Italians with some national fruit, though both children had been born in Stillwater.
Then the pair resumed their way, Peters acting as pioneer. They soon passed beyond the region of sidewalks and curbstones, and began picking their steps through a narrow, humid lane, where the water lay in slimy pools, and the tenement houses on each side blotted out the faint starlight. The night was sultry, and door and casement stood wide, making pits of darkness. Few lights were visible, but a continuous hum of voices issued from the human hives, and now and then a transient red glow at an upper window showed that some one was smoking a pipe. This was Mitchell's Alley.
The shadows closed behind the two men as they moved forward, and neither was aware of the figure which had been discreetly following them for the last ten minutes. If Richard had suddenly wheeled and gone back a dozen paces, he would have come face to face with the commercial traveler.
Mr. Peters paused in front of one of the tenement houses, and motioned with his thumb over his shoulder for Richard to follow him through a yawning doorway. The hall was as dark as a cave, and full of stale, moldy odors. Peters shuffled cautiously along the bare boards until he kicked his toe against the first step of the staircase.
"Keep close to the wall, Mr. Shackford, and feel your way up. They've used the banisters for kindling, and the landlord says he shan't put in any more. I went over here the other night," added Mr. Peters reminiscentially.
After fumbling several seconds for the latch, Mr. Peters pushed open a door, and ushered Richard into a large, gloomy rear room. A kerosene lamp was burning dimly on the mantel-shelf, over which hung a coarsely-colored lithograph of the Virgin in a pine frame. Under the picture stood a small black crucifix. There was little furniture,--a cooking-stove, two or three stools, a broken table, and a chest of drawers. On an iron bedstead in the corner lay Torrini, muffled to the chin in a blanket, despite the hot midsummer night. His right arm, as if it were wholly disconnected with his body, rested in a splint on the outside of the covering. As the visitors entered, a tall dusky woman with blurred eyes rose from a low bench at the foot of the bed.
"Is he awake?" asked Peters.
The woman, comprehending the glance which accompanied the words, though not the words themselves, nodded yes.
"Here is Mr. Shackford come to see you, Torrini," Peters said.
The man slowly unclosed his eyes; they were unnaturally brilliant and dilated, and seemed to absorb the rest of his features.
"I didn't want him."
"Let by-gones be by-gones, Torrini," said Richard, approaching the bedside. "I am sorry about this."
"You are very good; I don't understand. I ask nothing of Slocum; but the signorina comes every day, and I cannot help it. What would you have? I'm a dead man," and he turned away his face.
"It is not so bad as that," said Richard.
Torrini looked up with a ghastly smile. "They have cut off the hand that struck you, Mr. Shackford."
"I suppose it was necessary. I am very sorry. In a little while you will be on your feet again."
"It is too late. They might have saved me by taking the arm, but I would not allow them. I may last three or four days. The doctor says it."
Peters, standing in the shadow, jerked his head affirmatively.
"I do not care for myself," the man continued,--"but she and the little ones--That is what maddens me. They will starve."
"They will not be let starve in Stillwater," said Richard.
Torrini turned his eyes upon him wistfully and doubtfully. "You will help them?"
"Yes, I and others."
"If they could be got to Italy," said Torrini, after meditating, "it would be well. Her farther," giving a side look at the woman, "is a fisherman of Capri." At the word Capri the woman lifted her head quickly. "He is not rich, but he's not poor; he would take her."
"You would wish her sent to Naples?"
"Yes."
"If you do not pull through, she and the children shall go there."
"Brigida!" called Torrini; then he said something rapidly in Italian to the woman, who buried her face in both hands, and did not reply.
"She has no words to thank you. See, she is tired to death, with the children all day and me all night,--these many nights."
"Tell her to go to bed in the other room," said Richard. "There's another room, isn't there? I'll sit with you."
"You?"
"Your wife is fagged out,--that is plain. Send her to bed, and don't talk any more. Peters, I wish you'd run and get a piece of ice somewhere; there's no drinking-water here. Come, now, Torrini, I can't speak Italian. Oh, I don't mind your scowling; I intend to stay."
Torrini slowly unknitted his brows, and an irresolute expression stole across his face; then he called Brigida, and bade her go in with the children. She bowed her head submissively, and fixing her melting eyes on Richard for an instant passed into the adjoining chamber.
Peters shortly reappeared with the ice, and after setting a jug of water on the table departed. Richard turned up the wick of the kerosene lamp, which was sending forth a disagreeable odor, and pinned an old newspaper around the chimney to screen the flame. He had, by an odd chance, made his lampshade out of a copy of The Stillwater Gazette containing the announcement of his cousin's death. Richard gave a quick start as his eye caught the illuminated head-lines,--Mysterious Murder of Lemuel Shackford! Perhaps a slight exclamation escaped Richard's lips at the same time, for Torrini turned and asked what was the matter. "Nothing at all," said Richard, removing the paper, and placing another in its stead. Then he threw open the blinds of the window looking on the back yard, and set his hand-bag against the door to prevent it being blown to by the draught. Torrini, without altering the rigid position of his head on the pillow, followed every movement with a look of curious insistence, like that of the eyes in a portrait. His preparations completed for the night, Richard seated himself on a stool at the foot of the bed.
The obscurity and stillness of the room had their effect upon the sick man, who presently dropped into a light sleep. Richard sat thinking of Margaret, and began to be troubled because he had neglected to send her word of his detention, which he might have done by Peters. It was now too l ate. The town clock struck ten in the midst of his self-reproaches. At the first clang of the bell, Torrini awoke with a start, and asked for water.
"If anybody comes," he said, glancing in a bewildered, anxious way at the shadows huddled about the door, "you are not to leave me alone with him."
"Him? Whom? Are you expecting any one?"
"No; but who knows? one might come. Then, you are not to go; you are not to leave me for a second."
"I've no thought of it," replied Richard; "you may rest easy.... He's a trifle light in the head," was Richard's reflection.
After that Torrini dozed rather than slumbered, rousing at brief intervals; and whenever he awoke the feverish activity of his brain incited him to talk,--now of Italy, and now of matters connected with his experiences in this country.
"Naples is a pleasant place!" he broke out in the hush of the midnight, just as Richard was dropping off. "The band plays every afternoon on the Chiaia. And then the _festas,_--every third day a festa. The devil was in my body when I left there and dragged little Brigida into all this misery. We used to walk of an evening along the Marinella,--that's a strip of beach just beyond the Molo Piccolo. You were never in Naples?"
"Not I," said Richard. "Here, wet your lips, and try to go to sleep again."
"No, I can't sleep for thinking. When the Signorina came to see me, the other day, her heart was pierced with pity. Like the blessed Madonna's, her bosom bleeds for all! You will let her come to-morrow?"
"Yes, yes! If you will only keep quiet, Margaret shall come."
"Margherita, we say. You are to wed her,--is it not so?"
Richard turned down the wick of the lamp, which was blazing and spluttering, and did not answer. Then Torrini lay silent a long while, apparently listening to the hum of the telegraph wires attached to one end of the roof. At odd intervals the freshening breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low æolian murmur. The moon rose in the mean time, and painted on the uncarpeted floor the shape of the cherry bough that stretched across the window. It was two o'clock; Richard sat with his head bent forward, in a drowse.
"Now the cousin is dead, you are as rich as a prince,--are you not?" inquired Torrini, who had lain for the last half hour with his eyes wide open in the moonlight.
Richard straightened himself with a jerk.
"Torrini, I positively forbid you to talk any more!"
"I remember you said that one day, somewhere. Where was it? Ah, in the yard! 'You can't be allowed to speak here, you know.' And then I struck at you,--with that hand they've taken away! See how I remember it!"
"Why do you bother your mind with such things? Think of just nothing at all, and rest. Perhaps a wet cloth on your forehead will refresh you. I wish you had a little of my genius for not keeping awake."
"You are tired, you?"
"I have had two broken nights, traveling."
"And I give you no peace?"
"Well, no," returned Richard bluntly, hoping the admission would induce Torrini to tranquilize himself, "you don't give me much."
"Has any one been here?" demanded Torrini abruptly.
"Not a soul. Good Heaven, man, do you know what time it is?"
"I know,--I know. It's very late. I ought to keep quiet; but, the devil! with this fever in my brain! ... Mr. Shackford!" and Torrini, in spite of his imprisoned limb, suddenly half raised himself from the mattress. "I--I"-- Richard sprung to his feet. "What is it,--what do you want?"
"Nothing," said Torrini, falling back on the pillow.
Richard brought him a glass of water, which he refused. He lay motionless, with his eyes shut, as if composing himself, and Richard returned on tiptoe to his bench. A moment or two afterwards Torrini stirred the blanket with his foot.
"Mr. Shackford!"
"Well?"
"I am as grateful--as a dog."
Torrini did not speak again. This expression of his gratitude appeared to ease him. His respiration grew lighter and more regular, and by and by he fell into a profound sleep. Richard watched awhile expectantly, with his head resting against the rail of the bedstead; then his eyelids drooped, and he too slumbered. But once or twice, before he quite lost himself, he was conscious of Brigida's thin face thrust like a silver wedge through the half-open door of the hall bedroom. It was the last thing he remembered,--that sharp, pale face peering out from the blackness of the inner chamber as his grasp loosened on the world and he drifted off on the tide of a dream. A narrow white hand, like a child's, seemed to be laid against his breast. It was not Margaret's hand, and yet it was hers. No, it was the plaster model he had made that idle summer afternoon, years and years before he had ever thought of loving her. Strange for it to be there! Then Richard began wondering how the gold ring would look in the slender forefinger. He unfastened the leather bag and took out the ring. He was vainly trying to pass it over the first joint of the dead white finger, when the cast slipped from his hold and fell with a crash to the floor. Richard gave a shudder, and opened his eyes. Brigida was noiselessly approaching Torrini's bedside. Torrini still slept. It was broad day. Through the uncurtained window Richard saw the blue sky barred with crimson.
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"Richard did come home last night, after all," said Mr. Slocum, with a flustered air, seating himself at the breakfast table.
Margaret looked up quickly.
"I just met Peters on the street, and he told me," added Mr. Slocum.
"Richard returned last night, and did not come to us!"
"It seems that he watched with Torrini,--the man is going to die."
"Oh," said Margaret, cooling instantly. "That was like Richard; he never thinks of himself first. I would not have had him do differently. Last evening you were filled with I don't know what horrible suspicions, yet see how simply everything explains itself."
"If I could speak candidly, Margaret, if I could express myself without putting you into a passion, I would tell you that Richard's passing the night with that man has given me two or three ugly ideas."
"Positively, papa, you are worse than Mr. Taggett."
"I shall not say another word," replied Mr. Slocum. Then he unfolded the newspaper lying beside him, and constructed a barrier against further colloquy.
An hour afterwards, when Richard threw open the door of his private workshop, Margaret was standing in the middle of the room waiting for him. She turned with a little cry of pleasure, and allowed Richard to take her in his arms, and kept to the spirit and the letter of the promise she had made to herself. If there was an unwonted gravity in Margaret's manner, young Shackford was not keen enough to perceive it. All that morning, wherever he went, he carried with him a sense of Margaret's face resting for a moment against his shoulder, and the happiness of it rendered him wholly oblivious to the constrained and chilly demeanor of her father when they met. The interview was purposely cut short by Mr. Slocum, who avoided Richard the rest of the day with a persistency that must have ended in forcing itself upon his notice, had he not been so engrossed by the work which had accumulated during his absence.
Mr. Slocum had let the correspondence go to the winds, and a formidable collection of unanswered letters lay on Shackford's desk. The forenoon was consumed in reducing the pile and settling the questions that had risen in the shops, for Mr. Slocum had neglected everything. Richard was speedily advised of Blake's dismissal from the yard, but, not knowing what explanation had been offered, was unable to satisfy Stevens' curiosity on the subject. "I must see Slocum about that at once," reflected Richard; but the opportunity did not occur, and he was too much pressed to make a special business of it.
Mr. Slocum, meanwhile, was in a wretched state of suspense and apprehension. Justice Beemis's clerk had served some sort of legal paper--presumably a subpoena--on Richard, who had coolly read it in the yard under the gaze of all, and given no sign of discomposure beyond a momentary lifting of the eyebrows. Then he had carelessly thrust the paper into one of his pockets and continued his directions to the men. Clearly he had as yet no suspicion of the mine that was ready to be sprung under his feet.
Shortly after this little incident, which Mr. Slocum had witnessed from the window of the counting-room, Richard spoke a word or two to Stevens, and quitted the yard. Mr. Slocum dropped into the carving department.
"Where is Mr. Shackford, Stevens?"
"He has gone to Mitchell's Alley, sir. Said he'd be away an hour. Am I to say he was wanted?"
"No," replied Mr. Slocum, hastily; "any time will do. You needn't mention that I inquired for him," and Mr. Slocum returned to the counting-room.
Before the hour expired he again distinguished Richard's voice in the workshops, and the cheery tone of it was a positive affront to Mr. Slocum. Looking back to the week prior to the tragedy in Welch's Court, he recollected Richard's unaccountable dejection; he had had the air of a person meditating some momentous step,--the pallor, the set face, and the introspective eyes. Then came the murder, and Richard's complete prostration. Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had noted it superficially at the time, but now he recalled the young man's inordinate sorrow, and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his present immobile serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart had suddenly ossified, and was no longer capable of throbbing with its guilt? Richard Shackford was rapidly becoming an awful problem to Mr. Slocum.
Since the death of his cousin, Richard had not been so much like his former self. He appeared to have taken up his cheerfulness at the point where he had dropped it three weeks before. If there were any weight resting on his mind, he bore it lightly, with a kind of careless defiance.
In his visit that forenoon to Mitchell's Alley he had arranged for Mrs. Morganson, his cousin's old housekeeper, to watch with Torrini the ensuing night. This left Richard at liberty to spend the evening with Margaret, and finish his correspondence. Directly after tea he repaired to the studio, and, lighting the German student-lamp, fell to work on the letters. Margaret came in shortly with a magazine, and seated herself near the round table at which he was writing. She had dreaded this evening; it could scarcely pass without some mention of Mr. Taggett, and she had resolved not to speak of him. If Richard questioned her it would be very distressing. How could she tell Richard that Mr. Taggett accused him of the murder of his cousin, and that her own father half believed the accusation? No, she could never acknowledge that.
For nearly an hour the silence of the room was interrupted only by the scratching of Richard's pen and the rustling of the magazine as Margaret turned the leaf. Now and then he looked up and caught her eye, and smiled, and went on with his task. It was a veritable return of the old times. Margaret became absorbed in the story she was reading and forgot her uneasiness. Her left hand rested on the pile of answered letters, to which Richard added one at intervals, she mechanically lifting her palm and replacing it on the fresh manuscript. Presently Richard observed this movement and smiled in secret at the slim white hand unconsciously making a paper-weight of itself. He regarded it covertly for a moment, and then his disastrous dream occurred to him. There should be no mistake this time. He drew the small morocco case from his pocket, and leaning across the table slipped the ring on Margaret's finger.
Margaret gave a bewildered start, and then seeing what Richard had done held out her hand to him with a gracious, impetuous little gesture.
"I mean to give it you this morning," he said, pressing his lip to the ring, "but the daylight did not seem fine enough for it."
"I thought you had forgotten," said Margaret, slowly turning the band on her finger.
"The first thing I did in New York was to go to a jeweler's for this ring, and since then I have guarded it day and night as dragonishly as if it had been the Koh-i-Noor diamond, or some inestimable gem which hundreds of envious persons were lying in wait to wrest from me. Walking the streets with this trinket in my possession, I have actually had a sense of personal insecurity. I seemed to invite general assault. That was being very sentimental, was it not?"
"Yes, perhaps."
"That small piece of gold meant so much to me."
"And to me," said Margaret. "Have you finished your letters?"
"Not yet. I shall be through in ten minutes, and then we'll have the evening to ourselves."
Richard hurriedly resumed his writing and Margaret turned to her novel again; but the interest had faded out of it; the figures had grown threadbare and indistinct, like the figures in a piece of old tapestry, and after a moment or two the magazine glided with an unnoticed flutter into the girl's lap. She sat absently twirling the gold loop on her finger.
Richard added the address to the final envelope, dried it with the blotter, and abruptly shut down the lid of the inkstand with an air of as great satisfaction as if he had been the fisherman in the Arabian story corking up the wicked afrite. With his finger still pressing the leaden cover, as though he were afraid the imp of toil would get out again, he was suddenly impressed by the fact that he had seen very little of Mr. Slocum that day.
"I have hardly spoken to him," he reflected. "Where is your father, to-night?"
"He has a headache," said Margaret. "He went to his room immediately after supper."
"It is nothing serious, of course."
"I fancy not; papa is easily excited, and he had had a great deal to trouble him lately,--the strike, and all that."
"I wonder if Mr. Taggett has been bothering him."
"I dare say Mr. Taggett has bothered him."
"You knew of his being in the yard?"
"Not while he was here. Papa told me yesterday. I think Mr. Taggett was scarcely the person to render much assistance."
"Then he has found nothing whatever?"
"Nothing important."
"But anything? Trifles are of importance in a matter like this. Your father never wrote me a word about Taggett."
"Mr. Taggett has made a failure of it, Richard."
"If nothing new has transpired, then I do not understand the summons I received to-day."
"A summons!"
"I've the paper somewhere. No, it is in the pocket of my other coat. I take it there is to be a consultation of some kind at Justice Beemis's office to-morrow."
"I am very glad," said Margaret, with her face brightening. To-morrow would lift the cloud which had spread itself over them all, and was pressing down so heavily on one unconscious head. To-morrow Richard's innocence should shine forth and confound Mr. Taggett. A vague bitterness rose in Margaret's heart as she thought of her father. "Let us talk of something else," she said, brusquely breaking her pause; "let us talk of something pleasant."
"Of ourselves, then," suggested Richard, banishing the shadow which had gathered in his eyes at his first mention of Mr. Taggett's name.
"Of ourselves," repeated Margaret gayly.
"Then you must give me your hand," stipulated Richard, drawing his chair closer to hers.
"There!" said Margaret.
While this was passing, Mr. Slocum, in the solitude of his chamber, was vainly attempting to solve the question whether he had not disregarded all the dictates of duty and common sense in allowing Margaret to spend the evening alone with Richard Shackford. Mr. Slocum saw one thing with painful distinctness--that he could not help himself.
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The next morning Mr. Slocum did not make his appearance in the marble yard. His half-simulated indisposition of the previous night had turned into a genuine headache, of which he perhaps willingly availed himself to remain in his room, for he had no desire to see Richard Shackford that day.
It was an hour before noon. Up to that moment Richard had been engaged in reading and replying to the letters received by the morning's mail, a duty which usually fell to Mr. Slocum. As Richard stepped from the office into the yard a small boy thrust a note into his hand, and then stood off a short distance tranquilly boring with one toe in the loose gravel, and apparently waiting for an answer. Shackford hastily ran his eye over the paper, and turning towards the boy said, a little impatiently: "Tell him I will come at once."
There was another person in Stillwater that forenoon whose agitation was scarcely less than Mr. Slocum's, though it greatly differed from it in quality. Mr. Slocum was alive to his finger-tips with dismay; Lawyer Perkins was boiling over with indignation. It was a complex indignation, in which astonishment and incredulity were nicely blended with a cordial detestation of Mr. Taggett and vague promptings to inflict some physical injury on Justice Beemis. That he, Melanchthon Perkins, the confidential legal adviser and personal friend of the late Lemuel Shackford, should have been kept for two weeks in profound ignorance of proceedings so nearly touching his lamented client! The explosion of the old lawyer's wrath was so unexpected that Justice Beemis, who had dropped in to make the disclosures and talk the matter over informally, clutched at his broad-brimmed Panama hat and precipitately retreated from the office. Mr. Perkins walked up and down the worn green drugget of his private room for half an hour afterwards, collecting himself, and then dispatched a hurried note to Richard Shackford, requesting an instant interview with him at his, Lawyer Perkins's, chambers.
When, some ten minutes subsequently, Richard entered the low-studded square room, darkened with faded moreen curtains and filled with a stale odor of law-calf, Mr. Perkins was seated at his desk and engaged in transferring certain imposing red-sealed documents to a green baize satchel which he held between his knees. He had regained his equanimity; his features wore their usual expression of judicial severity; nothing denoted his recent discomposure, except perhaps an additional wantonness in the stringy black hair falling over the high forehead,--that pallid high forehead which always wore the look of being covered with cold perspiration.
"Mr. Shackford," said Lawyer Perkins, suspending his operations a second, as he saluted the young man, "I suppose I have done an irregular thing in sending for you, but I did not see any other course open to me. I have been your cousin's attorney for over twenty-five years, and I've a great regard for you personally. That must justify the step I am taking."
"The regard is mutual, I am sure," returned Richard, rather surprised by this friendly overture, for his acquaintance with the lawyer had been of the slightest, though it had extended over many years. "My cousin had very few friends, and I earnestly desire to have them mine. If I were in any trouble, there is no one to whom I would come as unhesitatingly as to you."
"But you are in trouble."
"Yes, my cousin's death was very distressing."
"I do not mean that." Mr. Perkins paused a full moment. "The district attorney has suddenly taken a deep interest in the case, and there is to be a rigorous overhauling of the facts. I am afraid it is going to be very unpleasant for you, Mr. Shackford."
"How could it be otherwise?" asked Richard, tranquilly.
Lawyer Perkins fixed his black eyes on him. "Then you fully understand the situation, and can explain everything?"
"I wish I could. Unfortunately, I can explain nothing. I don't clearly see why I have been summoned to attend as a witness at the investigation to be held to-day in Justice Beemis's office."
"You are unacquainted with any special reason why your testimony is wanted?"
"I cannot conceive why it should be required. I gave my evidence at the time of the inquest, and have nothing to add to it. Strictly speaking, I have had of late years no relations with my cousin. During the last eighteen months we have spoken together but once."
"Have you had any conversation on this subject with Mr. Slocum since your return from New York?"
"No, I have had no opportunity. I was busy all day yesterday; he was ill in the evening, and is still confined to his room."
Mr. Perkins was manifestly embarrassed.
"That is unfortunate," he said, laying the bag on the desk. "I wish you had talked with Mr. Slocum. Of course you were taken into the secret of Taggett's presence in the marble yard?"
"Oh, yes; that was all arranged before I left home."
"You don't know the results of that manoeuvre?"
"There were no results."
"On the contrary, Taggett claims to have made very important discoveries."
"Indeed! Why was I not told!"
"I can't quite comprehend Mr. Slocum's silence."
"What has Taggett discovered?"
"Several things, upon which he builds the gravest suspicions."
"Against whom?"
"Against you."
"Against me!" cried Richard, recoiling. The action was one altogether of natural amazement, and convinced Mr. Perkins, who had keenly watched the effect of his announcement, that young Shackford was being very hardly used.
Justice Beemis had given Mr. Perkins only a brief outline of the facts, and had barely touched on details when the old lawyer's anger had put an end to the conversation. His disgust at having been left out in the cold, though he was in no professional way concerned in the task of discovering the murderer of Lemuel Shackford, had caused Lawyer Perkins instantly to repudiate Mr. Taggett's action. "Taggett is a low, intriguing fellow," he had said to Justice Beemis; "Taggett is a fraud." Young Shackford's ingenuous manner now confirmed Mr. Perkins in that belief.
Richard recovered himself in a second or two. "Why did not Mr. Slocum mention these suspicions to me?" he demanded.
"Perhaps he found it difficult to do so."
"Why should he find it difficult?"
"Suppose he believed them."
"But he could not believe them, whatever they are."
"Well, then, suppose he was not at liberty to speak."
"It seems that you are, Mr. Perkins, and you owe it to me to be explicit. What does Taggett suspect?"
Lawyer Perkins brooded a while before replying. His practice was of a miscellaneous sort, confined in the main to what is technically termed office practice. Though he was frequently engaged in small cases of assault and battery,--he could scarcely escape that in Stillwater,--he had never conducted an important criminal case; but when Lawyer Perkins looked up from his brief reverie, he had fully resolved to undertake the defense of Richard Shackford.
"I will tell you what Taggett suspects," he said slowly, "if you will allow me to tell you in my own way. I must ask a number of questions."
Richard gave a half-impatient nod of assent.
"Where were you on the night of the murder?" inquired Lawyer Perkins, after a slight pause.
"I spent the evening at the Slocums', until ten o'clock; then I went home,--but not directly. It was moonlight, and I walked about, perhaps for an hour."
"Did you meet any one?"
"Not that I recollect. I walked out of town, on the turnpike."
"When you returned to your boarding-house, did you meet any one?"
"No, I let myself in with a pass-key. The family had retired, with the exception of Mr. Pinkham."
"Then you saw him?"
"No, but I heard him; he was playing on the flute at his chamber window, or near it. He always plays on the flute when he can't sleep."
"What o'clock was that?"
"It must have been after eleven."
"Your stroll was confined to the end of the town most remote from Welch's Court?"
"Yes, I just cruised around on the outskirts."
"I wish you had spoken with somebody that night."
"The streets were deserted. I wasn't likely to meet persons on the turnpike."
"However, some one may have seen you without your knowing it?"
"Yes," said Richard curtly. He was growing restive under these interrogations, the drift of which was plain enough to be disagreeable. Moreover, Mr. Perkins had insensibly assumed the tone and air of a counsel cross-examining a witness on the other side. This nocturnal cruise, whose direction and duration were known only to young Shackford, struck Lawyer Perkins unpleasantly. He meditated a moment before putting the next question.
"Were you on good terms--I mean fairly good terms--with your cousin?"
"No," said Richard; "but the fault was not mine. He never liked me. As a child I annoyed him, I suppose, and when I grew up I offended him by running away to sea. My mortal offense, however, was accepting a situation in Slocum's Yard. I have been in my cousin's house only twice in three years."
"When was the last time?"
"A day or two previous to the strike."
"As you were not in the habit of visiting the house, you must have had some purpose in going there. What was the occasion?"
Richard hung his head thoughtfully. "I went there to talk over family matters,--to inform him of my intended marriage to Margaret Slocum. I wanted his good-will and support. Mr. Slocum had offered to take me into the business. I thought perhaps my cousin Lemuel, seeing how prosperous I was, would be more friendly to me."
"Did you wish him to lend you capital?"
"I didn't expect or wish him to; but there was some question of that."
"And he refused?"
"Rather brutally, if I may say so now."
"Was there a quarrel?"
Richard hesitated.
"Of course I don't press you," said Mr. Perkins, with some stiffness. "You are not on the witness stand."
"I began to think I was--in the prisoner's dock," answered Richard, smiling ruefully. "However, I have nothing to conceal. I hesitated to reply to you because it was painful for me to reflect that the last time I saw my cousin we parted in anger. He charge me with attempting to overreach him, and I left the house in indignation."
"That was the last time you saw him?"
"The last time I saw him alive."
"Was there any communication between you two after that?"
"No."
"None whatever?"
"None."
"Are you quite positive?"
"As positive as I can be that I live and have my senses."
Lawyer Perkins pulled a black strand of hair over his forehead, and remained silent for nearly a minute.
"Mr. Shackford, are you sure that your cousin did not write a note to you on the Monday preceding the night of his death?"
"He may have written a dozen, for all I know. I only know that I never received a note or a letter from him in the whole course of my life."
"Then how do you account for the letter which has been found in your rooms in Lime Street,--a letter addressed to you by Lemuel Shackford, and requesting you to call at his house on that fatal Tuesday night?"
"I--I know nothing about it," stammered Richard. "There is no such paper!"
"It was in this office less than one hour ago," said Lawyer Perkins sternly. "It was brought here for me to identify Lemuel Shackford's handwriting. Justice Beemis has that paper!"
"Justice Beemis has it!" exclaimed Richard.
"I have nothing more to say," observed Lawyer Perkins, reaching out his hand towards the green bag, as a sign that the interview was ended. "There were other points I wished to have some light thrown on; but I have gone far enough to see that it is useless."
"What more is there?" demanded Richard in a voice that seemed to come through a fog. "I insist on knowing! You suspect me of my cousin's murder?"
"Mr. Taggett does."
"And you?"
"I am speaking of Mr. Taggett."
"Well, go on, speak of him," said Richard desperately. "What else has he discovered?"
Mr. Perkins wheeled his chair round until he faced the young man.
"He has discovered in your workshop a chisel with a peculiar break in the edge,--a deep notch in the middle of the bevel. With that chisel Lemuel Shackford was killed."
Richard gave a perceptible start, and put his hand to his head, as if a sudden confused memory had set the temples throbbing.
"A full box of safety matches," continued Mr. Perkins, in a cold, measured voice, as though he were demonstrating a mathematical problem, "contains one hundred matches. Mr. Taggett has discovered a box that contains only ninety-nine. The missing match was used that night in Welch's Court."
Richard stared at him blankly. "What can I say?" he gasped.
"Say nothing to me," returned Lawyer Perkins, hastily thrusting a handful of loose papers into the open throat of the green bag, which he garroted an instant afterwards with a thick black cord. Then he rose flurriedly from the chair. "I shall have to leave you," he said; "I've an appointment at the surrogate's."
And Lawyer Perkins passed stiffly from the apartment.
Richard lingered a moment alone in the room with his chin resting on his breast.
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There was a fire in Richard's temples as he reeled out of Lawyer Perkins's office. It was now twelve o'clock, and the streets were thronged with the motley population disgorged by the various mills and workshops. Richard felt that every eye was upon him; he was conscious of something wild in his aspect that must needs attract the attention of the passers-by. At each step he half expected the leveling of some accusing finger. The pitiless sunshine seemed to single him out and stream upon him like a calcium light. It was intolerable. He must get away from this jostling crowd, this babel of voices. What should he do, where should he go? To return to the yard and face the workmen was not to be thought of; if he went to his lodgings he would be called to dinner, and have to listen to the inane prattle of the school-master. That would be even more intolerable than this garish daylight, and these careless squads of men and women who paused in the midst of their laugh to turn and stare. Was there no spot in Stillwater where a broken man could hide himself long enough to collect his senses?
With his hands thrust convulsively into the pockets of his sack-coat, Richard turned down a narrow passage-way fringing the rear of some warehouses. As he hurried along aimlessly his fingers encountered something in one of his pockets. It was the key of a new lock which had been put on the scullery door of the house in Welch's Court. Richard's heart gave a quick throb. There at least was a temporary refuge; he would go there and wait until it was time for him to surrender himself to the officers.
It appeared to Richard that he was nearly a year reaching the little back yard of the lonely house. He slipped into the scullery and locked the door, wondering if his movements had been observed since he quitted the main street. Here he drew a long breath and looked around him; then he began wandering restlessly through the rooms, of which there were five or six on the ground-floor. The furniture, the carpets, and all the sordid fixtures of the house were just as Richard had known them in his childhood. Everything was unchanged, even to the faded peacock-feather stuck over the parlor looking-glass. As he regarded the familiar objects and breathed the snuffy atmosphere peculiar to the place, the past rose so vividly before him that he would scarcely have been startled if a lean, gray old man had suddenly appeared in one of the doorways. On a peg in the front hall hung his cousin's napless beaver hat, satirically ready to be put on; in the kitchen closet a pair of ancient shoes, worn down at the heel and with taps on the toe, had all the air of intending to step forth. The shoes had been carefully blacked, but a thin skin of mould had gathered over them. They looked like Lemuel Shackford. They had taken a position habitual with him. Richard was struck by the subtile irony which lay in these inanimate things. That a man's hat should outlast the man, and have a jaunty expression of triumph! That a dead man's shoes should mimic him!
The tall eight-day clock on the landing had run down. It had stopped at twelve, and it now stood with solemnly uplifted finger, as if imposing silence on those small, unconsidered noises which commonly creep out, like mice, only at midnight. The house was full of such stealthy sounds. The stairs creaked at intervals, mysteriously, as if under the weight of some heavy person ascending. Now and then the woodwork stretched itself with a snap, as though it had grown stiff in the joints with remaining so long in one position. At times there were muffled reverberations of footfalls on the flooring overhead. Richard had a curious consciousness of not being alone, but of moving in the midst of an invisible throng of persons who elbowed him softly and breathed in his face, and vaguely impressed themselves upon him as being former occupants of the premises. This populous solitude, this silence with its busy interruptions, grew insupportable as he passed from room to room.
One chamber he did not enter,--the chamber in which his cousin's body was found that Wednesday morning. In Richard's imagination it was still lying there, white and piteous, by the hearth. He paused at the threshold and glanced in; then turned abruptly and mounted the staircase.
On gaining his old apartment in the gable, Richard seated himself on the edge of the cot-bed. His shoulders sagged down and a stupefied expression settled upon his face, but his brain was in a tumult. His own identity was become a matter of doubt to him. Was he the same Richard Shackford who had found life so sweet when he awoke that morning? IT must have been some other person who had sat by a window in the sunrise thinking of Margaret Slocum's love,--some Richard Shackford with unstained hands! This one was accused of murdering his kinsman; the weapon with which he had done it, the very match he had used to light him in the deed, were known! The victim himself had written out the accusation in black and white. Richard's brain reeled as he tried to fix his thought on Lemuel Shackford's letter. That letter! --where had it been all this while, and how did it come into Taggett's possession? Only one thing was clear to Richard in his inextricable confusion,--he was not going to be able to prove his innocence; he was a doomed man, and within the hour his shame would be published to the world. Rowland Slocum and Lawyer Perkins had already condemned him, and Margaret would condemn him when she knew all; for it was evident that up to last evening she had not been told. How did it happen that these overwhelming proofs had rolled themselves up against him? What malign influences were these at work, hurrying him on to destruction, and not leaving a single loophole of escape? Who would believe the story of his innocent ramble on the turnpike that Tuesday night? Who could doubt that he had gone directly from the Slocums' to Welch's Court, and then crept home red-handed through the deserted streets?
Richard heard the steam-whistles recalling the operatives to work, and dimly understood it was one o'clock; but after that he paid no attention to the lapse of time. It was an hour later, perhaps two hours,--Richard could not tell,--when he roused himself from his stupor, and descending the stairs passed through the kitchen into the scullery. There he halted and leaned against the sink, irresolute, as though his purpose, if he had had a purpose, were escaping him. He stood with his eyes resting listlessly on a barrel in the further corner of the apartment. It was a heavy-hooped wine-cask, in which Lemuel Shackford had been wont to keep his winter's supply of salted meat. Suddenly Richard started forward with an inarticulate cry, and at the same instant there came a loud knocking at the door behind him. The sound reverberated through the empty house, filling the place with awful echoes,--like those knocks at the gate of Macbeth's castle the night of Duncan's murder. Richard stood petrified for a second; then he hastily turned the key in the lock, and Mr. Taggett stepped into the scullery.
The two men exchanged swift glances. The bewildered air of a moment before had passed from Richard; the dullness had faded out of his eyes, leaving them the clear, alert expression they ordinarily wore. He was self-possessed, but the effort his self-possession cost him was obvious. There was a something in his face--a dilation of the nostril, a curve of the under lip--which put Mr. Taggett very much on his guard. Mr. Taggett was the first to speak.
"I've a disagreeable mission here," he said slowly, with his hand remaining on the latch of the door, which he had closed on entering. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Shackford."
"Stop a moment!" said Richard, with a glow in his eyes. "I have something to say."
"I advise you not to make any statement."
"I understand my position perfectly, Mr. Taggett, and I shall disregard the advice. After you have answered me one or two questions, I shall be quite at your service."
"If you insist, then."
"You were present at the examination of Thomas Blufton and William Durgin, were you not?"
"I was."
"You recollect William Durgin's testimony?"
"Most distinctly."
"He stated that the stains on his clothes were from a certain barrel, the head of which had been freshly painted red."
"I remember."
"Mr. Taggett, _the head of that barrel was painted blue!" _
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Mr. Taggett, in spite of the excellent subjection under which he held his nerves, caught his breath at these words, and a transient pallor overspread his face as he followed the pointing of Richard's finger. If William Durgin had testified falsely on that point, if he had swerved a hair's-breadth from the truth in that matter, then there was but one conclusion to be drawn from his perjury. A flash of lightning is not swifter than was Mr. Taggett's thought in grasping the situation. In an instant he saw all his carefully articulated case fall to pieces in his hands. Richard crossed the narrow room, and stood in front of him.
"Mr. Taggett, do you know why William Durgin lied? He lied because it was life or death with him! In a moment of confusion he had committed one of those simple, fatal blunders which men in his circumstances always commit. He had obliterated the spots on his clothes with red paint, when he ought to have used blue!"
"That is a very grave supposition."
"It is not a supposition," cried Richard. "The daylight is not a plainer fact."
"You are assuming too much, Mr. Shackford."
"I am assuming nothing. Durgin has convicted himself; he has fallen into a trap of his own devising. I charge him with the murder of Lemuel Shackford; I charge him with taking the chisel and the matches from my workshop, to which he had free access; and I charge him with replacing those articles in order to divert suspicion upon me. My unfortunate relations with my cousin gave color to this suspicion. The plan was an adroit plan, and has succeeded, it seems."
Mr. Taggett did not reply at once, and then very coldly: "You will pardon me for suggesting it, but it will be necessary to ascertain if this is the cask which Durgin hoped, and also if the head has not been repainted since."
"I understand what your doubt implies. It is your duty to assure yourself of these facts, and nothing can be easier. The person who packed the meat--it was probably a provision dealer named Stubbs--will of course be able to recognize his own work. The other question you can settle with a scratch of your penknife. You see. There has been only one thin coat of paint laid on,--the grain of the wood is nearly distinguishable through it. The head is evidently new; but the cask itself is an old one. It has stood here these ten years."
Mr. Taggett bent a penetrating look on Richard. "Why did you refuse to answer the subpoena, Mr. Shackford?"
"But I haven't refused. I was on my way to Justice Beemis's office when you knocked. Perhaps I am a trifle late," added Richard, catching Mr. Taggett's distrustful glance.
"The summons said two o'clock," remarked Mr. Taggett, pressing the spring of his watch. "It is now after three."
"After three!"
"How could you neglect it,--with evidence of such presumable importance in your hands?"
"It was only a moment ago that I discovered this. I had come here from Mr. Perkins's office. Mr. Perkins had informed me of the horrible charge which was to be laid at my door. The intelligence fell upon me like a thunder-clap. I think it unsettled my reason for a while. I was unable to put two ideas together. At first he didn't believe I had killed my cousin, and presently he seemed to believe it. When I got out in the street the sidewalk lurched under my feet like the deck of a ship; everything swam before me. I don't know how I managed to reach this house, and I don't know how long I had been sitting in a room up-stairs when the recollection of the subpoena occurred to me. I was standing here dazed with despair; I saw that I was somehow caught in the toils, and that it was going to be impossible to prove my innocence. If another man had been in my position, I should have believed him guilty. I stood looking at the cask in the corner there, scarcely conscious of it; then I noticed the blue paint on the head, and then William Durgin's testimony flashed across my mind. Where is he?" cried Richard, turning swiftly. "That man should be arrested!"
"I am afraid he is gone," said Mr. Taggett, biting his lip.
"Do you mean he has fled?"
"If you are correct--he has fled. He failed to answer the summons to-day, and the constable sent to look him up has been unable to find him. Durgin was in the bar-room of the tavern at eight o'clock last night; he has not been seen since."
"He was not in the yard this morning. You have let him slip through your fingers."
"So it appears, for the moment."
"You still doubt me, Mr. Taggett?"
"I don't let persons slip through my fingers."
Richard curbed an impatient rejoinder, and said quietly, "William Durgin had an accomplice."
Mr. Taggett flushed, as if Richard had read his secret thought. Durgin's flight, if he really had fled, had suggested a fresh possibility to Mr. Taggett. What if Durgin were merely the pliant instrument of the cleverer man who was now using him as a shield? This reflection was precisely in Mr. Taggett's line. In absconding Durgin had not only secured his own personal safety, but had exonerated his accomplice. It was a desperate step to take, but it was a skillful one.
"He had an accomplice?" repeated Mr. Taggett, after a moment. "Who was it?"
"Torrini!"
"The man who was hurt the other day?"
"Yes."
"You have grounds for your assertion?"
"He and Durgin were intimate, and have been much together lately. I sat up with Torrini the night before last; he acted and talked very strangely; the man was out of his head part of the time, but now, as I think it over, I am convinced that he had this matter on his mind, and was hinting at it. I believe he would have made disclosures if I had urged him a little. He was evidently in great dread of a visit from some person, and that person was Durgin. Torrini ought to be questioned without delay; he is very low, and may die at any moment. He is lying in a house at the further end of the town. If it is not imperative that I should report myself to Justice Beemis, we had better go there at once."
Mr. Taggett, who had been standing with his head half bowed, lifted it quickly as he asked the question, "Why did you withhold Lemuel Shackford's letter?"
"It was never in my possession, Mr. Taggett," said Richard, starting. "That paper is something I cannot explain at present. I can hardly believe in its existence, though Mr. Perkins declares that he has had it in his hands, and it would be impossible for him to make a mistake in my cousin's writing."
"The letter was found in your lodgings."
"So I was told. I don't understand it."
"That explanation will not satisfy the prosecuting attorney."
"I have only one theory about it," said Richard slowly.
"What is that?"
"I prefer not to state it now. I wish to stop at my boarding-house on the way to Torrini's; it will not be out of our course."
Mr. Taggett gave silent acquiescence to this. Richard opened the scullery door, and the two passed into the court. Neither spoke until they reached Lime Street. Mrs. Spooner herself answered Richard's ring, for he had purposely dispensed with the use of his pass-key.
"I wanted to see you a moment, Mrs. Spooner," said Richard, making no motion to enter the hall. "Thanks, we will not come in. I merely desire to ask you a question. Were you at home all day on that Monday immediately preceding my cousin's death?"
"No," replied Mrs. Spooner wonderingly, with her hand still resting on the knob. "I wasn't at home at all. I spent the day and part of the night with my daughter Maria Ann at South Millville. It was a boy," added Mrs. Spooner, quite irrelevantly, smoothing her ample apron with the disengaged hand.
"Then Janet was at home," said Richard. "Call Janet."
A trim, intelligent-looking Nova Scotia girl was summoned from the basement kitchen.
"Janet," said Richard, "do you remember the day, about three weeks ago, that Mrs. Spooner was absent at South Millville?"
"Yes," replied the girl, without hesitation. "It was the day before"--and then she stopped.
"Exactly; it was the day before my cousin was killed. Now I want you to recollect whether any letter or note or written message of any description was left for me at this house on that day."
Janet reflected. "I think there was, Mr. Richard,--a bit of paper like."
Mr. Taggett riveted his eyes on the girl.
"Who brought the paper?" demanded Richard.
"It was one of the Murphy boys, I think."
"Did you hand it to me?"
"No, Mr. Richard, you had gone out. It was just after breakfast."
"You gave it to me when I came home to dinner, then?"
"No," returned Janet, becoming confused with a dim perception that something had gone wrong and she was committing herself.
"I remember, I didn't come home. I dined at the Slocums'. What did you do with that paper?"
"I put it on the table in your room up-stairs."
Mr. Taggett's eyes gleamed a little at this.
"And that is all you can say about it?" inquired Richard, with a fallen countenance.
Janet reflected. She reflected a long while this time. "No, Mr. Shackford: an hour or so afterwards, when I went up to do the chamber-work, I saw that the wind had blow the paper off of the table. I picked up the note and put it back; but the wind blew it off again."
"What then?"
"Then I shut up the note in one of the big books, meaning to tell you of it, and--and I forgot it! Oh, Mr. Richard, have I done something dreadful?"
"Dreadful!" cried Richard. "Janet, I could hug you!"
"Oh, Mr. Richard," said Janet with a little coquettish movement natural to every feminine thing, bird, flower, or human being, "you've always such a pleasant way with you."
Then there was a moment of dead silence. Mrs. Spooner saw that the matter, whatever it was, was settled.
"You needn't wait, Janet!" she said, with a severe, mystified air.
"We are greatly obliged to you, Mrs. Spooner, not to mention Janet," said Richard; "and if Mr. Taggett has no questions to ask we will not detain you."
Mrs. Spooner turned her small amiable orbs on Richard's companion. That silent little man Mr. Taggett! "He doesn't look like much," was the landlady's unuttered reflection; and indeed he did not present a spirited appearance. Nevertheless Mrs. Spooner followed him down the street with her curious gaze until he and Richard passed out of sight.
Neither Richard nor Mr. Taggett was disposed to converse as they wended their way to Mitchell's Alley. Richard's ire was slowly kindling at the shameful light in which he had been placed by Mr. Taggett, and Mr. Taggett was striving with only partial success to reconcile himself to the idea of young Shackford's innocence. Young Shackford's innocence was a very awkward thing for Mr. Taggett, for he had irretrievably committed himself at head-quarters. With Richard's latent ire was mingled a feeling of profound gratitude.
"The Lord was on my side," he said presently.
"He was on your side, as you remark; and when the Lord is on a man's side a detective necessarily comes out second best."
"Really, Mr. Taggett," said Richard, smiling, "that is a handsome admission on your part."
"I mean, sir," replied the latter, slightly nettled, "that it sometimes seems as if the Lord himself took charge of a case."
"Certainly you are entitled to the credit of going to the bottom of this one."
"I have skillfully and laboriously damaged my reputation, Mr. Shackford."
Mr. Taggett said this with so heavy an air that Richard felt a stir of sympathy in his bosom.
"I am very sorry," he said good-naturedly.
"No, I beg of you!" exclaimed Mr. Taggett. "Any expression of friendliness from you would finish me! For nearly ten days I have looked upon you as a most cruel and consummate villain."
"I know," said Richard. "I must be quite a disappointment to you, in a small way."
Mr. Taggett laughed in spite of himself. "I hope I don't take a morbid view of it," he said. A few steps further on he relaxed his gait. "We have taken the Hennessey girl into custody. Do you imagine she was concerned?"
"Have you questioned her?"
"Yes; she denies everything, except that she told Durgin you had quarreled with the old gentleman."
"I think Mary Hennessey an honest girl. She's little more than a child. I doubt if she knew anything whatever. Durgin was much too shrewd to trust her, I fancy."
As the speakers struck into the principal street, through the lower and busier end of which they were obliged to pass, Mr. Taggett caused a sensation. The drivers of carts and the pedestrians on both sidewalks stopped and looked at him. The part he had played in Slocum's Yard was now an open secret, and had produced an excitement that was not confined to the clientèle of Snelling's bar-room. It was known that William Durgin had disappeared, and that the constables were searching for him. The air was thick with flying projectures, but none of them precisely hit the mark. One rumor there was which seemed almost like a piece of poetical justice,--a whisper to the effect that Rowland Slocum was suspected of being in some way mixed up with the murder. The fact that Lawyer Perkins, with his green bag streaming in the wind, so to speak, had been seen darting into Mr. Slocum's private residence at two o'clock that afternoon was sufficient to give birth to the horrible legend.
"Mitchell's Alley," said Mr. Taggett, thrusting his arm through Richard's, and hurrying on the escape the Stillwater gaze. "You went there directly from the station the night you got home."
"How did you know that?"
"I was told by a fellow-traveler of yours,--and a friend of mine."
"By Jove! Did it ever strike you, Mr. Taggett, that there is such a thing as being too clever?"
"It has occurred to me recently."
"Here is the house."
Two sallow-skinned children, with wide, wistful black eyes, who were sitting on the stone step, shyly crowded themselves together against the door-jamb to make passage-way for Richard and Mr. Taggett. Then the two pairs of eyes veered round inquiringly, and followed the strangers up the broken staircase and saw one of them knock at the door which faced the building.
Richard's hasty tap bringing no response, he lifted the latch without further ceremony and stepped into the chamber, Mr. Taggett a pace or two behind him. The figure of Father O'Meara slowly rising from a kneeling posture at the bedside was the first object that met their eyes; the second was Torrini's placid face, turned a little on the pillow; the third was Brigida sitting at the foot of the bed, motionless, with her arms wrapped in her apron.
"He is dead," said the priest softly, advancing a step towards Richard. "You are too late. He wanted to see you, Mr. Shackford, but you were not to be found."
Richard sent a swift glance over the priest's shoulder. "He wanted to tell me what part he had played in my cousin's murder?" said Richard.
"God forbid! the wretched man had many a sin on his soul, but not that."
"Not that!"
"No; he had no hand in it,--no more than you or I. His fault was that he concealed his knowledge of the deed after it was done. He did not even suspect who committed the crime until two days' afterwards, when William Durgin"-- Richard's eyes lighted up as they encountered Mr. Taggett's. The priest mistook the significance of the glances.
"No," said Father O'Meara, indicating Brigida with a quick motion of his head, "the poor soul does not understand a word. But even if she did, I should have to speak of these matters here and now, while they are fresh in my mind. I am obeying the solemn injunctions of the dead. Two days after the murder William Durgin came to Torrini and confessed the deed, offering to share with him a large sum in gold and notes if he would hide the money temporarily. Torrini agreed to do so. Later Durgin confided to him his plan of turning suspicion upon you, Mr. Shackford; indeed, of directly charging you with the murder, if the worst came to the worst. Torrini agreed to that also, because of some real or fancied injury at your hands. It seems that the implement which Durgin had employed in forcing the scullery door--the implement which he afterwards used so mercilessly--had been stolen from your workshop. The next morning Durgin put the tool back in its place, not knowing what other disposition to make of it, and it was then that the idea of shouldering the crime upon you entered his wicked heart. According to Torrini, Durgin did not intend to harm the old gentleman, but simply to rob him. The unfortunate man was awakened by the noise Durgin made in breaking open the safe, and rushed in to his doom. Having then no fear of interruption, Durgin leisurely ransacked the house. How he came across the will, and destroyed it with the idea that he was putting the estate out of your possession--this and other details I shall give you by and by."
Father O'Meara paused a moment. "After the accident at the mill and the conviction that he was not to recover, Torrini's conscience began to prick him. When he reflected on Miss Slocum's kindness to his family during the strike, when he now saw her saving his wife and children from absolute starvation, he was nearly ready to break the oath with which he had bound himself to William Durgin. Curiously enough, this man, so reckless in many things, held his pledged word sacred. Meanwhile his wavering condition became apparent to Durgin, who grew alarmed, and demanded the stolen property. Torrini refused to give it up; even his own bitter necessities had not tempted him to touch a penny of it. For the last three days he was in deadly terror lest Durgin should wrest the money from him by force. The poor woman, here, knows nothing of all this. It was her presence, however, which probably prevented Durgin from proceeding to extremities with Torrini, who took care never to be left alone."
"I recollect," said Richard, "the night I watched with him he was constantly expecting some one. I supposed him to be wandering in his mind."
"He was expecting Durgin, though Torrini had every reason for believing that he had fled."
Mr. Taggett leaned forward, and asked, "When did he go,--and where?"
"He was too cunning to confide his plans to Torrini. Three nights ago Durgin came here and begged for a portion of the bank-note; previously he had reclaimed the whole sum; he said the place was growing too warm for him, and that he had made up his mind to leave. But Torrini held on to the money, having resolved that it should be restored intact to you. He promised Durgin, however, to keep his flight secret for three or four days, at the end of which time Torrini meant to reveal all to me at confession. The night you sat with him, Mr. Shackford, he was near breaking his promise; your kindness was coals of fire on his head. His agony, lest he should die or lose his senses before he could make known the full depth of Durgin's villainy, must have been something terrible. This is the substance of what the poor creature begged me to say to you with his dying regrets. The money is hidden somewhere under the mattress, I believe. A better man than Torrini would have spent some of it," added Father O'Meara, waving a sort of benediction in the direction of the bed.
Richard did not speak for a moment or two. The wretchedness and grimness of it all smote him to the heart. When he looked up Mr. Taggett was gone, and the priest was gently drawing the coverlet over Torrini's face.
Richard approached Father O'Meara and said: "When the money is found, please take charge of it, and see that every decent arrangement is made. I mean, spare nothing. I am a Protestant, but I believe in any man's prayers when they are not addressed to a heathen image. I promised Torrini to send his wife and children to Italy. This pitiful, miserable gold, which cost so dear and is worth so little, shall be made to do that much good, at least."
As Richard was speaking, a light footfall sounded on the staircase outside; then the door, which stood ajar, was softly pushed open, and Margaret paused on the threshold. At the rustle of her dress Richard turned, and hastened towards her.
"It is all over," he said softly, laying his finger on his lip. Father O'Meara was again kneeling by the bedside.
"Let us go now," whispered Richard to Margaret. It seemed fit that they should leave the living and the dead to the murmured prayers and solemn ministration of the kindly priest. Such later services as Margaret could render to the bereaved woman were not to be wanting.
At the foot of the stairs Richard Shackford halted abruptly, and, oblivious of the two children who were softly chattering together in the doorway, caught Margaret's hand in his.
"Margaret, Torrini has made a confession that sets at rest all question of my cousin's death."
"Do you mean that he"--Margaret faltered, and left the sentence unfinished.
"No; it was William Durgin, God forgive him!"
"William Durgin!" The young girl's fingers closed nervously on Richard's as she echoed the name, and she began trembling. "That--that is stranger yet!"
"I will tell you everything when we get home; this is no time or place; but one thing I must ask you now and here. When you sat with me last night were you aware that Mr. Taggett firmly believed it was I who had killed Lemuel Shackford?"
"Yes," said Margaret.
"That is all I care to know!" cried Richard; "that consoles me!" and the two pairs of great inquisitive eyes looking up from the stone step saw the signorina standing quite mute and colorless with the strange gentleman's arms around her. And the signorina was smiling!
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One June Morning, precisely a year from that morning when the reader first saw the daylight breaking upon Stillwater, several workmen with ladders and hammers were putting up a freshly painted sign over the gate of the marble yard. Mr. Slocum and Richard stood on the opposite curbstone, to which they had retired in order to take in the general effect. The new sign read,--Slocum & Shackford. Richard protested against the displacement of its weather-stained predecessor; it seemed to him an act little short of vandalism; but Mr. Slocum was obstinate, and would have it done. He was secretly atoning for a deep injustice, into which Richard had been at once too sensitive and too wise closely to inquire. If Mr. Slocum had harbored a temporary doubt of him Richard did not care to know it; it was quite enough to suspect the fact. His sufficient recompense was that Margaret had not doubted. They had now been married six months. The shadow of the tragedy in Welch's Court had long ceased to oppress them; it had vanished with the hasty departure of Mr. Taggett. Neither he nor William Durgin was ever seen again in the flesh in Stillwater; but they both still led, and will probably continue for years to lead, a sort of phantasmal, legendary life in Snelling's bar-room. Durgin in his flight had left no traces. From time to time, as the months rolled on, a misty rumor was blown to the town of his having been seen in some remote foreign city,--now in one place, and now in another, always on the point of departing, self-pursued like the Wandering Jew; but nothing authentic. His after-fate was to be a sealed book in Stillwater.
"I really wish you had let the old sign stand," said Richard, as the carpenters removed the ladders. "The yard can never be anything but Slocum's Yard."
"It looks remarkably well up thee," replied Mr. Slocum, shading his eyes critically with one hand. "You object to the change, but for my part I don't object to changes. I trust I may live to see the day when even this sign will have to be altered to--Slocum, Shackford & Son. How would you like that?"
"I can't say," returned Richard laughing, as they passed into the yard together. "I should first have to talk it over--with the son!"
The End
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Gorgias, the architect, had learned to bear the scorching sunbeams of the Egyptian noonday. Though not yet thirty, he had directed--first as his late father's assistant and afterwards as his successor--the construction of the huge buildings erected by Cleopatra in Alexandria.
Now he was overwhelmed with commissions; yet he had come hither ere the hours of work were over, merely to oblige a youth who had barely passed the confines of boyhood.
True, the person for whom he made this sacrifice was Cæsarion, the son whom Cleopatra had given to Julius Cæsar. Antony had honoured him with the proud title of "King of kings"; yet he was permitted neither to rule nor even to issue orders, for his mother kept him aloof from affairs of state, and he himself had no desire to hold the sceptre.
Gorgias had granted his wish the more readily, because it was apparent that he wanted to speak to him in private, though he had not the least idea what Cæsarion desired to confide, and, under any circumstances, he could give him only a brief interview. The fleet, at whose head the Queen had set sail, with Mark Antony, for Greece, must have already met Octavianus's galleys, and doubtless a battle wherein the destiny of the world was decided had also been fought upon the land, Gorgias believed that the victory would fall to Antony and the Queen, and wished the noble pair success with his whole heart. He was even obliged to act as if the battle had been already determined in their favour, for the architectural preparations for the reception of the conquerors were entrusted to his charge, and that very day must witness the decision of the location of the colossal statues which represented Antony hand in hand with his royal love.
The epitrop Mardion, a eunuch, who as Regent, represented Cleopatra; and Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, who rarely opposed him, wished to have the piece of sculpture erected in a different place from the one he favoured. The principal objection to the choice made by the powerful head of the government was that it had fallen on land owned by a private individual. This might lead to difficulties, and Gorgias opposed it. As an artist, too, he did not approve Mardion's plan; for though, on Didymus's land, the statues would have faced the sea, which the Regent and the Keeper of the Seal regarded as very important, no fitting background could have been obtained.
At any rate, the architect could now avail himself of Cæsarion's invitation to overlook from the appointed place of meeting--the lofty steps of the Temple of Isis--the Bruchium, and seek the best site for the twin statues. He was anxious to select the most suitable one; the master who had created this work of art had been his friend, and had closed his eyes in death shortly after its completion.
The sanctuary whence Gorgias commenced his survey was in one of the fairest portions of the Bruchium, the Alexandrian quarter, where stood the royal palace with its extensive annexes, the finest temples--except the Serapeum, situated in another part of the city--and the largest theatres; the Forum invited the council of Macedonian citizens to its assemblies, and the Museum afforded a resort for the scholars.
The little square closed in the east by the Temple of Isis was called the "Corner of the Muses," on account of the two marble statues of women before the entrance of the house, which, with its large garden facing the square northward and extending along the sea, belonged to Didymus, an old and highly respected scholar and member of the Museum.
The day had been hot, and the shade of the Temple of Isis was very welcome to the architect. This sanctuary rested upon a lofty foundation, and a long flight of steps led to the cella. The spot afforded Gorgias a wide prospect.
Most of the buildings within his vision belonged to the time of Alexander and his successors in the house of the Ptolemies, but some, and by no means the least stately, were the work of Gorgias himself or of his father. The artist's heart swelled with enthusiastic delight at the sight of this portion of his native city.
He had been in Rome, and visited many other places numbered among the world's fairest and most populous cities; but not one contained so many superb works of art crowded together in so small a space.
"If one of the immortals themselves," he murmured, "should strive to erect for the inhabitants of Olympus a quarter meet for their grandeur and beauty, it could scarcely be much more superb or better fitted to satisfy the artistic needs which we possess as their gift, and it would surely be placed on the shore of such a sea."
While speaking, he shaded his keen eyes with his hand. The architect, who usually devoted his whole attention to the single object that claimed his notice, now permitted himself the pleasure of enjoying the entire picture in whose finishing touches he had himself borne a part; and, as his practised eye perceived in every temple and colonnade the studied and finished harmony of form, and the admirable grouping of the various buildings and statues, he said to himself, with a sigh of satisfaction, that his own art was the noblest and building the highest of royal pleasures. No doubt this belief was shared by the princes who, three centuries before, had endeavoured to obtain an environment for their palaces which should correspond with their vast power and overflowing wealth, and at the same time give tangible expression to their reverence for the gods and their delight in art and beauty. No royal race in the universe could boast of a more magnificent abode. These thoughts passed through Gorgias's mind as the deep azure hue of sea and sky blended with the sunlight to bring into the strongest relief all that the skill and brains of man, aided by exhaustless resources, had here created.
Waiting, usually a hard task for the busy architect, became a pleasure in this spot; for the rays streaming lavishly in all directions from the diadem of the sovereign sun flooded with dazzling radiance the thousands of white marble statues on the temples and colonnades, and were reflected from the surfaces of the polished granite of the obelisks and the equally smooth walls of the white, yellow, and green marble, the syenite, and the brown, speckled porphyry of sanctuaries and palaces. They seemed to be striving to melt the bright mosaic pictures which covered every foot of the ground, where no highway intersected and no tree shaded it, and flashed back again from the glimmering metal or the smooth glaze in the gay tiles on the roofs of the temples and houses. Here they glittered on the metal ornaments, yonder they seemed to be trying to rival the brilliancy of the gilded domes, to lend to the superb green of the tarnished bronze surfaces the sparkling lustre of the emerald, or to transform the blue and red lines of the white marble temples into lapis-lazuli and coral and their gilded decorations into topaz. The pictures in the mosaic pavement of the squares, and on the inner walls of the colonnades, were doubly effective against the light masses of marble surrounding them, which in their turn were indebted to the pictures for affording the eye an attractive variety instead of dazzling monotony.
Here the light of the weltering sun enhanced the brilliancy of colour in the flags and streamers which fluttered beside the obelisks and Egyptian pylons, over the triumphal arches and the gates of the temples and palaces. Yet even the exquisite purplish blue of the banner waving above the palace on the peninsula of Lochias, now occupied by Cleopatra's children, was surpassed by the hue of the sea, whose deep azure near the shore merged far away into bands of lighter and darker blue, blending with dull or whitish green.
Gorgias was accustomed to grasp fully whatever he permitted to influence him, and though still loyal to his custom of associating with his art every remarkable work of the gods or man, he had not forgotten in his enjoyment of the familiar scene the purpose of his presence in this spot.
No, the garden of Didymus was _not_ the proper place for his friend's last work.
While gazing at the lofty plane, sycamore, and mimosa trees which surrounded the old scholar's home, the quiet square below him suddenly became astir with noisy life, for all classes of the populace were gathering in front of the sequestered house, as if some unusual spectacle attracted them.
What could they want of the secluded philosopher?
Gorgias gazed earnestly at them, but soon turned away again; a gay voice from below called his name.
A singular procession had approached the temple--a small body of armed men, led by a short, stout fellow, whose big head, covered with bushy curls, was crowned with a laurel wreath. He was talking eagerly to a younger man, but had paused with the others in front of the sanctuary to greet the architect. The latter shouted a few pleasant words in reply. The laurel-crowned figure made a movement as if he intended to join him, but his companion checked him, and, after a short parley, the older man gave the younger one his hand, flung his heavy head back, and strutted onward like a peacock, followed by his whole train.
The other looked after him, shrugging his shoulders; then called to Gorgias, asking what boon he desired from the goddess.
"Your presence," replied the architect blithely.
"Then Isis will show herself gracious to you," was the answer, and the next instant the two young men cordially grasped each other's hands.
Both were equally tall and well formed; the features bore witness to their Greek origin; nay, they might have been taken for brothers, had not the architect's whole appearance seemed sturdier and plainer than that of his companion, whom he called "Dion" and friend. As the latter heaped merry sarcasms upon the figure wearing the laurel wreath who had just left him, Anaxenor, the famous zither-player, on whom Antony had bestowed the revenues of four cities and permission to keep body-guard, and Gorgias's deeper voice sometime assented, sometimes opposed with sensible objections, the difference between these two men of the same age and race became clearly apparent.
Both showed a degree of self-reliance unusual, at their age; but the architect's was the assurance which a man gains by toil and his own merit, Dion's that which is bestowed by large possession and a high position in society. Those who were ignorant that the weight of Dion's carefully prepared speech had more than once turned the scale in the city councils would probably have been disposed to take him for one of the careless worldlings who had no lack of representatives among the gilded youth of Alexandria; while the architect's whole exterior, from his keen eye to the stouter leather of his sandals, revealed earnest purpose and unassuming ability.
Their friendship had commenced when Gorgias built a new palace for Dion. During long business association people become well acquainted, even though their conversations relate solely to direction and execution. But in this case, he who gave the orders had been only the inspirer and adviser, the architect the warm-hearted friend, eager to do his utmost to realize what hovered before the other's mind as the highest attainable excellence. So the two young men became first dear, and finally almost indispensable to each other. As the architect discovered in the wealthy man of the world many qualities whose existence he had not suspected, the latter was agreeably surprised to find in the artist, associated with his solidity of character, a jovial companion, who--this first made him really beloved by his friend--had no lack of weaknesses.
When the palace was completed to Dion's satisfaction and became one of the most lauded ornaments of the city, the young men's friendship assumed a new form, and it would have been difficult to say which received the most benefit.
Dion had just been stopped by the zither-player to ask for confirmation of the tidings that the united forces of Antony and Cleopatra had gained a great victory on sea and land.
In the eating-house at Kanopus, where he had breakfasted, everyone was full of the joyful news, and rivers of wine had been drunk to the health of the victors and the destruction of the malicious foe.
"In these days," cried Dion, "not only weak-brained fellows, like the zither-player, believe me omniscient, but many sensible men also. And why? Because, forsooth, I am the nephew of Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, who is on the brink of despair because he himself knows nothing, not even the veriest trifle."
"Yet he stands nearest to the Regent," observed Gorgias, "and must learn, if any one does, how the fleet fares."
"You too!" sighed his friend. "Had I been standing so far above the ground as you, the architect--by the dog, I should not have failed to note the quarter whence the wind blew! It has been southerly a whole fortnight, and keeps back the galleys coming from the north. The Regent knows nothing, absolutely nothing, and my uncle, of course, no more. But if they do learn anything they will be shrewd enough not to enrich me with it."
"True, there are other rumours afloat," said the architect thoughtfully. "If I were in Mardion's place----" "Thank the Olympians that you are not," laughed his companion. "He has as many cares as a fish has scales. And one, the greatest. --That pert young Antyllus was over-ready with his tongue yesterday at Barine's. Poor fellow! He'll have to answer for it to his tutor at home."
"You mean the remark about the Queen's accompanying the fleet?"
"St!" said Dion, putting his finger on his lips, for many men and women were now ascending the temple steps. Several carried flowers and cakes, and the features of most expressed joyful emotion. The news of the victory had reached their ears, and they wanted to offer sacrifices to the goddess whom Cleopatra, "the new Isis," preferred to all others.
The first court-yard of the sanctuary was astir with life. They could hear the ringing of the sistrum bells and the murmuring chant of the priests. The quiet fore-court of the little temple of the goddess, which here, in the Greek quarter of palaces, had as few visitors as the great Temple of Isis in the Rhakotis was overcrowded, had now become the worst possible rendezvous for men who stood so near the rulers of the government. The remark made about the Queen the evening before by Antyllus, Antony's nineteen-year-old son, at the house of Barine, a beautiful young woman who attracted all the prominent men in Alexandria, was the more imprudent because it coincided with the opinion of all the wisest heads. The reckless youth enthusiastically reverenced his father, but Cleopatra, the object of Antony's love, and--in the Egyptians' eyes--his wife, was not Antyllus's mother. He was the son of Fulvia, his father's first wife, and feeling himself a Roman, would have preferred a thousand times to live on the banks of the Tiber. Besides, it was certain--Antony's stanchest friends made no attempt to conceal the fact--that the Queen's presence with the army exerted a disturbing influence, and could not fail to curb the daring courage of the brave general. Antyllus, with the reckless frankness inherited from his father, had expressed this view in the presence of all Barine's guests, and in a form which would be only too quickly spread throughout Alexandria, whose inhabitants relished such speeches.
These remarks would be slow in reaching the plain people who were attracted to the temple by the news of the victory, yet many doubtless knew Cæsarion, whom the architect was awaiting here. It would be wiser to meet the prince at the foot of the steps. Both men, therefore, went down to the square, though the crowds seeking the temple and thronging the space before Didymus's house made it more and more difficult to pace to and fro.
They were anxious to learn whether the rumour that Didymus's garden was to be taken for the twin statues had already spread abroad, and their first questions revealed that this was the case. It was even stated that the old sage's house was to be torn down, and within a few hours. This was vehemently contradicted; but a tall, scrawny man seemed to have undertaken to defend the ruler's violence.
The friends knew him well. It was the Syrian Philostratus, a clever extempore speaker and agitator of the people, who placed his clever tongue at the disposal of the highest bidder.
"The rascal is probably now in my uncle's employ," said Dion. "The idea of putting the piece of sculpture there originated with him, and it is difficult to turn him from such plans. There is some secret object to be gained here. That is why they have brought Philostratus. I wonder if the conspiracy is connected in any way with Barine, whose husband--unfortunately for her--he was before he cast her off."
"Cast her off!" exclaimed Gorgias wrathfully. "How that sounds! True, he did it, but to persuade him the poor woman sacrificed half the fortune her father had earned by his brush. You know as well as I that life with that scoundrel would be unbearable."
"Very true," replied Dion quietly. "But as all Alexandria melted into admiration after her singing of the _yalemos_ at the Adonis festival, she no longer needed her contemptible consort."
"How can you take pleasure, whenever it is possible, in casting such slurs upon a woman, whom but yesterday you called blameless, charming, peerless?"
"That the light she sheds may not dazzle your eyes. I know how sensitive they are."
"Then spare, instead of irritating them. Besides, your suggestion gives food for thought Barine is the granddaughter of the man whose garden they want, and the advocate would probably be glad to injure both. But I'll spoil his game. It is _my_ business to choose the site for the statues."
"Yours?" replied Dion. "Unless some one who is more powerful opposes you. I would try to win my uncle, but there are others superior to him. The Queen has gone, it is true; but Iras, whose commands do not die away in empty air, told me this morning that she had her own ideas about the erection of the statue."
"Then you bring Philostratus here!" cried the architect.
"I?" asked the other in amazement.
"Ay, you," asserted Gorgias. "Did not you say that Iras, with whom you played when a boy is now becoming troublesome by watching your every step? And then--you visit Barine constantly and she so evidently prefers you, that the fact might easily reach the ears of Iras."
"As Argus has a hundred, jealousy has a thousand eyes," interrupted Dion, "yet I seek nothing from Barine, save two pleasant hours when the day is drawing towards its close. No matter; Iras, I suppose, heard that I was favoured by this much-admired woman. Iras herself has some little regard for me, so she bought Philostratus. She is willing to pay something for the sake of injuring the woman who stands between us, or the old man who has the good or evil fortune of being her rival's grandfather. No, no; that would be too base! And believe me, if Iras desired to ruin Barine, she need not make so long a circuit. Besides, she is not really a wicked woman. Or is she? All I know is that where any advantage is to be gained for the Queen, she does not shrink even from doubtful means, and also that the hours speed swiftly for any one in her society. Yes, Iras, Iras--I like to utter the name. Yet I do not love her, and she--loves only herself, and--a thing few can say--another still more. What is the world, what am I to her, compared with the Queen, the idol of her heart? Since Cleopatra's departure, Iras seems like the forsaken Ariadne, or a young roe which has strayed from its mother. But stop; she may have a hand in the game: the Queen trusted her as if she were her sister, her daughter. No one knows what she and Charmian are to her. They are called waiting-women, but are their sovereign's dearest friends. When, on the departure of the fleet, Cleopatra was compelled to leave Iras here--she was ill with a fever--she gave her the charge of her children, even those whose beards were beginning to grow, the 'King of kings' Cæsarion, whose tutor punishes him for every act of disobedience; and the unruly lad Antyllus, who has forced his way the last few evenings into our friend's house."
"Antony, his own father, introduced him to her."
"Very true, and Antyllus took Cæsarion there. This vexed Iras, like everything which may disturb the Queen. Barine is troublesome on account of Cleopatra, whom she wishes to spare every annoyance, and perhaps she dislikes her a little for my sake. Now she wants to inflict on the old man, Barine's grandfather, whom she loves, some injury which the spoiled, imprudent woman will scarcely accept quietly, and which will rouse her to commit some folly that can be used against her. Iras will hardly seek her life, but she may have in mind exile or something of that kind. She knows people as well as I know her, my neighbour and playmate, whom many a time I was obliged to lift down from some tree into which the child had climbed as nimbly as a kitten."
"I myself suggested this conjecture, yet I cannot credit her with such unworthy intrigues," cried Gorgias.
"Credit her?" repeated Dion, shrugging his shoulders. "I only transport myself in imagination to the court and to the soul of the woman who helps make rain and sunshine there. You have columns rounded and beams hewed that they may afterwards support the roof to which in due time you wish to direct attention. She and all who have a voice in the management of court affairs look first at the roof and then seek anything to raise and support it, though it should be corpses, ruined lives, and broken hearts. The point is that the roof shall stand until the architect, the Queen, sees and approves it. As to the rest---- But there is the carriage---- It doubtless brings---- You were----" He paused, laid his hand on his friend's arm, and whispered hastily: "Iras is undoubtedly at the bottom of this, and it is not Antyllus, but yonder dreaming lad, for whom she is moving. When she spoke of the statues just now, she asked in the same breath where I had seen him on the evening of the day before yesterday, and that was the very time he called on Barine. The plot was made by her, and Iras is doing all the work. The mouse is not caught while the trap is closed, and she is just raising her little hand to open it."
"If only she does not use some man's hand," replied the architect wrathfully, and then turned towards the carriage and the elderly man who had just left it, and was now approaching the two friends.
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When Cæsarion's companion reached Dion and Gorgias, the former modestly made a movement to retire. But Archibius was acquainted with both, and begged him to remain. There was an air of precision and clearness in the voice and quiet movements of this big, broad-shouldered man, with his robust frame and well-developed limbs. Though only a few years beyond forty, not merely his grey hair but the calm, impressive dignity of his whole manner indicated a more advanced age.
"The young King yonder," he began in a deep, musical voice, motioning towards the equipage, "wished to speak to you here in person, Gorgias, but by my advice he refrained from mingling with the crowd. I have brought him hither in a closed carriage. If the plan suits you, enter it and talk with him while I keep watch here. Strange things seem to be occurring, and yonder--or am I mistaken? Has the monster dragged along there any connection with the twin statues of the Queen and her friend? Was it you who selected that place for them?"
"No," replied the architect. "The order was issued over my head and against my will."
"I thought so," replied the other. "This is the very matter of which Cæsarion wishes to speak. If you can prevent the erection of the statues on Didymus's land, so much the better. I will do everything in my power to aid you, but in the Queen's absence that is little."
"Then what can be said of _my_ influence?" asked the architect. "Who, in these days, knows whether the sky will be blue or grey to-morrow? I can guarantee one thing only: I will do my best to prevent this injury of an estimable citizen, interference with the laws of our city, and violation of good taste."
"Say so to the young King, but express yourself cautiously," replied Archibius as the architect turned towards the carriage.
As soon as Dion and the older man were alone, the latter inquired the cause of the increasing uproar, and as, like every well-disposed Alexandrian, he esteemed Archibius, and knew that he was intimately acquainted with the owner of the imperilled garden, and therefore with his granddaughter Barine, he confided his anxiety to him without reserve.
"Iras is your niece, it is true," he said in his open-hearted manner, "but I know that you understand her character. It suits her now to fling a golden apple into the path of a person whom she dislikes and believes incautious, that she may pick it up and thus afford her an opportunity to bring a charge of theft."
Noting the inquiring glance Archibius fixed upon him as he made this comparison, he changed his tone and continued more earnestly: "Zeus is great, but destiny is superior even to him. Zeus can accomplish much, but when Iras and your sister Charmian, who unfortunately is now with the Queen, wish to effect anything, he, like the Regent Mardion, must give way. The more lovable Cleopatra is, the more surely every one prizes a position near her person above aught else, especially such trifles as law and justice."
"These are harsh words," responded Archibius, "and seem the more bitter in proportion to the germ of truth which they contain. Our court shares the fate of every other in the East, and those to whom Rome formerly set the example of holding law and justice sacred----" "Can now go there," interrupted Dion, "to learn how rudely both are trampled under foot. The sovereigns here and there may smile at one another like the augurs. They are like brothers----" "But with the difference," Archibius broke in, "that the head of our public affairs is the very embodiment of affability and grace; while in Rome, on the contrary, harsh severity and bloody arrogance, or even repulsive servility, guide the reins."
Here Archibius interrupted himself to point to the shouting throng advancing towards them. "You are right," Dion answered. "Let us defer this discussion till we can pursue it in the house of the charming Barine. But I rarely meet you there, though by blood you are so nearly allied to her father. I am her friend--at my age that might easily mean her lover. But in our case the comparison would not suit. Yet perhaps you will believe me, for you have the right to call yourself the friend of the most bewitching of women."
A sorrowful smile flitted over the grave, set features of the older man, who, raising his hand as if in protest, answered carelessly: "I grew up with Cleopatra, but a private citizen loves a queen only as a divinity. I believe in your friendship for Barine, though I deem it dangerous."
"If you mean that it might injure the lovely woman," replied Dion, raising his head more proudly as if to intimate that he required no warning, even from him, "perhaps you are right. Only I beg you not to misunderstand me. I am not vain enough to suppose that I could win her heart, but unfortunately there are many who cannot forgive the power of attraction which she exerts over me as well as upon all. So many men gladly visit Barine's house that there are an equal number of women who would rejoice to close it. Among them, of course, is Iras. She dislikes my friend; nay, I fear that what you witness yonder is the apple she flung in order, if not to ruin, at least to drive her from the city, ere the Queen--may the gods grant her victory! --ere Cleopatra returns. You know your niece Iras. Like your sister Charmian, she will shrink from nothing to remove an annoyance from her mistress's pathway, and it will hardly please Cleopatra when she learns that the two youths whose welfare lies nearest her heart--Antyllus and Cæsarion--seek Barine's house, no matter how stainless the latter's reputation may be."
"I have just heard of it," replied Archibius, "and I, too, am anxious. Antony's son has inherited much of his father's insatiable love of pleasure. But Cæsarion! He has not yet ventured out of the dreamland which surrounds him into actual life. What others scarcely perceive deals him a serious blow. I fear Eros is sharpening arrows for him which will pierce deep into his heart. While talking with me he seemed strangely changed. His dreamy eyes glittered like a drunkard's when he spoke of Barine. I fear, I fear----" "Impossible!" cried Dion, in surprise, nay, almost terror. "If that is the case, Iras is not wholly wrong, and we must deal with the matter differently. But it is of the first importance to conceal the fact that Cæsarion has any interest in the affairs of the old house-owner. To seek to maintain the old man's right to his own property is a matter of course, and I will undertake to do this and try to get yonder orator home---- Just see how the braggart is swinging his arms in Iras's service! As for Barine, it will be well to induce her to leave of her own free will a city where it will be made unpleasant for her. Try to persuade her to pursue this course. If I went to her with such a suggestion, I, who yesterday---- No, no! Besides, she might hear that Iras and I---- She would imagine all sorts of absurdities. You know what jealousy means. To you, whom she esteems, she would surely listen, and she need not go far from the city. If the heart of this enthusiastic boy--who might some day desire to be 'King of kings' not only in name--should really be fired with love for Barine, what serious misfortune might follow! We must secure her from him. She could not go to my country house among the papyrus plantations at Sebennys. It would afford too much license for evil tongues. But you--your villa at Kanopus is too near--but, if I am not mistaken, you have----" "My estate in the lake region is remote enough, and will be at her disposal," interrupted the other. "The house is always kept ready for my reception. I will do my best to persuade her, for your advice is prudent. She must be withdrawn from the boy's eyes."
"I shall learn the result of your mission tomorrow," cried Dion eagerly--"nay, this evening. If she consents, I will tell Iras, as if by accident, that Barine has gone to Upper Egypt to drink new milk, or something of that kind. Iras is a shrewd woman, and will be glad if she can keep aloof from such trifles during the time which will decide the fate of Cleopatra and of the world."
"My thoughts, too, are always with the army," said Archibius. "How trivial everything else seems compared with the result which will be determined in the next few days! But life is made up of trifles. They are food, drink, maintenance. Should the Queen return triumphant, and find Cæsarion in wrong paths----" "We must close them against him," exclaimed Dion.
"That the boy may not follow Barine?" asked Archibius, shaking his head. "I think we need feel no anxiety on that score. He will doubtless eagerly desire to do so, but with him there is a wide gulf between the wish and its fulfilment. Antyllus is differently constituted. He would be quite capable of ordering a horse to be saddled, or the sails of a boat to be spread in order to pursue her--beyond the Cataract if necessary. So we must maintain the utmost secrecy concerning the place to which Barine voluntarily exiles herself."
"But she is not yet on her way," replied Dion with a faint sigh. "She is bound to this city by many ties."
"I know it," answered Archibius, confirming his companion's fear. The latter, pointing to the equipage, said in a rapid, earnest tone: "Gorgias is beckoning. But, before we part, let me beseech you to do everything to persuade Barine to leave here. She is in serious danger. Conceal nothing from her, and say that her friends will not leave her too long in solitude."
Archibius, with a significant glance, shook his finger at the young man in playful menace, and then went up to the carriage.
Cæsarion's clear-cut but pallid face, whose every feature resembled that of his father, the great Cæsar, bent towards them from the opening above the door, as he greeted both with a formal bend of the head and a patronizing glance. His eyes had sparkled with boyish glee when he first caught sight of the friend from whom he had been separated several weeks, but to the stranger he wished to assume the bearing which beseemed a king. He desired to make him feel his superior position, for he was ill-disposed towards him. He had seen him favoured by the woman whom he imagined he loved, and whose possession he had been promised by the secret science of the Egyptians, whose power to unveil the mysteries of the future he firmly believed. Antyllus, Antony's son, had taken him to Barine, and she had received him with the consideration due his rank. Spite of her bright graciousness, boyish timidity had hitherto prevented any word of love to the young beauty whom he saw surrounded by so many distinguished men of mature years. Yet his beaming, expressive eyes must have revealed his feelings to her. Doubtless his glances had not been unobserved, for only a few hours before an Egyptian woman had stopped him at the temple of his father, Cæsar, to which, according to the fixed rules governing the routine of his life, he went daily at a certain hour to pray, to offer sacrifices, to anoint the stone of the altar, or to crown the statue of the departed emperor.
Cæsarion had instantly recognized her as the female slave whom he had seen in Barine's atrium, and ordered his train to fall back.
Fortunately his tutor, Rhodon, had not fulfilled his duty of accompanying him. So the youth had ventured to follow the slave woman, and in the shadow of the mimosas, in the little grove beside the temple, he found Barine's litter. His heart throbbed violently as, full of anxious expectation, he obeyed her signal to draw nearer. Still, she had granted him nothing save the favour of gratifying one of her wishes. But his heart had swelled almost to bursting when, resting her beautiful white arm on the door of her litter, she had told him that unjust men were striving to rob her grandfather Didymus of his garden, and she expected him, who bore the title of the "King of kings" to do his best to prevent such a crime.
It had been difficult for him to grasp her meaning while she was speaking. There was a roaring sound in his ears as if, instead of being in the silent temple grove, he was standing on a stormy day upon the surf-beaten promontory of Lochias. He had not ventured to raise his eyes and look into her face. Not until she closed with the question whether she might hope for his assistance did her gaze constrain him to glance up. Ah, what had he not fancied he read in her imploring blue eyes! how unspeakably beautiful she had appeared!
He had stood before her as if bereft of his senses. His sole knowledge was that he had promised, with his hand on his heart, to do everything in his power to prevent what threatened to cause her pain. Then her little hand, with its sparkling rings, was again stretched towards him, and he had resolved to kiss it; but while he glanced around at his train, she had already waved him a farewell, and the litter was borne away.
He stood motionless, like the figure of a man on one of his mother's ancient vases, staring in bewilderment after the flying figure of Happiness, whom he might easily have caught by her floating locks. How he raged over the miserable indecision which had defrauded him of so much joy! Yet nothing was really lost. If he succeeded in fulfilling her wishes, she could not fail to be grateful; and then---- He pondered over the person to whom he should apply--Mardion, the Regent, or the Keeper of the Seal? No, they had planned the erection of the group of sculpture in the philosopher's garden. To Iras, his mother's confidante? Nay, last of all to her. The cunning woman would have perceived his purpose and betrayed it to the Regent. Ah, if Charmian, his mother's other attendant, had been present! but she was with the fleet, which perhaps was even now engaged in battle with the enemy.
At this recollection his eyes again sought the ground--he had not been permitted to take the place in the army to which his birth entitled him, while his mother and Charmian---- But he did not pursue this painful current of thought; for a serious reproach had forced itself upon him and sent the blood to his cheeks. He wished to be considered a man, and yet, in these fateful days, which would determine the destiny of his mother, his native city, Egypt, and that Rome which he, the only son of Cæsar, was taught to consider his heritage, he was visiting a beautiful woman, thinking of her, and of her alone. His days and half the nights were passed in forming plans for securing her love, forgetful of what should have occupied his whole heart.
Only yesterday Iras had sharply admonished him that, in times like these, it was the duty of every friend of Cleopatra, and every foe of her foes, to be with the army at least in mind.
He had remembered this, but, instead of heeding the warning, the thought of her had merely recalled her uncle, Archibius, who possessed great influence, not merely on account of his wealth but because every one also knew his high standing in the regard of the Queen. Besides, the clever, kindly man had always been friendly to him from childhood, and like a revelation came the idea of applying to him, and to the architect Gorgias, who had a voice in the matter, and by whom he had been strongly attracted during the period while he was rebuilding the wing assigned to the prince in the palace at Lochias.
So one of the attendants was instantly despatched with the little tablet which invited Gorgias to the interview at the Temple of Isis.
Then, in the afternoon, Cæsarion went secretly in a boat to the little palace of Archibius, situated on the seashore at Kanopus, and now as the latter, with his friend, stood beside the carriage door, he explained to them that he was going with the architect to old Didymus to assure him of his assistance.
This was unadvisable in every respect, but it required all the weight of the older man's reasons to induce the prince to yield. The consequences which might ensue, should the populace discover that he was taking sides against the Regent, would be incalculable. But submission and withdrawal were especially difficult to the young "King of kings." He longed to pose as a man in Dion's presence, and as this could not be, he strove to maintain the semblance of independence by yielding his resolve only on the plea of not desiring to injure the aged scholar and his granddaughter. Finally, he again entreated the architect to secure Didymus in the possession of his property. When at last he drove away with Archibius, twilight was already gathering, torches were lighted in front of the temple and the little mausoleum adjoining the cella, and pitch-pans were blazing in the square.
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"The lad is in an evil plight," said Gorgias, shaking his head thoughtfully as the equipage rolled over the stone pavement of the Street of the King.
"And over yonder," added Dion, "the prospect is equally unpleasing. Philostratus is setting the people crazy. But the hired mischief-maker will soon wish he had been less ready to seize Iras's gold coins."
"And to think," cried the architect, "that Barine was this scoundrel's wife! How could it be----" "She was but a child when they married her," interrupted Dion. "Who consults a girl of fifteen in the choice of a husband? And Philostratus--he was my classmate at Rhodus--at that time had the fairest prospects. His brother Alexas, Antony's favourite, could easily advance him. Barine's father was dead, her mother was accustomed to follow Didymus's counsel, and the clever fellow had managed to strew dust in the old man's eyes. Long and lank as he is, he is not bad-looking even now. When he appeared as an orator he pleased his hearers. This turned his head, and a spendthrift's blood runs in his veins. To bring his fair young bride to a stately mansion, he undertook the bad cause of the thievish tax-collector Pyrrhus, and cleared him."
"He bought a dozen false witnesses."
"There were sixteen. Afterwards they became as numerous as the open mouths you see shouting yonder. It is time to silence them. Go to the old man's house and soothe him--Barine also, if she is there. If you find messengers from the Regent, raise objections to the unprecedented decree. You know the portions of the law which can be turned to Didymus's advantage."
"Since the reign of Euergetes II, registered landed property has been unassailable, and his was recorded."
"So much the better. Tell the officials also, confidentially, that you know of objections just discovered which may perhaps change the Regent's views."
"And, above all, I shall insist upon my right to choose the place for the twin statues. The Queen herself directed the others to heed my opinion."
"That will cast the heaviest weight into the scale. We shall meet later. You will prefer to keep away from Barine to-night. If you see her, tell her that Archibius said he would visit her later--for an object I will explain afterwards. I shall probably go to Iras to bring her to reason. It will be better not to mention Cæsarion's wish."
"Certainly--and you will give nothing to yonder brawler."
"On the contrary. I feel very generous. If Peitho will aid me, the insatiate fellow will get more than may be agreeable to him."
Then grasping the architect's hand, Dion forced his way through the throng surrounding the high platform on wheels, upon which the closely covered piece of sculpture had been rolled up. The gate of the scholar's house stood open, for an officer in the Regent's service had really entered a short time before, but the Scythian guards sent by the exegetus Demetrius, one of Barine's friends, were keeping back the throng of curious spectators.
Their commander knew Gorgias, and he was soon standing in the impluvium of the scholar's house, an oblong, roofless space, with a fountain in the centre, whose spray moistened the circular bed of flowers around it. The old slave had just lighted some three-branched lamps which burned on tall stands. The officers sent by the Regent to inform Didymus that his garden would be converted into a public square had just arrived.
When Gorgias entered, these magistrates, their clerks, and the witnesses accompanying them--a group of twenty men, at whose head was Apollonius, a distinguished officer of the royal treasury--were in the house. The slave who admitted the architect informed him of it.
In the atrium a young girl, doubtless a member of the household, stopped him. He was not mistaken in supposing that she was Helena, Didymus's younger granddaughter, of whom Barine had spoken. True, she resembled her sister neither in face nor figure, for while the young matron's hair was fair and waving, the young girl's thick black tresses were wound around her head in a smooth braid. Very unlike Barine's voice, too, were the deep, earnest tones trembling with emotion, in which she confronted him with the brief question, concealing a faint reproach, "Another demand?"
After first ascertaining that he was really speaking to Helena, his friend's sister, he hastily told her his name, adding that, on the contrary, he had come to protect her grandfather from a serious misfortune.
When his glance first rested upon her in the dimly lighted room, the impression she made upon him was by no means favourable. The pure brow, which seemed to him too high for a woman's face, wore an indignant frown; and though her mouth was beautiful in form, its outlines were often marred by a passionate tremor that lent the exquisitely chiselled features a harsh, nay, bitter expression. But she had scarcely heard the motive of his presence ere, pressing her hand upon her bosom with a sigh of relief, she eagerly exclaimed: "Oh, do what you can to avert this terrible deed! No one knows how the old man loves this house. And my grandmother! They will die if it is taken from them."
Her large eyes rested upon him with a warm, imploring light; and the stern, almost repellent voice thrilled with love for her relatives. He must lend his aid here, and how gladly he would do so! He assured her of this; and Helena, who had heard him mentioned as a man of ability, saw in him a helper in need, and begged him, with touching fervour, to show her grandfather, when he came before the officers, that all was not lost.
The astonished architect asked if Didymus did not know what was impending, and Helena hastily replied: "He is working in the summer-house by the sea. Apollonius is a kind-hearted man, and will wait until I have prepared my grandfather. I must go to him. He has already sent Philotas--his pupil, who finds and unrolls his books--a dozen times to inquire the cause of the tumult outside; but I replied that the crowds were flocking to the harbour on account of the Queen. There is often a mob shouting madly; but nothing disturbs my grandfather when he is absorbed in his work; and his pupil--a young student from Amphissa--loves him and does what I bid him. My grandmother, too, knows nothing yet. She is deaf, and the female slaves dare not tell her. After her recent attack of giddiness, the doctor said that any sudden shock might injure her. If only I can find the right words, that my grandfather may not be too sorely hurt!"
"Shall I accompany you?" asked Gorgias kindly.
"No," she answered hurriedly. "He needs time ere he will trust strangers. Only, if Apollonius discloses the terrible truth, and his grief threatens to overpower him, comfort him, and show him that we still have friends who are ready to protect us from such disaster."
She waved her hand in token of gratitude, and hurried through the little side gate into the garden.
Gorgias looked after her with sparkling eyes, and drew a long breath. How good this girl must be, how wisely she cared for her relatives! How energetically the young creature behaved! He had seen his new acquaintance only in the dim light, but she must be beautiful. Her eyes, lips, and hair certainly were. How his heart throbbed as he asked himself the question whether this young girl, who was endowed with every gift which constituted the true worth of womanhood, was not preferable to her more attractive sister Barine! --when the thought darted through his mind that he had cause to be grateful to the beard which covered his chin and cheeks, for he felt that he, a sedate, mature man, must have blushed. And he knew why. Only half an hour before he had felt and admitted to Dion that he considered Barine the most desirable of women, and now another's image cast a deep shadow over hers and filled his heart with new, perhaps stronger emotions.
He had had similar experiences only too often, and his friends, Dion at their head, had perceived his weakness and spoiled many an hour for him by their biting jests. The series of tall and short, fair and dark beauties who had fired his fancy was indeed of considerable length, and every one on whom he had bestowed his quickly kindled affections had seemed to him the one woman he must make his own, if he would be a happy man. But ere he had reached the point of offering his hand, the question had arisen in his mind whether he might not love another still more ardently. So he had begun to persuade himself that his heart yearned for no individual, but the whole sex--at least the portion which was young and could feel love--and therefore he would scarcely be wise to bind himself to any one. True, he knew that he was capable of fidelity, for he clung to his friends with changeless loyalty, and was ready to make any sacrifice in their behalf. With women, however, he dealt differently. Was Helena's image, which now floated before him so bewitchingly, destined to fade as swiftly? The contrary would have been remarkable. Yet he firmly believed that this time Eros meant honestly by him. The laughing loves who twined their rose garlands around him and Helena's predecessors had nothing to do with this grave maiden.
These reflections darted through his brain with the speed of lightning, and still stirred his heart when he was ushered into the impluvium, where the magistrates were impatiently awaiting the owner of the house. With the lucidity peculiar to him, he explained his reasons for hoping that their errand would be vain, and Apollonius replied that no one would rejoice more than he himself if the Regent should authorize him, on the morrow, to countermand his mission. He would gladly wait there longer to afford the old man's granddaughter an opportunity to soften the tidings of the impending misfortune.
The kind-hearted man's patience, however, was not tested too long; for when Helena entered the summer-house Didymus had already been informed of the disaster which threatened him and his family. The philosopher Euphranor, an elderly member of the Museum, had reached him through the garden gate, and, spite of Philotas's warning sign, told him what was occurring. But Didymus knew the old philosopher, who, a recluse from the world like himself, was devoting the remainder of his life and strength to the pursuit of science. So he only shook his head incredulously, pushed back the thin locks of grey hair which hung down on his cheeks over the barest part of his skull, and exclaimed reproachfully, though as if the matter under discussion was of the most trivial importance: "What have you been hearing? We'll see about it!"
He had risen as he spoke, and too abruptly surprised by the news to remember the sandals on the mat and the upper robe which lay on a chest of drawers at the end of the room, he was in the act of quitting it, when his friend, who had silently watched his movements, stopped him, and Helena entered.
The grey-haired sage turned to her, and, vexed by his friend's doubts, begged her to convince her grandfather that even matters which do not please us may nevertheless be of some importance. She did so as considerately as possible, thinking meanwhile of the architect and his hopes.
Didymus, with his eyes bent on the ground, shook his grey head again and again. Then, suddenly raising it, he rushed to the door, and without heeding the upper garment which Helena still held in her hand, tore it open, shouting, "But things must and shall be changed!"
Euphranor and his granddaughter followed. Though his head was bowed, he crossed the little garden with a swift, firm tread, and, without noticing the questions and warnings of his companions, walked at once to the impluvium. The bright light dazzled his weakened eyes, and his habit of gazing into vacancy or on the ground compelled him to glance from side to side for some time, ere he could accustom himself to it. Apollonius approached, greeted him respectfully, and assured him that he deeply regretted having interrupted him in the work for which the whole world was waiting, but he had come on important business.
"I know, I know," the old scholar answered with a smile of superiority. "What is all this ado about?"
As he spoke he looked around the group of spectators, among whom he knew no one except Apollonius, who had charge of the museum accounts, and the architect, for whom he had composed the inscription on the Odeum, which he had recently built. But when his eyes met only unfamiliar faces, the confidence which hitherto had sustained him began to waver, though still convinced that a demand such as the philosopher suggested could not possibly be made upon him, he continued: "It is stated that there is a plan for turning my garden into a public square. And for what purpose? To erect a piece of sculpture. But there can be nothing serious in the rumour, for my property is recorded in the land register, and the law----" "Pardon me," Apollonius broke in, "if I interrupt you. We know the ordinance to which you refer, but this case is an exceptional one. The Regent desires to take nothing from you. On the contrary, he offers, in the name of the Queen, any compensation you yourself may fix for the piece of land which is to be honoured by the statues of the highest personages in the country--Cleopatra and Antony, hand in hand. The piece of sculpture has already been brought here. A work by the admirable artist Lysander, who passed too early to the nether world, certainly will not disfigure your house. The little summer-house by the sea must be removed to-morrow, it is true; you know that our gracious Queen may return any day--victorious if the immortals are just. This piece of sculpture, which is created in her honour, to afford her pleasure, must greet her on her arrival, so the Regent send me to-day to communicate his wish, which, as he represents the Queen----" "Yet," interrupted the architect, who had again warmly assured the old man's granddaughter of his aid--"yet your friends will endeavour to persuade the Regent to find another place for the statues."
"They are at liberty to do so," said the officer. "What will happen later the future will show. My office merely requires me to induce the worthy owner of this house and garden to submit to-day to the Queen's command, which the Regent and my own heart bid me clothe in the form of a request."
During this conversation the old man had at first listened silently to the magistrate's words, gazing intently into his face. So it was true. The demand to yield up his garden, and even the little house, for fifty years the scene of his study and creative work, for the sake of a statue, would be made. Since this had become a certainty, he had stood with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Grief had paralyzed his tongue, and Helena, who felt this, for the aged head seemed as if it were bending under a heavy burden, had drawn close to his side.
The shouts and howls of the throng outside echoed through the open roof of the impluvium, but the old man did not seem to hear them, and did not even notice his granddaughter. Yet, no sooner did he feel her touch than he hurriedly shrank away, flung back his drooping head, and gazed around the circle of intruders.
The dull, questioning eyes of the old commentator and writer of many books now blazed with the hot fire of youthful passion and, like a wrestler who seeks the right grip, he measured Apollonius and his companions with wrathful glances. The fragile recluse seemed transformed into a warrior ready for battle. His lips and the nostrils of his delicate nose quivered, and when Apollonius began to say that it would be wise to remove the contents of the summer-house that day, as it would be torn down early the next morning, Didymus raised his arms, exclaiming: "That will not be done. Not a single roll shall be removed! They will find me at work as usual early to-morrow morning, and if it is still your wish to rob me of my property you must use violence to attain your purpose."
"Calm yourself," replied Apollonius. "Every one beneath the moon must submit to a higher power; the gods bow to destiny, we mortals to the sovereign. You are a sage; I, merely mindful of the behests of duty, administer my office. But I know life, and if I may offer my counsel, you will accept what cannot be averted, and I will wager ten to one that you will have the best of it; that the Queen will place in your hands means----" "Sufficient to build a palace on the site of the little house of which I was robbed," Didymus interrupted bitterly. Then rage burst forth afresh "What do I care for your money? I want my rights, my good, guaranteed rights. I insist upon them, and whoever assails the ground which my grandfather and father bequeathed to me----" He hesitated, for the throng outside had burst into a loud shout of joy; and when it died away, and the old man began once more defiantly to claim his rights, he was interrupted by a woman's clear tones, addressing him with the Greek greeting, "Rejoice!" --a voice so gay and musical that it seemed to dispel the depression which rested like a grey fog on the whole company.
While Didymus was listening to the excited populace, and the new-comer was gazing at the old man whose rigid obstinacy could scarcely be conquered by kindness, the younger men were looking at the beautiful woman who joined them. Her haste had flushed her cheeks, and from beneath the turquoise-blue kerchief that covered her fair locks a bewitching face smiled at her sister, the architect, and her grandfather.
Apollonius and many of his companions felt as if happiness in person had entered this imperilled house, and many an eye brightened when the infuriated old man exclaimed in an altered tone, "You here, Barine?" and she, without heeding the presence of the others, kissed his cheek with tender affection.
Helena, Gorgias, and the old philosopher Euphranor, had approached her, and when the latter asked with loving reproach, "Why, Barine, how did you get through the howling mob?" she answered gaily: "That a learned member of the Museum may receive me with the query whether I am here, though from childhood a kind or--what do you think, grandfather? --a malign fate has preserved me from being overlooked, and some one else reprovingly asks how I passed through the shouting mob, as if it were a crime to wade into the water to hold out a helping hand to those we love best when it is up to their chins! But, oh! dear, this howling is too hideous!"
While speaking, she pressed her little hands on the part of the kerchief which concealed her ears, and said no more until the noise subsided, although she declared that she was in a hurry, and had only come to learn how matters were. Meanwhile it seemed as if she was so full of quick, pulsing life, that it was impossible to leave even a moment unused, if it were merely to bestow or answer a friendly glance.
The architect and her sister were obliged to return hurried answers to hasty questions; and as soon as she ascertained what had brought the strangers there she thanked Apollonius, and said that old friends would do their best to spare her grandfather such a sorrow.
In reply to repeated inquiries from the two old men in regard to her arrival there, she answered: "Nobody will believe it, because in this hurry I could not keep my mouth shut; but I acted like a mute fish and reached the water." Then, drawing her grandfather aside, she whispered to him that, when she left her boat at the harbour, Archibius had seen her from his carriage, and instantly stopped it to inform her of his intended visit that evening. He was coming to discuss an important matter. Therefore she must receive the worthy man, whom she sincerely liked, so she could not stay. Then turning to the others--still with her kerchief on her head ready for departure--she asked what the people meant by their outcries. The architect replied that Philostratus had endeavoured to make the crowd believe that the only appropriate site for the statues of which she had heard was her grandfather's garden, and he thought he knew in whose behalf the fellow was acting.
"Certainly not in the Regent's," said Apollonius, in a tone of sincere conviction; but Barine, over whose sunny brow a shadow had flitted when Gorgias uttered the orator's name, assented with a slight bend of the head, and then whispered hurriedly, yet earnestly, that she would answer for the old man's allowing himself to be persuaded, if he had only time to collect his thoughts.
The next morning, when the market was crowded, the officer might commence his negotiations afresh, if the Regent insisted on his plan. Meanwhile she would do her best to persuade her grandfather to yield, though he was not exactly one of the class who are easily guided. Apollonius might remind the Regent that it would be advisable at this time to avoid a public scandal, to remember Didymus's age, and the validity of his claim.
While Apollonius was talking with his companions, Barine beckoned to the architect, and hastily took leave of the others, protesting that she was in no danger, since she would slip away again like a fish, only this time she would use her tongue, and hoped by its means to win to the support of Didymus's just cause a man who would already have ended all the trouble had the Queen only been in Alexandria.
Until now the eyes and ears of the whole company had been fixed upon Barine. No one had desired anything better than to gaze at and listen to her.
Not until she had quitted the room with Gorgias did the officials discuss the matter together, and soon after Apollonius went away with his companions, to hold another conference with the Regent about this unpleasant business. This time the architect had followed the young beauty with very mingled feelings. Only an hour before he would have rejoiced to be permitted to accompany and protect Barine; now he would have gladly remained with her sister, who had returned his farewell greeting so gratefully and yet with such maidenly modesty. But even the most vacillating man cannot change one fancy for another as he would replace a black piece on the draughtboard with a white one, and he still found it delightful to be so near Barine. Only the thought that Helena might believe that he stood on very intimate terms with her sister had darted with a disquieting influence through his brain when the latter invited him to accompany her.
In the garden Barine begged him, before they went to the landing-place where the boat was moored, to help her ascend the narrow flight of steps leading to the flat roof of the gatekeeper's little house.
Here they could watch unseen the tumult in the square below, for it was surrounded by dense laurel bushes. Bright flames were blazing in the pitch-pans before the two temples at the side of the Corner of the Muses, and their light was increased by the torches held in the hands of Scythians. Yet no individuals could be distinguished in the throng. The marble walls of the temples shimmered, the statues at Didymus's gate, and the hermæ along the street of the King which passed the threatened house and connected the north of the Corner of the Muses with the sea-shore, loomed from the darkness in the brilliancy of the reflected light, but the smoke of the torches darkened the sky and dimmed the starlight.
The only persons distinctly visible were Dion, who had stationed himself on the lofty framework of the platform on which the muffled statues had been drawn hither, and the attorney Philostratus, who stood on the pedestal of one of the dolphins which surrounded the fountain between the Temple of Isis and the street. The space, a dozen paces wide, which divided them, permitted the antagonists to understand each other, and the attention of the whole throng was fixed upon the wranglers.
These verbal battles were one of the greatest pleasures of the Alexandrians, and they greeted every clever turn of speech with shouts of applause, every word which displeased them with groans, hisses, and cat-calls.
Barine could see and hear what was passing below. She had pushed aside the foliage of the laurel bushes which concealed her, and, with her hand raised to her ear, stood listening to the two disputants. When the scoundrel whom she had called husband, and for whom her contempt had become too deep for hate, sneeringly assailed her family as having been fed from generation to generation from the corn-bin of the Museum, she bit her lips. But they soon curled, as if what she heard aroused her disgust, for the speaker now turned to Dion and accused him of preventing the kindly disposed Regent from increasing the renown of the great Queen and affording her noble heart a pleasure.
"My tongue," he cried, "is the tool which supports me. Why am I using it here till it is weary and almost paralyzed? In honour of Cleopatra, our illustrious Queen, and her generous friend, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude. Let all who love her and the divine Antony, the new Herakles and Dionysus--both will soon make their entry among us crowned with the laurels of victory--join the Regent and every well-disposed person in seizing yonder bit of land so meanly withheld by base avarice and a sentiment--a sentiment, do you hear? --which I do not name more plainly, simply because wickedness is repulsive to me, and I do not stand here as an accuser. Whoever upholds the word-monger who spouts forth books as the dolphin at my side does water, may do so. I shall not envy him. But first look at Didymus's ally and panegyrist. There he stands opposite to me. It would have been better for him had the dolphin at his feet taught him silence. Then he might have remained in the obscurity which befits him. But whether willing or not, I must drag him forth, and I will show you Dion, fellow-citizens, though I would far rather have you see things which arouse less ire. The dim light prevents your distinguishing the colour of his robe, but I know it, for I saw it in the glare of day. It is hyacinthine purple. You know what that costs. It would support the wives and children of many among you for ten long years. 'How heavy must be the purse which can expose such a treasure to sun and rain!' is the thought of every one who sees him strutting about as proudly as a peacock. And his purse _is_ loaded with many talents. Only it is a pity that, day after day, most of you must give your children a little less bread and deprive yourselves of many a draught of wine to deck him out so bravely. His father, Eumenes, was a tax-collector, and what the leech extorted from you and your children, the son now uses to drive, clad in hyacinthine purple, a four-horse chariot, which splashes the mire from the street into your faces as it rolls onward. By the dog! the gentleman does not weigh so very much, yet he needs four horses to drag him. And, fellow-citizens, do you know why? I'll tell you. He's afraid of sticking fast everywhere, even in his speech."
Here Philostratus lowered his voice, for the phrase "sticking fast" had drawn a laugh from some of his hearers; but Dion, whose father had really amassed, in the high position of a receiver of taxes, the handsome fortune which his son possessed, did not delay his reply.
"Yes, yes," he retorted scornfully, "yonder Syrian babbler hit the mark this time. He stands before me, and who does not easily stick fast when marsh and mire are so near? As for the hyacinthine purple cloak, I wear it because I like it. His crocus-yellow one is less to my taste, though he certainly looks fine enough in it in the sunlight. It shines like a buttercup in the grass. You know the plant. When it fades--and I ask whether you think Philostratus looks like a bud--when it fades, it leaves a hollow spiral ball which a child's breath could blow away. Suppose in future we should call the round buttercup seed-vessels 'Philostratus heads'? You like the suggestion? I am glad, fellow-citizens, and I thank you. It proves your good taste. Then we will stick to the comparison. Every head contains a tongue, and Philostratus says that his is the tool which supports him."
"Hear the money-bag, the despiser of the people!" interrupted Philostratus furiously. "The honest toil by which a citizen earns a livelihood is a disgrace in his eyes." " _Honest_ toil, my good friend," replied Dion, "is scarcely in question here. I spoke only of _your_ tongue. --You understand me, fellow-citizens. Or, if any of you are not yet acquainted with this worthy man, I will show him to you, for I know him well. He is my foe, yet I can sincerely recommend him to many of you. If any one has a very bad, shamefully corrupt cause to bring before the courts, I most earnestly counsel him to apply to the buttercup man perched on yonder fountain. He will thank me for it. Believe me, Didymus's cause is just, precisely because this advocate so eagerly assails it. I told you just now the matter under discussion. Which of you who owns a garden can say in future, 'It is mine,' if, during the absence of the Queen, it is allowable to take it away to be used for any other purpose? But this is what threatens Didymus. If this is to be the custom here, let every one beware of sowing a radish or planting a bush or a tree, for should the wife of some great noble desire to dry her linen there, he may be deprived of it ere the former can ripen or the latter give shade."
Loud applause followed this sentence, but Philostratus shouted in a voice that echoed far and wide: "Hear me, fellow-citizens; do not allow your selves to be deceived! No one is to be robbed here. The project is to purchase, at a high price, the spot which the city needs for her adornment, and to honour and please the Queen. Are the Regent and the citizens to lose this opportunity of expressing the gratitude of years, and the rejoicing over the greatest of victories, of which we shall soon hear, because an evil-disposed person--the word must be uttered--a foe to his country, opposes it?"
"Now the mire is coming too near me," Dion angrily responded, "and I might really stick fast, as I was warned; for I do not envy the ready presence of mind of any person whose tongue would not falter when the basest slander scattered its venom over him. You all know, fellow-citizens, through how many generations the Didymus family has lived to the honour of this city, doing praiseworthy work in yonder house. You know that the good old man who dwells there was one of the teachers of the royal children."
"And yet," cried Philostratus, "only the day before yesterday he walked arm in arm in the Paneum garden with Arius, the tutor of Octavianus, our own and our Queen's most hated foe. In my presence, and before I know not how many others, Didymus distinguished this Arius as his most beloved pupil."
"To give you that title," retorted Dion, "would certainly fill any teacher with shame and anger, no matter how far you had surpassed him in wisdom and knowledge. Nay, had you been committed to the care of the herring dealers, instead of the rhetoricians, every honest man among them would disown you, for they sell only good wares for good money, while you give the poorest in exchange for glittering gold. This time you trample under foot the fair name of an honourable man. But I will not suffer it; and you hear, fellow-citizens, I now challenge this Syrian to prove that Didymus ever betrayed his native land, or I will brand him in your presence a base slanderer, an infamous, venal destroyer of character!"
"An insult from such lips is easily borne," replied Philostratus in a tone of scornful superiority; but there was a pause ere he again turned to the listening throng, and with all the warmth he could throw into his voice continued: "What do I desire, then, fellow-citizens? What is the sole object of my words? I stand here with clean hands, impelled solely by the impulse of my heart, to plead for the Queen. In order to secure the only suitable site for the statues to be erected to Cleopatra's honour and fame, I enter into judgment with her foes, expose myself to the insult with which boastful insolence is permitted to vent its wrath upon me. But I am not dismayed, though, in pursuing this course, I am acting against the law of Nature; for the infamous man against whom I raise my voice was my teacher, too, and ere he turned from the path of right and virtue--under influences which I will not mention here--he numbered me also, in the presence of many witnesses, among his best pupils. I was certainly one of the most grateful--I chose his granddaughter--the truth must be spoken--for my wife. The possession----" "Possession!" interrupted Dion in a loud, excited tone. "The corpse cast ashore by the waves might as well boast possession of the sea!"
The dim torchlight was sufficient to reveal Philostratus's pallor to the bystanders. For a moment the orator seemed to lose his self-control, but he quickly recovered himself, and shouted: "Fellow-citizens, dear friends! I was about to make you witnesses of the misery which a woman, whose wickedness is even greater than her beauty, brought upon an inexperienced----" But he went no further; for his hearers--many of whom knew the brilliant, generous Dion, and Barine, the fair singer at the last Adonis festival--gave the orator tokens of their indignation, which were all the more pitiless because of the pleasure they felt in seeing an expert vanquished by an untrained foe. The wordy war would not have ended so quickly, however, had not restlessness and alarm taken possession of the crowd. The shout, "Back! disperse!" ran through the multitude, and directly after the trampling of hoofs and the commands of the leader of a troop of Libyan cavalry were heard. The matter at stake was not sufficiently important to induce the populace to offer an armed force resistance which might have entailed serious danger. Besides, the blustering war of tongues had reached a merry close, and loud laughter blended with the shouts of fear and warning; for the surging throng had swept with unexpected speed towards the fountain and plunged Philostratus into the basin. Whether this was due to the wrath of some enemy, or to mere accident, could not be learned; the vain efforts of the luckless man to crawl out of the water up the smooth marble were so comical, and his gestures, after helping hands had dragged him dripping upon the pavement of the square, were so irresistibly funny, that more laughing than angry voices were heard, especially when some one cried, "His hands were soiled by blackening Didymus, so the washing will do him good." "Some wise physicians flung him into the water," retorted an other; "he needed the cold application after the blows Dion dealt him."
The Regent, who had sent the troop of horsemen to drive the crowd away from Didymus's house, might well be pleased that the violent measure encountered so little resistance.
The throng quickly scattered, and was speedily attracted by something new at the Theatre of Dionysus--the zither-player Anaxenor had just announced from its steps that Cleopatra and Antony had won the most brilliant victory, and had sung to the accompaniment of his lute a hymn which had deeply stirred all hearts. He had composed it long before, and seized the first opportunity--the report had reached his ears while breakfasting in Kanopus--to try its effect.
As soon as the square began to empty, Barine left her post of observation. It was long since her heart had throbbed so violently. Not one of the many suitors for her favour had been so dear to her as Dion; but she now felt that she loved him. What he had just done for her and her grandfather was worthy of the deepest gratitude; it proved that he did not come to her house, like most of her guests, merely to while away the evening hours.
It had been no small matter for the young aristocrat, in the presence of the whole multitude, to enter into a debate with the infamous Philostratus, and how well he had succeeded in silencing the dreaded orator! Besides, Dion had even taken her part against his own powerful uncle, and perhaps by his deed drawn upon himself the hostility of his enemy's brother, Alexas, Antony's powerful favourite. Barine might assure herself that he, who was the peer of any Macedonian noble in the city, would have done this for no one else.
She felt as if the act had ransomed her.
When, after an unhappy marriage and many desolate days, she had regained her former bright cheerfulness and saw her house become the centre of the intellectual life of the city, she had striven until now to extend the same welcome to all her guests. She had perceived that she ought not to give any one the power over her which is possessed by the man who knows that he is beloved, and even to Dion she had granted little more than to the others. But now she saw plainly that she would resign the pleasure of being a universally admired woman, whose modest home attracted the most distinguished men in the city, for the far greater happiness which would be hers as Dion's beloved wife. With him, cherished by his love, she believed that she could find far greater joy in solitude than in the gay course of her present life.
She knew now what she must do if Dion sought her, and the architect, for the first time, found her a silent companion. He had willingly accompanied her back to her grandfather's house, where he had again met her sister Helena, while she had quitted it disappointed, because her brave defender had not returned there.
After the interruption of the debate Dion had been in a very cheerful mood. The pleasant sensation of having championed a good cause, and the delightful consciousness of success were not new to him, but he had rarely felt so uplifted as now. He most ardently longed for his next meeting with Barine, and imagined how he would describe what had happened and claim her gratitude for his friendly service. The scene had risen clearly before his mind, but scarcely had the radiant vision of the future faded when the unusually bright expression of his manly face was clouded by a grave and troubled one.
The darkness of the night, illumined only by the flare of the pitch-pans, had surrounded him, yet it had seemed as if he were standing with Barine in the full light of noon in the blossoming garden of his own palace, and, after asking a reward for his sturdy championship, she had clung to him with deep emotion, and he had passionately kissed her tearful face.
The face had quickly vanished, yet it had been as distinct as the most vivid picture in a dream.
Was Barine more to him than he supposed? Had he not been drawn to her, during the past few months, by the mere charm of her pliant intellect and her bright beauty? Had a new, strong passion awakened within him? Was he in danger of seeing the will which urged him to preserve his freedom conquered? Had he cause to fear that some day, constrained by a mysterious, invincible power, in defiance of the opposition of calm reason, he might perhaps bind himself for life to this Barine, the woman who had once been the wife of a Philostratus, and who bestowed her smiles on all who found admittance to her house seeking a feast for the eye, a banquet for the ear, a pleasant entertainment?
Though her honor was as stainless as the breast of a swan--and he had no reason to doubt it--she would still be classed with Aspasia and other women whose guests sought more than songs and agreeable conversations. The gifts with which the gods had so lavishly endowed her had already been shared with too many to permit him, the last scion of a noble Macedonian house, to think of leading her, as mistress, to the palace whose erection he had so carefully and successfully planned with Gorgias.
Surely it lacked nothing save the gracious rule of a mistress.
But if she should consent to become his without the blessing of Hymen? No.
He could not thus dishonor the granddaughter of Didymus, the man who had been his father's revered teacher, a woman whom he had always rejoiced that, spite of the gay freedom with which she received so many admirers, he could still esteem. He would not do so, though his friends would have greeted such scruples with a smile of superiority. Who revered the sacredness of marriage in a city whose queen was openly living for the second time with the husband of another? Dion himself had formed many a brief connection, but for that very reason he could not place a woman like Barine on the same footing with those whose love he had perhaps owed solely to his wealth. He had never lacked courage and resolution, but he felt that this time he would have to resist a power with which he had never coped.
That accursed face! Again and again it rose before his mental vision, smiling and beckoning so sweetly that the day must come when the yearning to realize the dream would conquer all opposition. If he remained near her he would inevitably do what he might afterwards regret, and therefore he would fain have offered a sacrifice to Peitho to induce her to enhance Archibius's powers of persuasion and induce Barine to leave Alexandria. It would be hard for him to part from her, yet much would be gained if she went into the country. Between the present and the distant period of a second meeting lay respite from peril, and perhaps the possibility of victory. Dion did not recognize himself. He seemed as unstable as a swaying reed, because he had conquered his wish to re-enter old Didymus's house and encourage him, and passed on to his own home. But he would probably have found Barine still with her grandfather, and he would not meet her, though every fibre of his being longed for her face, her voice, and a word of gratitude from her beloved lips. Instead of joy, he was filled with the sense of dissatisfaction which overpowers a man standing at a crossing in the roads, who sees before him three goals, yet can be fully content with neither.
The Street of the King, along which he suffered himself to be carried by the excited throng, ran between the sea and the Theatre of Dionysus. The thought darted through his mind that his friend the architect desired to erect the luckless statues of the royal lovers in front of this stately building. He would divert his thoughts by examining the site which Gorgias had chosen.
The zither-player finished his hymn just as Dion approached the theatre, and the crowd began to disperse. Every one was full of the joyful tidings of victory, and one shouted to another what Anaxenor, the favourite of the great Antony, who must surely know, had just recited in thrilling verse. Many a joyous Io and loud Evoë to Cleopatra, the new Isis, and Antony, the new Dionysus, resounded through the air, while bearded and smooth, delicate Greek and thick Egyptian lips joined in the shout, "To the Sebasteum!" This was the royal palace, which faced the government building containing the Regent's residence. The populace desired to have the delightful news confirmed, and to express, by a public demonstration, the grateful joy which filled every heart.
Dion, too, was eager to obtain certainty, and, though usually averse to mingling with the populace during such noisy outbursts of feeling, he was preparing to follow the crowd thronging towards the Sebasteum, when the shouts of runners clearing a passage for a closed litter fell upon his ear.
It was occupied by Iras, the Queen's trusted attendant. If any one could give accurate information, it was she; yet it would hardly be possible to gain an opportunity of conversing with her in this throng. But Iras must have had a different opinion; she had seen Dion, and now called him to her side. There were hoarse tones in her voice, usually so clear and musical, which betrayed the emotion raging in her breast as she assailed the young Macedonian noble with a flood of questions. Without giving him the usual greeting, she hastily desired to know what was exciting the people, who had brought the tidings of victory, and whither the multitude was flocking?
Dion had found it difficult not to be forced from the litter while answering. Iris perceived this, and as they were just passing the Mæander, the labyrinth, which was closed after sunset, she ordered her bearers to carry the litter to the entrance, made herself known to the watchman, ordered the outer court to be opened, the litter to be placed there, and the bearers and runners to wait outside for her summons, which would soon be given.
This unusual haste and excitement filled Dion with just solicitude. She refused his invitation to alight and walk up and down, declaring that life offered so many labyrinths that one need not seek them. He, too, seemed to be following paths which were scarcely straight ones. "Why," she concluded, thrusting her head far out of the opening in the litter, "are you rendering it so difficult for the Regent and your own uncle to execute their plans, making common cause with the populace, like a paid agitator?"
"Like Philostratus, you mean, on whom I bestowed a few blows in addition to the golden guerdon received from your hand?"
"Ay, like him, for aught I care. Probably it was you, too, who had him flung into the water, after you had vented your wrath on him? You managed your cause well. What we do for love's sake is usually successful. No matter, if only his brother Alexas does not rouse Antony against you. For my part, I merely desire to know why and for whom all this was done."
"For whom save the good old man who was my father's preceptor, and his just claim?" replied Dion frankly. "Moreover--for no site more unsuitable could be found than his garden--in behalf of good taste."
Iras laughed a shrill, short laugh, and her narrow, regularly formed face, which might have been called beautiful, had not the bridge of the straight delicate nose been too long and the chin too small, darkened slightly, as she exclaimed, "That is frank at least."
"You ought to be accustomed to that from me," replied Dion calmly. "In this case, however, the expert, Gorgias, fully shares my opinion."
"I heard that too. You are both the most constant visitors of--what is the woman's name? --the bewitching Barine."
"Barine?" repeated Dion, as if the mention of the name surprised him. "You take care, my friend, that our conversation does honour to its scene, the labyrinth. I speak of works of the sculptor's art, and you pretend that I am referring to what is most certainly a very successful living work from the creative hands of the gods. I was very far from thinking of the granddaughter of the old scholar for whom I interceded."
"Ay," she scornfully retorted, "young gentlemen in your position, and with your habits of life, always think of their fathers estimable teachers rather than of the women who, ever since Pandora opened her box, have brought all sorts of misfortunes into the world. But," she added, pushing back her dark locks from her high forehead, "I don't understand myself, how, with the mountain of care that now burdens my soul, I can waste even a single word upon such trifles. I care as little for the aged scholar as I do for his legion of commentaries and books, though they are not wholly unfamiliar to me. For any concern of mine he might have as many grandchildren as there are evil tongues in Alexandria, were it not that just at this time it is of the utmost importance to remove everything which might cast a shadow on the Queen's pathway. I have just come from the palace of the royal children at Lochias, and what I learned there. But that--I will not, I cannot believe it. It fairly stifles me!"
"Have you received bad news from the fleet?" questioned Dion, with sincere anxiety; but she only bent her head in assent, laying her fan of ostrich-plumes on her lips to enjoin silence, at the same time shivering so violently that he perceived it, even in the dusk. It was evident that speech was difficult, as she added in a muffled tone: "It must be kept secret--Rhodian sailors--thank the gods, it is still very doubtful--it cannot, must not be true--and yet--the prattle of that zither-player, which has filled the multitude with joyous anticipation, is abominable--the great ones of the earth are often most sorely injured by those who owe them the most gratitude. I know you can be silent, Dion. You could as a boy, if anything was to be hidden from our parents. Would you still be ready to plunge into the water for me, as in those days? Scarcely. Yet you may be trusted, and, even in this labyrinth, I will do so. My heart is heavy. But not one word to any person. I need no confidant and could maintain silence even towards you, but I am anxious that you should understand me, you who have just taken such a stand. Before I entered my litter at Lochias, the boy returned, and I talked with him."
"Young Cæsarion loves Barine," replied Dion with grave earnestness.
"Then this horrible folly is known?" asked Iras excitedly. "A passion far deeper than I should ever have expected this dreamer to feel has taken possession of him. And if the Queen should now return--perhaps less successful than we desire--if she looks to those from whom she still expects pleasure, satisfaction, lofty deeds, and learns what has befallen the boy--for what does not that sun-bright intellect learn and perceive? He is dear to her, dearer than any of you imagine. How it will increase her anxiety, perhaps her suffering! With what good reason she will be angered against those whom duty and love should have commanded to guard the boy!"
"And therefore," added Dion, "the stone of offence must be removed. Your first step to secure this object was the attack on Didymus."
He had judged correctly and perceived that, in her assault upon the old scholar, she had at first intended to play into the hands of the rulers, work against the old philosopher and his relatives, among whose number was Barine; for the Egyptian law permitted the relatives of those who were convicted of any crime against the sovereign or the government to be banished with the criminal. This attack upon an innocent person was disgraceful, yet every word Iras uttered made Dion feel, every feature of her face betrayed, that it was not merely base jealousy, but a nobler emotion, that caused her to assail the guiltless sage--love for her mistress, the desire which dominated her whole being to guard Cleopatra from grief and trouble in these trying times. He knew Iras's iron will and the want of consideration with which she had learned to pursue her purpose at the court. His first object was to protect Barine from the danger which threatened her; but he also wished to relieve the anxiety of Iras, the daughter of Krates, his father's neighbour, with whom he had played in boyhood and for whom he had never ceased to feel a tender interest.
His remark surprised her. She saw that her plot was detected by the man whose esteem she most valued, and a loving woman is glad to recognize the superiority of her lover. Besides, from her earliest childhood--and she was only two years younger than Dion--she had belonged to circles where no quality was more highly prized than mental pliancy and keenness. Her dark eyes, which at first had glittered distrustfully and questioningly and afterwards glowed with a gloomy light, now gained a new expression. Her gaze sought her friend's with a tender, pleading look as, admitting his charge, she began: "Yes! Dion, the philosopher's granddaughter must not stay here. Or do you see any other way to protect the unhappy boy from incalculable misfortune? You know me well enough to be aware that, like you, I am reluctant to infringe another's rights, that except in case of necessity I am not cruel. I value your esteem. No one is more truthful, and yesterday you averred that Eros had no part in your visits to the much-admired young woman, that you joined her guests merely because the society you found at her house afforded a pleasant stimulus to the mind. I have ceased to believe in many things, but not in you and your words, and if hearing that you had taken sides with the grandfather, I fancied that you were secretly seeking the thanks and gratitude of the granddaughter, why--surely the atrocious maxim that Zeus does not hear the vows of lovers comes from you men--why, suspicion again reared its head. Now you seem to share my opinion----" "Like you," Dion interrupted, "I believe that Barine ought to be withdrawn from the boy's pursuit, which cannot be more unpleasant to you than to her. As Cæsarion neither can nor ought to leave Alexandria while affairs are so threatening, nothing is left except to remove the young woman--but, of course, in all kindness."
"In a golden chariot, garlanded with roses, if you so desire," cried Iras eagerly.
"That might attract attention," answered Dion, smiling and raising his hand as if to enjoin moderation. "Your mode of action does not please me, even now that I know its purpose, but I will gladly aid you to attain your object. Your crooked paths also lead to the goal, and perhaps one is less likely to stumble in them; but straight ways suit me better, and I think I have already found the right one. A friend will invite Barine to an estate far away from here, perhaps in the lake regions."
"You?" cried Iras, her narrow eyebrows suddenly contracting.
"Do you imagine that she would go with me?" he asked, in a faintly reproachful tone. "No. Fortunately, we have older friends, and at their head is one who happens to be your uncle and at the same time is wax in the hands of the Queen."
"Archibius?" exclaimed Iras. "Ah! if he could persuade her to do so!"
"He will try. He, too, is anxious about the lad. While we are talking here, he is inviting Barine to his estate. The country air will benefit her."
"May she bloom there like a young shepherdess!"
"You are right to wish her the best fortune; for if the Queen does not return victorious, the irritability of our Alexandrians will be doubled. When you laid hands on Didymus's garden, you were so busily engaged in building the triumphal arch that you forgot----" "Who would have doubted the successful issue of this war?" cried Iras. "And they will, they will conquer. The Rhodian said that the fleet was scattered. The disaster happened on the Acharnanian coast. How positive it sounded! But he had it only at second and third hand. And what are mere rumours? The source of the false tidings is discovered later. Besides, even if the naval battle were really lost, the powerful army, which is far superior to Octavianus's forces, still remains. Which of the enemy's generals could cope with Antony on the land? How he will fight when all is at stake--fame, honour, sovereignty, hate, and love! Away with this fear, based on mere rumour! After Dyrrachium Cæsar's cause was deemed lost, and how soon Pharsalus made him master of the world! Is it worthy of a sensible person to suffer courage to be depressed by a sailor's gossip? And yet--yet! It began while I was ill. And then the swallows on the Antonias, the admiral's ship. We have already spoken of it. Mardion and your uncle Zeno saw with their own eyes the strange swallows drive away those which had built their nest on the helm of the Antonias, and kill the young ones with their cruel beaks. An evil omen! I cannot forget it. And my dream, while I lay ill with fever far away from my mistress! But I have already lingered here too long. No, Dion, no. I am grateful for the rest here--I can now feel at ease about Cæsarion. Place the monument where you choose. The people shall see and hear that we respect their opposition, that we are just and friendly. Help me to turn this matter to the advantage of the Queen, and if Archibius succeeds in getting Barine away and keeping her in the country, then--if I had aught that seemed to you desirable it should be yours. But what does the petted Dion care for his fading playfellow?"
"Fading?" he repeated in a tone of indignant reproach. "Say rather the fully developed flower has learned from her royal friend the secret of eternal youth."
With a swift impulse of gratitude Iras bent her face towards him in the dusk, extending the slender white hand--next to Cleopatra's famed as the most beautiful at court--for him to kiss, but when he merely pressed his lips lightly on it with no shadow of tenderness, she hastily withdrew it, exclaiming as if overwhelmed by sudden repentance: "This idle, hollow dalliance at such a time, with such a burden of anxiety oppressing the heart! It is unworthy, shameful! If Barine goes with Archibius, her time will scarcely hang heavy on his estates. I think I know some one who will speedily follow to bear her company. --Here, Sasis! the bearers! To the Tower of Nilus, before the Gate of the Sun!"
Dion gazed after her litter a short time, then passed his hand through his waving brown hair, walked swiftly to the shore and, without pausing long to choose, sprang into one of the boats which were rented for pleasure voyages. Ordering the sailors who were preparing to accompany him to remain on shore, he stretched the sail with a practised hand, and ran out towards the mouth of the harbour. He needed some strong excitement, and wished to go himself in search of news.
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The house facing the garden of the Paneum, where Barine lived, was the property of her mother, who had inherited it from her parents. The artist Leonax, the young beauty's father, son of the old philosopher Didymus, had died long before.
After Barine's unhappy marriage with Philostratus was dissolved, she had returned to her mother, who managed the affairs of the household. She too, belonged to a family of scholars and had a brother who had won high repute as a philosopher, and had directed the studies of the young Octavianus. This had occurred long before the commencement of the hostility which separated the heirs of Cæsar and Mark Antony. But even after the latter had deserted Octavia, the sister of Octavianus, to return to Cleopatra, the object of his love, and there was an open breach between the two rivals for the sovereignty of the world, Antony had been friendly to Arius and borne him no grudge for his close relations to his rival. The generous Roman had even given his enemy's former tutor a fine house, to show him that he was glad to have him in Alexandria and near his person.
The widow Berenike, Barine's mother, was warmly attached to her only brother, who often joined her daughter's guests. She was a quiet, modest woman whose happiest days had been passed in superintending the education of her children, Barine, the fiery Hippias, and the quiet Helena, who for several years had lived with her grandparents and, with faithful devotion, assumed the duty of caring for them. She had been more easily guided than the two older children; for the boy's aspiring spirit had often drawn him beyond his mother's control, and the beautiful, vivacious girl had early possessed charms so unusual that she could not remain unnoticed.
Hippias had studied oratory, first in Alexandria and later in Athens and Rhodes. Three years before, his uncle Arius had sent him with excellent letters of introduction to Rome to become acquainted with the life of the capital and try whether, in spite of his origin, his brilliant gifts of eloquence would forward his fortunes there.
Two miserable years with an infamous, unloved husband had changed the wild spirits of Barine's childhood into the sunny cheerfulness now one of her special charms. Her mother was conscious of having desired only her best good in uniting the girl of sixteen to Philostratus, whom the grandfather Didymus then considered a very promising young man, and whose advancement, in addition to his own talents, his brother Alexas, Antony's favourite, promised to aid. She had believed that this step would afford the gay, beautiful girl the best protection from the perils of the corrupt capital; but the worthless husband had caused both mother and daughter much care and sorrow, while his brother Alexas, who constantly pursued his young sister-in-law with insulting attentions, was the source of almost equal trouble. Berenike often gazed in silent astonishment at the child, who, spite of such sore grief and humiliation, had preserved the innocent light-heartedness which made her seem as if life had offered her only thornless roses.
Her father, Leonax, had been one of the most distinguished artists of the day, and Barine had inherited from him the elastic artist temperament which speedily rebounds from the heaviest pressure. To him also she owed the rare gift of song, which had been carefully cultivated and had already secured her the first position in the woman's chorus at the festival of the great goddesses of the city. Every one was full of her praises, and after she had sung the Yalemos in the palace over the waxen image of the favourite of the gods, slain by the boar, her name was eagerly applauded. To have heard her was esteemed a privilege, for she sang only in her own house or at religious ceremonials "for the honour of the gods."
The Queen, too, had heard her, and, after the Adonis festival, her uncle Arius had presented her to Antony, who expressed his admiration with all the fervour of his frank nature, and afterwards came to her house a second time, accompanied by his son Antyllus. Doubtless he would have called on her frequently and tested upon her heart his peculiar power over women, had he not been compelled to leave the city on the day after his last visit.
Berenike had reproved her brother for bringing the Queen's lover to Barine, for her anxiety was increased by the repeated visits of Antony's son, and still more aroused by that of Cæsarion, who was presented by Antyllus.
These youths were not numbered among the guests whose presence she welcomed and whose conversation afforded her pleasure. It was flattering that they should honour her simple home by their visits, but she knew that Cæsarion came without his tutor's knowledge, and perceived, by the expression of his eyes, what drew him to her daughter. Besides, Berenike, in rearing the two children, who had been the source of so much anxiety had lost the joyous confidence which had characterized her own youth. Whenever life presented any new phase, she saw the dark side first. If a burning candle stood before her, the shadow of the candlestick caught her eye before the light. Her whole mental existence became a chain of fears, but the kind-hearted woman loved her children too tenderly to permit them to see it. Only it was a relief to her heart when some of her evil forebodings were realized, to say that she had foreseen it all.
No trace of this was legible in her face, a countenance still pretty and pleasing in its unruffled placidity. She talked very little, but what she did say was sensible, and proved how attentively she understood how to listen. So she was welcome among Barine's guests. Even the most distinguished received something from her, because he felt that the quiet woman understood him.
Before Barine had returned that evening, something had occurred which made her mother doubly regret the accident to her brother Arius the day before. On his way home from his sister's he had been run over by a chariot darting recklessly along the Street of the King, and was carried, severely injured, to his home, where he now lay helpless and fevered. Nor did it lessen his sufferings to hear his two sons threaten to take vengeance on the reckless fellow who had wrought their father this mischief, for he had reason to believe Antyllus the perpetrator of the deed, and a collision between the youths and the son of Antony could only result in fresh disaster to him and his, especially as the young Roman seemed to have inherited little of his father's magnanimous generosity. Yet Arius could not be vexed with his sons for stigmatizing, in the harshest terms, the conduct of the man who had gone on without heeding the accident. He had cautioned his sister against the utterly unbridled youth whose father he had himself brought to her house. With what good reason he had raised his voice in warning was now evident. At sunset that very day several guests had arrived as usual, followed by Antyllus, a youth of nineteen. When the door-keeper refused to admit him, he had rudely demanded to see Barine, thrust aside the prudent old porter, who endeavoured to detain him, and, in spite of his protestations, forced his way into his dead master's work-room, where the ladies usually received their visitors. Not until he found it empty would he retire, and then he first fastened a bouquet of flowers he had brought to a statue of Eros in burnt clay, which stood there. Both the porter and Barine's waiting-maid declared that he was drunk; they saw it when he staggered away with the companions who had waited for him in the garden outside.
This unseemly and insulting conduct filled Berenike with the deepest indignation. It must not remain unpunished, and, while waiting for her daughter, she imagined what evil consequences might ensue if Antyllus were forbidden the house and accused to his tutor, and how unbearable, on the other hand, he might become if they omitted to do so.
She was full of sad presentiments, and as, with such good reason, she feared the worst, she cherished a faint hope that her daughter might perhaps bring home some pleasant tidings; for she had had the experience that events which had filled her with the utmost anxiety sometimes resulted in good fortune.
At last Barine appeared, and it was indeed long since she had clasped her mother in her arms with such joyous cheerfulness.
The widow's troubled heart grew lighter. Her daughter must have met with something unusually gratifying, she looked so happy, although she had surely heard what had happened here; for her cloak was laid aside and her hair newly arranged, so she must have been to her chamber, where she was dressed by her loquacious Cyprian slave, who certainly could not keep to herself anything that was worth mentioning. The nimble maid had shown her skill that day.
"Any stranger would take her for nineteen," thought her mother. "How becoming the white robe and blue-bordered peplum are to her; how softly the azure bombyx ribbon is wound around the thick waves of her hair! Who would believe that no curling-irons had touched the little golden locks that rest so gracefully on her brow, that no paint-brush had any share in producing the rose and white hues on her cheek, or the alabaster glimmer of her arms? Such beauty easily becomes a Danae dower; but it is a magnificent gift of the gods! Yet why did she put on the bracelet which Antony gave her after his last visit? Scarcely on my account. She can hardly expect Dion at so late an hour. Even while I am rejoicing in the sight of her beauty, some new misfortune may be impending."
So ran the current of her thoughts while her daughter was gaily describing what she had witnessed at her grandfather's. Meanwhile she had nestled comfortably among the cushions of a lounge; and when she mentioned Antyllus's unseemly conduct, she spoke of it, with a carelessness that startled Berenike, as a vexatious piece of rudeness which must not occur again.
"But who is to prevent it?" asked the mother anxiously.
"Who, save ourselves?" replied Barine.
"He will not be admitted."
"And if he forced his way in?"
Barine's big blue eyes flashed angrily, and there was no lack of decision in her voice as she exclaimed, "Let him try it!"
"But what power have we to restrain the son of Antony?" asked Berenike. "I do not know."
"I do," replied her daughter. "I will be brief, for a visitor is coming."
"So late?" asked the mother anxiously.
"Archibius wishes to discuss an important matter with us."
The lines on the brow of the older woman smoothed, but it contracted again as she exclaimed inquiringly: "Important business at so unusual an hour! Ah, I have expected nothing good since early morning! On my way to my brother's a raven flew up before me and fluttered towards the left into the garden."
"But I," replied Barine, after receiving, in reply to her inquiry, a favourable report concerning her uncle's health--"I met seven--there were neither more nor less; for seven is the best of numbers--seven snow-white doves, which all flew swiftly towards the right. The fairest of all came first, bearing in its beak a little basket which contained the power that will keep Antony's son away from us. Don't look at me in such amazement, you dear receptacle of every terror."
"But, child, you said that Archibius was coming so late to discuss an important matter," rejoined the mother.
"He must be here soon."
"Then cease this talking in riddles; I do not guess them quickly."
"You will solve this one," returned Barine; "but we really have no time to lose. So--my beautiful dove was a good, wise thought, and what it carried in its basket you shall hear presently. You see, mother, many will blame us, though here and there some one may pity; but this state of things must not continue. I feel it more and more plainly with each passing day; and several years must yet elapse ere this scruple becomes wholly needless. I am too young to welcome as a guest every one whom this or that man presents to me. True, our reception-hall was my father's work-room and you, my own estimable, blameless mother, are the hostess here; but though superior to me in every respect, you are so modest that you shield yourself behind your daughter until the guests think of you only when you are absent. So those who seek us both merely say, 'I am going to visit Barine'--and there are too many who say this--I can no longer choose, and this thought----" "Child! child!" interrupted her mother joyfully, "what god met you as you went out this morning?"
"Surely you know," she answered gaily; "it was seven doves, and, when I took the little basket from the bill of the first and prettiest one, it told me a story. Do you want to hear it?"
"Yes, yes; but be quick, or we shall be interrupted."
Then Barine leaned farther back among the cushions, lowered her long lashes, and began: "Once upon a time there was a woman who had a garden in the most aristocratic quarter of the city--here near the Paneum, if you please. In the autumn, when the fruit was ripening, she left the gate open, though all her neighbours did the opposite. To keep away unbidden lovers of her nice figs and dates, she fastened on the gate a tablet bearing the inscription: 'All may enter and enjoy the sight of the garden; but the dogs will bite any one who breaks a flower, treads upon the grass, or steals the fruit.'
"The woman had nothing but a lap-dog, and that did not always obey her. But the tablet fulfilled its purpose; for at first none came except her neighbours in the aristocratic quarter. They read the threat, and probably without it would have respected the property of the woman who so kindly opened the door to them. Thus matters went on for a time, until first a beggar came, and then a Phœnician sailor, and a thievish Egyptian from the Rhakotis--neither of whom could read. So the tablet told them nothing; and as, moreover, they distinguished less carefully between mine and thine, one trampled the turf and another snatched from the boughs a flower or fruit. More and more of the rabble came, and you can imagine what followed. No one punished them for the crime, for they did not fear the barking of the lap-dog, and this gave even those who could read, courage not to heed the warning. So the woman's pretty garden soon lost its peculiar charm; and the fruit, too, was stolen. When the rain at last washed the inscription from the tablet, and saucy boys scrawled on it, there was no harm done; for the garden no longer offered any attractions, and no one who looked into it cared to enter. Then the owner closed her gate like the neighbours, and the next year she again enjoyed the green grass and the bright hues of the flowers. She ate her fruit herself, and the lap-dog no longer disturbed her by its barking."
"That is," said her mother, "if everybody was as courteous and as well bred as Gorgias, Lysias, and the others, we would gladly continue to receive them. But since there are rude fellows like Antyllus----" "You have understood the story correctly," Barine interrupted. "We are certainly at liberty to invite to our house those who have learned to read our inscription. To-morrow visitors will be informed that we can no longer receive them as before."
"Antyllus's conduct affords an excellent pretext," her mother added. "Every fair-minded person must understand----" "Certainly," said Barine, "and if you, shrewdest of women, will do your part----" "Then for the first time we can act as we please in our own home. Believe me, child--if you only do not----" "No ifs! --not this time!" cried the young beauty, raising her hand beseechingly. "It gives me such delight to think of the new life, and if matters come to pass as I hope and wish--then--do not you also believe, mother, that the gods owe me reparation?"
"For what?" asked the deep voice of Archibius, who had entered unannounced, and was now first noticed by the widow and her daughter.
Barine hastily rose and held out both hands to her old friend, exclaiming, "Since they bring you to us, they are already beginning the payment."
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An artist, especially a great artist, finds it easy to give his house an attractive appearance. He desires comfort in it, and only the beautiful _is_ comfortable to him. Whatever would disturb harmony offends his eye, and to secure the noblest ornament of his house he need not invite any stranger to cross its threshold. The Muse, the best of assistants, joins him unbidden.
Leonax, Barine's father, had been thus aided to transform the interior of his house into a very charming residence. He had painted on the walls of his own work-room incidents in the life of Alexander the Great, the founder of his native city, and on the frieze a procession of dancing Cupids.
Here Barine now received her guests, and the renown of these paintings was not one of the smallest inducements which had led Antony to visit the young beauty and to take his son, in whom he wished to awaken at least a fleeting pleasure in art. He also knew how to prize her beauty and her singing, but the ardent passion which had taken possession of him in his mature years was for Cleopatra alone. He whose easily won heart and susceptible fancy had urged him from one commonplace love to another had been bound by the Queen with chains of indestructible and supernatural power. By her side a Barine seemed to him merely a work of art endowed with life and a voice that charmed the ear. Yet he owed her some pleasant hours, and he could not help bestowing gifts upon any one to whom he was indebted for anything pleasant. He liked to be considered the most generous spendthrift on earth, and the polished bracelet set with a gem, on which was carved Apollo playing on his lyre, surrounded by the listening Muses, looked very simple, but was really an ornament of priceless value, for the artist who made it was deemed the best stone-cutter in Alexandria in the time of Philadelphus, and each one of the tiny figures sculptured on the bit of onyx scarcely three fingers wide was a carefully executed masterpiece of the most exquisite beauty. Antony had chosen it because he deemed it a fitting gift for the woman whose song had pleased him. He had not thought of asking its value; indeed, only a connoisseur would have perceived it; and as the circlet was not showy and well became her beautiful arm, Barine liked to wear it.
Had not the war taken him away, Antony's second visit would certainly not have been his last. Besides the singing which enthralled him, the conversation had been gay and brilliant, and in addition to Leonax's paintings, he had seen other beautiful works of art which the former had obtained by exchanging with many distinguished companions.
Nor was there any lack of plastic creations in the spacious apartment, to which the flashing of the water poured by a powerful man from the goatskin bottle on his shoulder into a shell lent a special charm.
The master who had carved this stooping Nubian had also created the much-discussed statues of the royal lovers. The clay Eros, who with bent knee was aiming at a victim visible to himself alone, was also his work. Antony, when paying his second visit, had laughingly laid the garland he wore before "the greatest of human conquerors," while a short time ago his son Antyllus had rudely thrust his bouquet of flowers into the opening of the curved right arm which was drawing the string. In doing so the statue had been injured. Now the flowers lay unheeded upon the little altar at the end of the large room, lighted only by a single lamp; for the ladies had left it with their guest. They were in Barine's favourite apartment, a small room, where there were several pictures by her dead father.
Antyllus's bouquet, and the damage to the clay statue of Eros, had played a prominent part in the conversation between the three, and rendered Archibius's task easier.
Berenike had greeted the guest with a complaint of the young Roman's recklessness and unseemly conduct, to which Barine added the declaration that they had now sacrificed enough to Zeus Xenios, the god of hospitality. She meant to devote her future life to the modest household gods and to Apollo, to whom she owed the gift of song.
Archibius had listened silently in great surprise until she had finished her explanation and declared that henceforth she intended to live alone with her mother, instead of having her father's workshop filled with guests.
The young beauty's vivid imagination transported her to this new and quieter life. But, spite of the clear and glowing hues in which she described her anticipations, her grey-haired listener could not have believed in them fully. A subtle smile sometimes flitted over his grave, somewhat melancholy face--that of a man who has ceased to wrestle in the arena of life, and after severe conflict now preferred to stand among the spectators and watch others win or lose the prize of victory. Doubtless the wounds which he had received still ached, yet his sorrowful experiences did not prevent his being an attentive observer. The expression of his clear eyes showed that he mentally shared whatever aroused his sympathy. Whoever understood how to listen thus, and, moreover--the prominence of the brow above the nose showed it--was also a trained thinker, could not fail to be a good counsellor, and as such he was regarded by many, and first of all by the Queen.
The wise deliberation, which was one of his characteristic traits, showed itself on this occasion; for though he had come to persuade Barine try a country residence, he refrained from doing until she had exhausted the story of her own affairs and inquired the important cause of his visit.
In the principal matter his request was granted ere he made it. So he could begin with the query whether the mother and daughter did not think that the transition to the new mode of life could be effected more easily if they were absent from the city a short time. It would awaken comment they should close their house against guests on the morrow, and as the true reason could not be given, many would be offended. If, on the contrary, they could resolve to quit the capital for a few weeks, many, it is true, would lament their decision, but what was alloted to all alike could be resented by no one.
Berenike eagerly assented, but Barine grew thoughtful. Then Archibius begged her to speak frankly, and after she had asked where they could, he proposed his country estate.
His keen grey eyes had perceived that something, bound her so firmly to the city that in the case of a true woman like Barine it must be an affair of the heart. He had evidently judged correctly, for, at his prediction that there would be no lack of visits from her dearest friends, she raised her head, her blue eyes sparkled brightly, and when Archibius paused she to her mother, exclaiming gaily: "We will go!"
Again the vivid imagination daughter conjured the future before her in distinct outlines. She alone knew whom she meant when she spoke of the visitor she expected at Irenia, Archibius's estate. The name meant "The place of peace," and it pleased her.
Archibius listened smilingly; but when she began to assign him also a part in driving the little Sardinian horses and pursuing the birds, he interrupted her with the statement that whether he could speedily allow himself a pleasure which he should so keenly enjoy--that of breathing the country air with such charming guests--would depend upon the fate of another. Thank the gods, he had been able to come here with a lighter heart, because, just before his departure, he had heard of a splendid victory gained by the Queen. The ladies would perhaps permit him to remain a little longer, as he was expecting confirmation of the news.
It was evident that he awaited it in great suspense, and that his heart was by no means free from anxiety.
Berenike shared it, and her pleasant face, which had hitherto reflected her delight at her daughter's sensible resolution, was now clouded with care as Archibius began: "The object of my presence here? You are making it very easy for me to attain it. If I deemed it honest, I could now conceal the fact that I had sought you to induce you to leave the city. I see no peril from the boyish insolence of the son of Antony. The point in question, child, is merely to put yourself out of the reach of Cæsarion."
"If you could place me in the moon, it would please me best, as far as he is concerned," replied Barine eagerly. "That is just what induced me to change our mode of life, since my door cannot be closed against the boy who, though still under a tutor, uses his rank as a key to open it. And just think of being compelled to address that dreamer, with eyes pleading for help, by the title of 'king'!"
"Yet what mighty impulse might not be slumbering in the breast of a son of Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra?" said Archibius. "And passion--I know, my child, that it is no fault of yours--has now awakened within him. Whatever the result may be, it must fill his mother's heart with anxiety. That is why it is needful to hasten your departure, and to keep your destination a secret. He will attempt no violence; but--he is the child of his parents--and some unexpected act may be anticipated from him."
"You startle me!" cried Barine. "You transform the cooing dove which entered my house into a dangerous griffin."
"As such you may regard him," said the other, warningly. "You will be a welcome guest, Barine, but I invited you, whom I have loved from your earliest childhood, the daughter of my dearest friend, not merely to do you a service at Irenia, but to save from grief or even annoyance the person to whom--who is not aware of it--I owe everything."
The words conveyed to both ladies the knowledge that, though they were dear to Archibius, he would sacrifice them, and with them, perhaps, all the rest of the world, for the peace and happiness of the Queen.
Barine had expected nothing else. She knew that Cleopatra had made the philosopher's son a wealthy man and the owner of extensive estates; but she also felt that the source of his loyal devotion to the Queen, over whom he watched like a tender father, was due to other causes. Cleopatra prized him also. Had he been ambitious, he could have stood at the helm of the ship of state, as Epitrop long ago, but--the whole city knew it--he had more than once refused to accept a permanent office, because he believed that he could serve his mistress better as an unassuming, unnoticed counsellor. Berenike had told Barine that the relations between Cleopatra and Archibius dated back to their childhood, but she had learned no particulars. Various rumours were afloat which, in the course of time, had been richly adorned and interwoven with anecdotes, and Barine naturally lent the most ready credence to those which asserted that the princess, in her earliest youth, had cherished a childish love for the philosopher's son. Now her friend's conduct led her to believe it.
When Archibius paused, the young beauty assured him that she understood him; and as the alabaster hanging lamp and a three-branched light cast a brilliant glow upon the portrait which her father had painted of the nineteen-year-old Queen, and afterwards copied for his own household, she pointed to it, and, pursuing the current of her own thoughts, asked the question: "Was she not marvellously beautiful at that time?"
"As your father's work represents her," was the reply. "Leonax painted the portrait of Octavia, on the opposite side, the same year, and perhaps the artist deemed the Roman the fairer woman." He pointed as he spoke to a likeness of Octavianus's sister, whom Barine's father had painted as the young wife of Marcellus, her first husband.
"Oh, no!" said Berenike. "I still remember perfectly how Leonax returned in those days. What woman might not have been jealous of his enthusiasm for the Roman Hera? At that time I had not seen the portrait, and when I asked whether he thought Octavia more beautiful than the Queen, for whom Eros had inflamed his heart, as in the case of most of the beautiful women he painted, he exclaimed--you know his impetuous manner--'Octavia stands foremost in the ranks of those who are called "beautiful" or "less beautiful"; the other, Cleopatra, stands alone, and can be compared with no one.'"
Archibius bent his head in assent, then said firmly, "But, as a child, when I first saw her, she would have been the fairest even in the dance of the young gods of love."
"How old was she then?" asked Barine, eagerly.
"Eight years," he answered. "How far in the past it is, yet I have not forgotten a single hour!"
Barine now earnestly entreated him to tell them the story of those days, but Archibius gazed thoughtfully at the floor for some time ere he raised his head and answered: "Perhaps it will be well if you learn more of the woman for whose sake I ask a sacrifice at your hands. Arius is your brother and uncle. He stands near to Octavianus, for he was his intellectual guide, and I know that he reveres the Roman's sister, Octavia, as a goddess. Antony is now struggling with Octavianus for the sovereignty of the world. Octavia succumbed in the conflict against the woman of whom you desire to hear. It is not my place to judge her, but I may instruct and warn. Roman nations burn incense to Octavia, and, when Cleopatra's name is uttered, they veil their faces indignantly. Here in Alexandria many imitate them. Whoever upholds shining purity may hope to win a share of the radiance emanating from it. They call Octavia the lawful wife, and Cleopatra the criminal who robbed her of her husband's heart."
"Not I!" exclaimed Barine eagerly. "How often I have heard my uncle say that Antony and Cleopatra were fired with the most ardent love for each other! Never did the arrows of Eros pierce two hearts more deeply. Then it became necessary to save the state from civil war and bloodshed. Antony consented to form an alliance with his rival, and, as security for the sincerity of the reconciliation, he gave his hand in marriage to Octavia, whose first husband, Marcellus, had just died--his hand, I say, only his hand, for his heart was captive to the Queen of Egypt. And if Antony was faithless to the wife to whom statecraft had bound him, he kept his pledge to the other, who had an earlier, better title. If Cleopatra did not give up the man to whom she had sworn fidelity forever, she was right--a thousand times right! In my eyes--no matter how often my mother rebukes me--Cleopatra, in the eyes of the immortals, is and always will be Antony's real wife; the other, though on her marriage day no custom, no word, no stroke of the stylus, no gesture was omitted, is the intruder in a bond of love which rejoices the gods, however it may anger mortals, and--forgive me, mother--virtuous matrons."
Berenike had listened with blushing cheeks to her vivacious daughter; now with timid earnestness she interrupted: "I know that those are the views of the new times; that Antony in the eyes of the Egyptians, and probably also according to their customs, is the rightful husband of the Queen. I know, too, that you are both against me. Yet Cleopatra is in reality a Greek, and therefore--eternal gods! --I can sincerely pity her; but the marriage has been solemnized, and I cannot blame Octavia. She rears and cherishes, as if they were her own, the children of her faithless husband and Fulvia, his first wife, who have no claim upon her. It is more than human to take the stones from the path of the man who became her foe, as she does. No woman in Alexandria can pray more fervently than I that Cleopatra and her friend may conquer Octavianus. His cold nature, highly as my brother esteems him, is repellent to me. But when I gaze at Octavia's beautiful, chaste, queenly, noble countenance, the mirror of true womanly purity----" "You can rejoice," Archibius added, completing the sentence, and laying his right hand soothingly on the arm of the excited woman, "only it would be advisable at this time to put the portrait elsewhere, and rest satisfied with confiding your opinion of Octavia to your brother and a friend as reliable as myself. If we conquer, such things may pass; if not-- The messenger tarries long--" Here Barine again entreated him to use the time. She had only once had the happiness of being noticed by the Queen--just after her song at the Adonis festival. Then Cleopatra had advanced to thank her. She said only a few kind words, but in a voice which seemed to penetrate the inmost depths of her heart and bind her with invisible threads. Meanwhile Barine's eyes met those of her sovereign, and at first they roused an ardent desire to press her lips even on the hem of her robe, but afterwards she felt as if a venomous serpent had crawled out of the most beautiful flower.
Here Archibius interrupted her with the remark that he remembered perfectly how, after the song, Antony had addressed her at the same time as the Queen, and Cleopatra lacked no feminine weakness.
"Jealousy?" asked Barine, in astonishment. "I was not presumptuous enough to admit it. I secretly feared that Alexas, the brother of Philostratus, had prejudiced her. He is as ill-disposed towards me as the man who was my husband. But everything connected with those two is so base and shameful that I will not allow it to cloud this pleasant hour. Yet the fear that Alexas might have slandered me to the Queen is not groundless. He is as shrewd as his brother, and through Antony, into whose favour he ingratiated himself, is always in communication with Cleopatra. He went to the war with him."
"I learned that too late, and am utterly powerless against Antony," replied Archibius.
"But was it not natural that I should fear he had prejudiced the Queen?" asked Barine. "At any rate, I imagined that I detected a hostile expression in her eyes, and it repelled me, though at first I had been so strongly attracted towards her."
"And had not that other stepped between you, you could not have turned from her again!" said Archibius. "The first time I saw her I was but a mere boy, and she--as I have already said--a child eight years old."
Barine nodded gratefully to Archibius, brought the distaff to her mother, poured water into the wine in the mixing vessel, and after at first leaning comfortably back among the cushions, she soon bent forward in a listening attitude, with her elbow propped on her knee, and her chin supported by her hand. Berenike drew the flax from the distaff, at first slowly, then faster and faster.
"You know my country-house in the Kanopus," the guest began. "It was originally a small summer palace belonging to the royal family, and underwent little change after we moved into it. Even the garden is unaltered. It was full of shady old trees. Olympus, the leech, had chosen this place, that my father might complete within its walls the work of education entrusted to him. You shall hear the story. At that time Alexandria was in a state of turmoil, for Rome had not recognized the King, and ruled over us like Fate, though it had not acknowledged the will by which the miserable Alexander bequeathed Egypt to him like a field or a slave.
"The King of Egypt, who called himself 'the new Dionysus,' was a weak man, whose birth did not give him the full right to the sovereignty. You know that the people called him the 'fluteplayer.' He really had no greater pleasure than to hear music and listen to his own performances. He played by no means badly on more than one instrument, and, moreover, as a reveller did honour to the other name. Whoever kept sober at the festival of Dionysus, whose incarnate second self he regarded himself, incurred his deepest displeasure.
"The flute-player's wife, Queen Tryphœna, and her oldest daughter--she bore your name, Berenike--ruined his life. Compared with them, the King was worthy and virtuous. What had become of the heroes and the high-minded princes of the house of Ptolemy? Every passion and crime had found a home in their palaces!
"The flute-player, Cleopatra's father, was by no means the worst. He was a slave to his own caprices; no one had taught him to bridle his passions. Where it served his purpose, even death was summoned to his aid; but this was a custom of the last sovereigns of his race. In one respect he was certainly superior to most of them--he still possessed a capacity to feel a loathing for the height of crime, to believe in virtue and loftiness of soul, and the possibility of implanting them in youthful hearts. When a boy, he had been under the influence of an excellent teacher, whose precepts had lingered in his memory and led him to determine to withdraw his favourite children--two girls--from their mother's sway, at least as far as possible.
"I learned afterwards that it had been his desire to confide the princesses wholly to my parents' care. But an invincible power opposed this. Though Greeks might be permitted to instruct the royal children in knowledge, the Egyptians would not yield the right to their religious education. The leech Olympus--you know the good old man--had insisted that the delicate Cleopatra must spend the coldest winter months in Upper Egypt, where the sky was never clouded, and the summer near the sea in a shady garden. The little palace at Kanopus was devoted to this purpose.
"When we moved there it was entirely unoccupied, but the princesses were soon to be brought to us. During the winter Olympus preferred the island of Philæ, on the Nubian frontier, because the famous Temple of Isis was there, and its priests willingly undertook to watch over the children.
"The Queen would not listen to any of these plans. Leaving Alexandria and spending the winter on a lonely island in the tropics was an utterly incomprehensible idea. So she let the King have his way, and no doubt was glad to be relieved from the care of the children; for, even after her royal husband's exile from the city, she never visited her daughters. True, death allowed her only a short time to do so.
"Her oldest daughter, Berenike, who became her successor, followed her example, and troubled herself very little about her sisters. I heard afterwards that she was very glad to know that they were in charge of persons who filled their minds with other thoughts than the desire to rule. Her brothers were reared at Lochias by our countryman Theodotus, under the eyes of their guardian, Pothinus.
"Our family life was of course wholly transformed by the reception of the royal children. In the first place, we moved from our house in the Museum Square into the little palace at Kanopus, and the big, shady garden delighted us. I remember, as though it were but yesterday, the morning--I was then a boy of fifteen--when my father told us that two of the King's daughters would soon become members of the household. There were three of us children--Charmian, who went to the war with the Queen, because Iras, our niece, was ill; I myself; and Straton, who died long ago. We were urged to treat the princesses with the utmost courtesy and consideration, and we perceived that their reception really demanded respect; for the palace, which we had found empty and desolate, was refurnished from roof to foundation.
"The day before they were expected horses, chariots, and litters came, while boats and a splendid state galley, fully manned, arrived by sea. Then a train of male and female slaves appeared, among them two fat eunuchs.
"I can still see the angry look with which my father surveyed all these people. He drove at once to the city, and on his return his clear eyes were as untroubled as ever. A court official accompanied him, and only that portion of the useless amount of luggage and number of persons that my father desired remained.
"The princesses were to come the next morning--it was at the end of February--flowers were blooming in the grass and on the bushes, while the foliage of the trees glittered with the fresh green which the rising sap gives to the young leaves. I was sitting on a strong bough of a sycamore-tree, which grew opposite to the house, watching for them. Their arrival was delayed and, as I gazed meanwhile over the garden, I thought it must surely please them, for not a palace in the city had one so beautiful.
"At last the litters appeared; they had neither runners nor attendants, as my father had requested, and when the princesses alighted--both at the same moment--I knew not which way to turn my eyes first, for the creature that fluttered like a dragon-fly rather than stepped from the first litter, was not a girl like other mortals--she seemed like a wish, a hope. When the dainty, beautiful creature turned her head hither and thither, and at last gazed questioningly, as if beseeching help, into the faces of my father and mother, who stood at the gate to receive her, it seemed to me that such must have been the aspect of Psyche when she stood pleading for mercy at the throne of Zeus.
"But it was worth while to look at the other also. Was that Cleopatra? She might have been the elder, for she was as tall as her sister, but how utterly unlike! From the waving hair to every movement of the hands and body the former--it _was_ Cleopatra--had seemed to me as if she were flying. Everything about the second figure, on the contrary, was solid, nay, even seemed to offer positive resistance. She sprang from the litter and alighted on the ground with both feet at once, clung firmly to the door, and haughtily flung back her head, crowned with a wealth of dark locks. Her complexion was pink and white, and her blue eyes sparkled brightly enough; but the expression with which she gazed at my parents was defiant rather than questioning, and as she glanced around her red lips curled scornfully as though she deemed her surroundings despicable and unworthy of her royal birth.
"This irritated me against the seven-year-old child, yet I said to myself that, though it was very beautiful here--thanks to my father's care--perhaps it appeared plain and simple when compared with the marble, gold, and purple of the royal palace whence she came. Her features, too, were regular and beautiful, and she would have attracted attention by her loveliness among a multitude. When I soon heard her issue imperious commands and defiantly insist upon the fulfilment of every wish, I thought, in my boyish ignorance, that Arsinoë must be the elder; for she was better suited to wield a sceptre than her sister. I said so to my brother and Charmian; but we all soon saw which really possessed queenly majesty; for Arsinoë, if her will were crossed, wept, screamed, and raged like a lunatic, or, if that proved useless, begged and teased; while if Cleopatra wanted anything she obtained it in a different way. Even at that time she knew what weapons would give her victory and, while using them, she still remained the child of a king.
"No artisan's daughter could have been further removed from airs of majestic pathos than this embodiment of the most charming childlike grace; but if anything for which her passionate nature ardently longed was positively refused, she understood how to attain it by the melody of her voice, the spell of her eyes, and in extreme cases by a silent tear. When to such tears were added uplifted hands and a few sweet words, such as, 'It would make me happy,' or, 'Don't you see how it hurts me?' resistance was impossible; and in after-years also her silent tears and the marvellous music of her voice won her a victory in the decisive questions of life.
"We children were soon playmates and friends, for my parents did not wish the princesses to begin their studies until after they felt at home with us. This pleased Arsinoë, although she could already read and write; but Cleopatra more than once asked to hear something from my father's store of wisdom, of which she had been told.
"The King and her former teacher had cherished the highest expectations from the brilliant intellect of this remarkable child, and Olympus once laid his hand on my curls and bade me take care that the princess did not outstrip the philosopher's son. I had always occupied one of the foremost places, and laughingly escaped, assuring him that there was no danger.
"But I soon learned that this warning was not groundless. You will think that the old fool's heart has played him a trick, and in the magic garden of childish memories the gifted young girl was transformed into a goddess. That she certainly was not; for the immortals are free from the faults and weaknesses of humanity."
"And what robbed Cleopatra of the renown of resembling the gods?" asked Barine eagerly.
A subtle smile, not wholly free from reproach, accompanied Archibius's reply: "Had I spoken of her virtues, you would hardly have thought of asking further details. But why should I try to conceal what she has displayed to the world openly enough throughout her whole life? Falsehood and hypocrisy were as unfamiliar to her as fishing is to the sons of the desert. The fundamental principles which have dominated this rare creature's life and character to the present day are two ceaseless desires: first, to surpass every one, even in the most difficult achievements; and, secondly, to love and to be loved in return. From them emanated what raised her above all other women. Ambition and love will also sustain her like two mighty wings on the proud height to which they have borne her, so long as they dwell harmoniously in her fiery soul. Hitherto a rare favour of destiny has permitted this, and may the Olympians grant that thus it may ever be!"
Here Archibius paused, wiped the perspiration from his brow, asked if the messenger had arrived, and ordered him to be admitted as soon as he appeared. Then he went on as calmly as before: "The princesses were members of our household, and in the course of time they seemed like sisters. During the first winter the King allowed them to spend only the most inclement months at Philæ, for he was unwilling to live without them. True, he saw them rarely enough; weeks often elapsed without a visit; but, on the other hand, he often came day after day to our garden, clad in plain garments, and borne in an unpretending litter, for these visits were kept secret from every one save the leech Olympus.
"I often saw the tall, strong man, with red, bloated face, playing with his children like a mechanic who had just returned from work. But he usually remained only a short time, seeming to be satisfied with having seen them again. Perhaps he merely wished to assure himself that they were comfortable with us. At any rate, no one was permitted to go near the group of plane-trees where he talked with them.
"But it is easy to hide amid the dense foliage of these trees, so my knowledge that he questioned them is not solely hearsay.
"Cleopatra was happy with us from the beginning; Arsinoë needed a longer time; but the King valued only the opinion of his older child, his darling, on whom he feasted his eyes and ears like a lover. He often shook his heavy head at the sight of her, and when she gave him one of her apt replies, he laughed so loudly that the sound of his deep, resonant voice was heard as far as the house.
"Once I saw tear after tear course down his flushed cheeks, and yet his visit was shorter than usual. The closed _harmamaxa_* in which he came bore him from our house directly to the vessel which was to convey him to Cyprus and Rome. The Alexandrians, headed by the Queen, had forced him to leave the city and the country.
[* A closed Asiatic travelling-carriage with four wheels.]
"He was indeed unworthy of the crown, but he loved his little daughter like a true father. Still, it was terrible, monstrous for him to invoke curses upon the mother and sister of the children, in their presence, and in the same breath command them to hate and execrate them, but to love and never forget him.
"I was then seventeen and Cleopatra ten years old. I, who loved my parents better than my life, felt an icy chill run through my veins and then a touch upon my heart like balsam, as I heard little Arsinoë, after her father had gone, whisper to her sister, 'We will hate them--may the gods destroy them!' and when Cleopatra answered with tearful eyes, 'Let us rather be better than they, very good indeed, Arsinoë, that the immortals may love us and bring our father back.' " 'Because then he will make you Queen,' replied Arsinoë sneeringly, still trembling with angry excitement.
"Cleopatra gazed at her with a troubled look. Her tense features showed that she was weighing the meaning of the words, and I can still see her as she suddenly drew up her small figure, and said proudly, 'Yes, I will be Queen!'
"Then her manner changed, and in the sweetest tones of her soft voice, she said beseechingly, 'You won't say such naughty things again, will you?'
"This was at the time that my father's instruction began to take possession of her mind. The prediction of Olympus was fulfilled. True, I attended the school of oratory, but when my father set the royal maiden a lesson, I was permitted to repeat mine on the same subject, and frequently I could not help admitting that Cleopatra had succeeded better than I. "Soon there were difficult problems to master, for the intellect of this wonderful child demanded stronger food, and she was introduced into philosophy. My father himself belonged to the school of Epicurus, and succeeded far beyond his expectations in rousing Cleopatra's interest in his master's teachings. She had been made acquainted with the other great philosophers also, but always returned to Epicurus, and induced the rest of us to live with her as a true disciple of the noble Samian.
"Your father and brother have doubtless made you familiar with the precepts of the Stoa; yet you have certainly heard that Epicurus spent the latter part of his life with his friends and pupils in quiet meditation and instructive conversation in his garden at Athens. We, too--according to Cleopatra's wish--were to live thus and call ourselves 'disciples of Epicurus.'
"With the exception of Arsinoë, who preferred gayer pastimes, into which she drew my brother Straton--at that time a giant in strength--we all liked the plan. I was chosen master, but I perceived that Cleopatra desired the position, so she took my place.
"During our next leisure afternoon we paced up and down the garden, and the conversation about the chief good was so eager, Cleopatra directed it with so much skill, and decided doubtful questions so happily, that we reluctantly obeyed the brazen gong which summoned us to the house, and spent the whole evening in anticipating the next afternoon.
"The following morning my father saw several country people assembled before the secluded garden; but he did not have time to inquire what they wanted; for Timagenes, who shared the instruction in history--you know he was afterwards taken to Rome as a prisoner of war--rushed up to him, holding out a tablet which bore the inscription Epicurus had written on the gate of his garden: 'Stranger, here you will be happy; here is the chief good, pleasure.'
"Cleopatra had written this notice in large letters on the top of a small table before sunrise, and a slave had secretly fastened it on the gate for her.
"This prank might have easily proved fatal to our beautiful companionship, but it had been done merely to make our game exactly like the model.
"My father did not forbid our continuing this pastime, but strictly prohibited our calling ourselves 'Epicureans' outside of the garden, for this noble name had since gained among the people a significance wholly alien. Epicurus says that true pleasure is to be found only in peace of mind and absence of pain."
"But every one," interrupted Barine, "believes that people like the wealthy Isidorus, whose object in life is to take every pleasure which his wealth can procure, are the real Epicureans. My mother would not have confided me long to a teacher by whose associates 'pleasure' was deemed the chief good."
"The daughter of a philosopher," replied Archibius, gently shaking his head, "ought to understand what pleasure means in the sense of Epicurus, and no doubt you do. True, those who are further removed from these things cannot know that the master forbids yearning for individual pleasure. Have you an idea of his teachings? No definite one? Then permit me a few words of explanation. It happens only too often that Epicurus is confounded with Aristippus, who places sensual pleasure above intellectual enjoyment, as he holds that bodily pain is harder to endure than mental anguish. Epicurus, on the contrary, considers intellectual pleasure to be the higher one; for sensual enjoyment, which he believes free to every one, can be experienced only in the present, while intellectual delight extends to both the past and the future. To the Epicureans the goal of life, as has already been mentioned, is to attain the chief blessings, peace of mind, and freedom from pain. He is to practise virtue only because it brings him pleasure; for who could remain virtuous without being wise, noble, and just? --and whoever is all these cannot have his peace of mind disturbed, and must be really happy in the exact meaning of the master. I perceived long since the peril lurking in this system of instruction, which takes no account of moral excellence; but at that time it seemed to me also the chief good.
"How all this charmed the mind of the thoughtful child, still untouched by passion! It was difficult to supply her wonderfully vigorous intellect with sufficient sustenance, and she really felt that to enrich it was the highest pleasure. And to her, who could scarcely endure to have a rude hand touch her, though a small grief or trivial disappointment could not be averted, the freedom from pain which the master had named as the first condition for the existence of every pleasure, and termed the chief good, seemed indeed the first condition of a happy life.
"Yet this child, whom my father once compared to a thinking flower, bore without complaint her sad destiny--her father's banishment, her mother's death, her sister Berenike's profligacy. Even to me, in whom she found a second brother and fully trusted, she spoke of these sorrowful things only in guarded allusions. I know that she understood what was passing fully and perfectly, and how deeply she felt it; but pain placed itself between her and the 'chief good,' and she mastered it. And when she sat at work, with what tenacious power the delicate creature struggled until she had conquered the hardest task and outstripped Charmian and even me!
"In those days I understood why, among the gods, a maiden rules over learning, and why she is armed with the weapons of war. You have heard how many languages Cleopatra speaks. A remark of Timagenes had fallen into her soul like a seed. 'With every language you learn,' he had said, 'you will gain a nation.' But there were many peoples in her father's kingdom, and when she was Queen they must all love her. True, she began with the tongue of the conquerors, not the conquered. So it happened that we first learned Lucretius, who reproduces in verse the doctrines of Epicurus. My father was our teacher, and the second year she read Lucretius as if it were a Greek book. She had only half known Egyptian; now she speedily acquired it. During our stay at Philæ she found a troglodyte who was induced to teach her his language. There were Jews enough here in Alexandria to instruct her in theirs, and she also learned its kindred tongue, Arabic.
"When, many years later, she visited Antony at Tarsus, the warriors imagined that some piece of Egyptian magic was at work, for she addressed each commander in his own tongue, and talked with him as if she were a native of the same country.
"It was the same with everything. She outstripped us in every branch of study. To her burning ambition it would have been unbearable to lag behind.
"The Roman Lucretius became her favourite poet, although she was no more friendly to his nation than I, but the self-conscious power of the foe pleased her, and once I heard her exclaim 'Ah! if the Egyptians were Romans, I would give up our garden for Berenike's throne.'
"Lucretius constantly led her back to Epicurus, and awakened a severe conflict in her unresting mind. You probably know that he teaches that life in itself is not so great a blessing that it must be deemed a misfortune _not to live_. It is only spoiled by having death appear to us as the greatest of misfortunes. Only the soul which ceases to regard death as a misfortune finds peace. Whoever knows that thought and feeling end with life will not fear death; for, no matter how many dear and precious things the dead have left here below, their yearning for them has ceased with life. He declares that providing for the body is the greatest folly, while the Egyptian religion, in which Anubis strove to strengthen her faith, maintained precisely the opposite.
"To a certain degree he succeeded, for his personality exerted a powerful influence over her; and besides, she naturally took great pleasure in mystical, supernatural things, as my brother Straton did in physical strength, and you, Barine, enjoy the gift of song. You know Anubis by sight. What Alexandrian has not seen this remarkable man? --and whoever has once met his eyes does not easily forget him. He does indeed rule over mysterious powers, and he used them in his intercourse with the young princess. It is his work if she cleaves to the religious belief of her people, if she who is a Hellene to the last drop of blood loves Egypt, and is ready to make any sacrifice for her independence and grandeur. She is called 'the new Isis,' but Isis presides over the magic arts of the Egyptians, and Anubis initiated Cleopatra into this secret science, and even persuaded her to enter the observatory and the laboratory---- "But all these things had their origin in our garden of Epicurus, and my father did not venture to forbid it; for the King had sent a message from Rome to say that he was glad to have Cleopatra find pleasure in her own people and their secret knowledge.
"The flute-player, during his stay on the Tiber, had given his gold to the right men or bound them as creditors to his interest. After Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus had concluded their alliance, they consented at Lucca to the restoration of the Ptolemy. Millions upon millions would not have seemed to him too large a price for this object. Pompey would rather have gone to Egypt himself, but the jealousy of the others would not permit it. Gabinius, the Governor of Syria, received the commission.
"But the occupants of the Egyptian throne were not disposed to resign it without a struggle. You know that meanwhile Queen Berenike, Cleopatra's sister, had been twice married. She had her miserable first husband strangled--a more manly spouse had been chosen by the Alexandrians for her second consort. He bravely defended his rights, and lost his life on the field of battle.
"The senate learned speedily enough that Gabinius had brought the Ptolemy back to his country; the news reached us more slowly. We watched for every rumour with the same passionate anxiety as now.
"At that time Cleopatra was fourteen, and had developed magnificently. Yonder portrait shows the perfect flower, but the bud possessed, if possible, even more exquisite charm. How clear and earnest was the gaze of her bright eyes! When she was gay they could shine like stars, and then her little red mouth had an indescribably mischievous expression, and in each cheek came one of the tiny dimples which still delight every one. Her nose was more delicate than it is now, and the slight curve which appears in the portrait, and which is far too prominent in the coins, was not visible. Her hair did not grow dark until later in life. My sister Charmian had no greater pleasure than to arrange its wavy abundance. It was like silk, she often said, and she was right. I know this, for when at the festival of Isis, Cleopatra, holding the sistrum, followed the image of the goddess, she was obliged to wear it unconfined. On her return home she often shook her head merrily, and her hair fell about her like a cataract, veiling her face and figure. Then, as now, she was not above middle height, but her form possessed the most exquisite symmetry, only it was still more delicate and pliant.
"She had understood how to win all hearts. Yet, though she seemed to esteem our father higher, trust me more fully, look up to Anubis with greater reverence, and prefer to argue with the keen-witted Timagenes, she still appeared to hold all who surrounded her in equal favour, while Arsinoë left me in the lurch if Straton were present, and whenever the handsome Melnodor, one of my father's pupils, came to us, she fairly devoured him with her glowing eyes.
"As soon as it was rumoured that the Romans were bringing the King back, Queen Berenike came to us to take the young girls to the city. When Cleopatra entreated her to leave her in our parents' care and not interrupt her studies, a scornful smile flitted over Berenike's face, and turning to her husband Archelaus, she said scornfully, 'I think books will prove to be the smallest danger.'
"Pothinus, the guardian of the two princesses' brothers, had formerly permitted them at times to visit their sisters. Now they were no longer allowed to leave Lochias, but neither Cleopatra nor Arsinoë made many inquiries about them. The little boys always retreated from their caresses, and the Egyptian locks on their temples, which marked the age of childhood, and the Egyptian garments which Pothinus made them wear, lent them an unfamiliar aspect.
"When it was reported that the Romans were advancing from Gaza, both girls were overpowered by passionate excitement. Arsinoë's glittered in every glance; Cleopatra understood how to conceal hers, but her colour often varied, and her face, which was not pink and white like her sister's, but--how shall I express it? ----" "I know what you mean," Barine interrupted. "When I saw her, nothing seemed to me more charming than that pallid hue through which the crimson of her cheeks shines like the flame through yonder alabaster lamp, the tint of the peach through the down. I have seen it often in convalescents. Aphrodite breathes this hue on the faces and figures of her favourites only, as the god of time imparts the green tinge to the bronze. Nothing is more beautiful than when such women blush."
"Your sight is keen," replied Archibius, smiling. "It seemed indeed as if not Eos, but her faint reflection in the western horizon, was tinting the sky, when joy or shame sent the colour to her cheeks, But when wrath took possession of her--and ere the King's return this often happened--she could look as if she were lifeless, like a marble statue, with lips as colourless as those of a corpse.
"My father said that the blood of Physkon and other degenerate ancestors, who had not learned to control their passions, was asserting itself in her also. But I must continue my story, or the messenger will interrupt me too soon.
"Gabinius was bringing back the King. But from the time of his approach with the Roman army and the auxiliary troops of the Ethnarch of Judea, nothing more was learned of him or of Antipater, who commanded the forces of Hyrkanus; every one talked constantly of the Roman general Antony. He had led the troops successfully through the deserts between Syria and the Egyptian Delta without losing a single man on the dangerous road by the Sirbonian Sea and Barathra, where many an army had met destruction. Not to Antipater, but to him, had the Jewish garrison of Pelusium surrendered their city without striking a blow. He had conquered in two battles; and the second, where, as you know, Berenike's husband fell after a brave resistance, had decided the destiny of the country.
"From the time his name was first mentioned, neither of the girls could hear enough about him. It was said that he was the most aristocratic of aristocratic Romans, the most reckless of the daring, the wildest of the riotous, and the handsomest of the handsome.
"The waiting-maid from Mantua, with whom Cleopatra practised speaking the Roman language, had often seen him, and had heard of him still more frequently--for his mode of life was the theme of gossip among all classes of Roman men and women. His house was said to have descended in a direct line from Hercules, and his figure and magnificent black beard recalled his ancestor. You know him, and know that the things reported of him are those which a young girl cannot hear with indifference, and at that time he was nearly five lustra younger than he is to-day.
"How eagerly Arsinoë listened when his name was uttered! How Cleopatra flushed and paled when Timagenes condemned him as an unprincipled libertine! True, Antony was opening her father's path to his home.
"The flute-player had not forgotten his daughters. He had remained aloof from the battle, but as soon as the victory was decided, he pressed on into the city.
"The road led past our garden.
"The King had barely time to send a runner to his daughters, fifteen minutes before his arrival, to say that he desired to greet them. They were hurriedly attired in festal garments, and both presented an appearance that might well gladden a father's heart.
"Cleopatra was not yet as tall as Arsinoë, but, though only fourteen, she looked like a full-grown maiden, while her sister's face and figure showed that in years she was still a child. But she was no longer one in heart. Bouquets for the returning sovereign had been arranged as well as haste permitted. Each one of the girls held one in her hand when the train approached.
"My parents accompanied them to the garden gate. I could see what was passing, but could hear distinctly only the voices of the men.
"The King alighted from the travelling chariot, which was drawn by eight white Median steeds. The chamberlain who attended him was obliged to support him. His face, reddened by his potations, fairly beamed as he greeted his daughters. His joyful surprise at the sight of both, but especially of Cleopatra, was evident. True, he kissed and embraced Arsinoë, but after that he had eyes and ears solely for Cleopatra.
"Yet his younger daughter was very beautiful. Away from her sister, she would have commanded the utmost admiration; but Cleopatra was like the sun, beside which every other heavenly body pales. Yet, no; she should not be compared to the sun. It was part of the fascination she exerted that every one felt compelled to gaze at her, to discover the source of the charm which emanated from her whole person.
"Antony, too, was enthralled by the spell as soon as he heard the first words from her lips. He had dashed up to the King's chariot, and seeing the two daughters by their father's side, he greeted them with a hasty salute. When, in reply to the question whether he might hope for her gratitude for bringing her father back to her so quickly, she said that as a daughter she sincerely rejoiced, but as an Egyptian the task would be harder, he gazed more keenly at her.
"I did not know her answer until later; but ere the last sound of her voice had died away, I saw the Roman spring from his charger and fling the bridle to Ammonius--the chamberlain who had assisted the King from the chariot--as if he were his groom. The woman-hunter had met with rare game in his pursuit of the fairest, and while he continued his conversation with Cleopatra her father sometimes joined in, and his deep laughter was often heard.
"No one would have recognized the earnest disciple of Epicurus. We had often heard apt replies and original thoughts from Cleopatra's lips, but she had rarely answered Timagenes's jests with another. Now she found--one could see it by watching the speakers--a witty answer to many of Antony's remarks. It seemed as if, for the first time, she had met some one for whom she deemed it worth while to bring into the field every gift of her deep and quick intelligence. Yet she did not lose for a moment her womanly dignity; her eyes did not sparkle one whit more brightly than during an animated conversation with me or our father.
"It was very different with Arsinoë. When Antony flung himself from his horse, she had moved nearer to her sister, but, as the Roman continued to overlook her, her face crimsoned, she bit her scarlet lips. Her whole attitude betrayed the agitation that mastered her, and I, who knew her, saw by the expression of her eyes and her quivering nostrils that she was on the point of bursting into tears. Though Cleopatra stood so much nearer to my heart, I felt sorry for her, and longed to touch the arm of the haughty Roman, who indeed looked like the god of war, and whisper to him to take some little notice of the poor child, who was also a daughter of the King.
"But a still harder blow was destined to fall upon Arsinoë; for when the King, who had been holding both bouquets, warned Antony that it was time to depart, he took one, and I heard him say in his deep, loud tones, 'Whoever calls such flowers his daughters does not need so many others.' Then he gave Cleopatra the blossoms and, laying his hand upon his heart, expressed the hope of seeing her in Alexandria, and swung himself upon the charger which the chamberlain, pale with fury, was still holding by the bridle.
"The flute-player was delighted with his oldest daughter, and told my father he would have the young princess conveyed to the city on the day after the morrow. The next day he had things to do of which he desired her to have no knowledge. Our father, in token of his gratitude, should retain for himself and his heirs the summer palace and the garden. He would see that the change of owner was entered in the land register. This was really done that very day. It was, indeed, his first act save one--the execution of his daughter Berenike.
"This ruler, who would have seemed to any one who beheld his meeting with his children a warm-hearted man and a tender father, at that time would have put half Alexandria to the sword, had not Antony interposed. He forbade the bloodshed, and honoured Berenike's dead husband by a stately funeral.
"As the steed bore him away, he turned back towards Cleopatra; he could not have saluted Arsinoë, for she had rushed into the garden, and her swollen face betrayed that she had shed burning tears.
"From that hour she bitterly hated Cleopatra.
"On the day appointed, the King brought the princesses to the city with regal splendour. The Alexandrians joyously greeted the royal sisters, as, seated on a golden throne, over which waved ostrich-feathers, they were borne in state down the Street of the King, surrounded by dignitaries, army commanders, the body-guard, and the senate of the city. Cleopatra received the adulation of the populace with gracious majesty, as if she were already Queen. Whoever had seen her as, with floods of tears, she bade us all farewell, assuring us of her gratitude and faithful remembrance, the sisterly affection she showed me--I had just been elected commander of the Ephebi--" Here Archibius was interrupted by a slave, who announced the arrival of the messenger, and, rising hurriedly, he went to Leonax's workshop, to which the man had been conducted, that he might speak to him alone.
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The men sent by Archibius to obtain news had brought back no definite information; but a short time before, a royal runner had handed him a tablet from Iras, requesting him to visit her the next day. Disquieting, but fortunately as yet unverified tidings had arrived. The Regent was doing everything in his power to ascertain the truth; but he (Archibius) was aware of the distrust of the government, and everything connected with it, felt by the sailors and all the seafaring folk at the harbour. An independent person like himself could often learn more than the chief of the harbour police, with all his ships and men.
The little tablet was accompanied by a second, which, in the Regent's name, authorized the bearer to have the harbour chains raised anywhere, to go out into the open sea and return without interference.
The messenger, the overseer of Archibius's galley slaves, was an experienced man. He undertook to have the "Epicurus"--a swift vessel, which Cleopatra had given to her friend--ready for a voyage to the open sea within two hours. The carriage should be sent for his master, that no time might be lost.
When Archibius had returned to the ladies and asked whether it would be an abuse of their hospitality, if--it was now nearly midnight--he should still delay his departure for a time, they expressed sincere pleasure, and begged him to continue his narrative.
"I must hasten," he hurriedly began, after eating the lunch which Berenike had ordered while he was talking with the messenger, "but the events of the next few years are hardly worth mentioning. Besides, my time was wholly occupied by my studies in the museum.
"As for Cleopatra and Arsinoë, they stood like queens at the head of all the magnificence of the court. The day on which they left our house was the last of their childhood.
"Who would venture to determine whether her father's restoration, or the meeting with Antony, had wrought the great change which took place at that time in Cleopatra?
"Just before she left us, my mother had lamented that she must give her to a father like the flute-player, instead of to a worthy mother; for the best could not help regarding herself happy in the possession of such a daughter. Afterwards her character and conduct were better suited to delight men than to please a mother. The yearning for peace of mind seemed over. Only the noisy festivals, the singing and music, of which there was never any cessation in the palace of the royal virtuoso, seemed to weary her and at such times she appeared at our house and spent several days beneath its roof. Arsinoë never accompanied her; her heart was sometimes won by a golden-haired officer in the ranks of the German horsemen whom Gabinius had left among the garrison of Alexandria, sometimes by a Macedonian noble among the youths who, at that time, performed the service of guarding the palace.
"Cleopatra lived apart from her, and Arsinoë openly showed her hostility from the time that she entreated her to put an end to the scandal caused by her love affairs.
"Cleopatra held aloof from such things.
"Though she had devoted much time to the magic arts of the Egyptians, her clear intellect had rendered her so familiar with the philosophy of the Hellenes that it was a pleasure to hear her converse or argue in the museum--as she often did--with the leaders of the various schools. Her self-confidence had become very strong. Though, while with us, she said that she longed to return to the days of the peaceful Garden of Epicurus, she devoted herself eagerly enough to the events occurring in the world and to statecraft. She was familiar with everything in Rome, the desires and struggles of the contending parties, as well as the characters of the men who were directing affairs, their qualities, views, and aims.
"She followed Antony's career with the interest of love, for she had bestowed on him the first affection of her young heart. She had expected the greatest achievements, but his subsequent course seemed to belie these lofty hopes. A tinge of scorn coloured her remarks concerning him at that time, but here also her heart had its share.
"Pompey, to whom her father owed his restoration to the throne, she considered a lucky man, rather than a great and wise one. Of Julius Cæsar, on the contrary, long before she met him, she spoke with ardent enthusiasm, though she knew that he would gladly have made Egypt a Roman province. The greatest deed which she expected from the energetic Julius was that he would abolish the republic, which she hated, and soar upward to tyrannize over the arrogant rulers of the world--only she would fain have seen Antony in his place. How often in those days she used magic art to assure herself of his future! Her father was interested in these things, especially as, through them, and the power of the mighty Isis, he expected to obtain relief from his many and severe sufferings.
"Cleopatra's brothers were still mere boys, completely dependent upon their guardian, Pothinus, to whom the King left the care of the government, and their tutor, Theodotus, a clever but unprincipled rhetorician. These two men and Achillas, the commander of the troops, would gladly have aided Dionysus, the King's oldest male heir, to obtain the control of the state, in order afterwards to rule him, but the flute-player baffled their plans. You know that in his last will he made Cleopatra, his favourite child, his successor, but her brother Dionysus was to share the throne as her husband. This caused much scandal in Rome, though it was an old custom of the house of Ptolemy, and suited the Egyptians.
"The flute-player died. Cleopatra became Queen, and at the same time the wife of a husband ten years old, for whom she did not even possess the natural gift of sisterly tenderness. But with the obstinate child who had been told by his counsellors that the right to rule should be his alone, she also married the former governors of the country.
"Then began a period of sore suffering. Her life was a perpetual battle against notorious intrigues, the worst of which owed their origin to her sister. Arsinoë had surrounded herself with a court of her own, managed by the eunuch Ganymedes, an experienced commander, and at the same time a shrewd adviser, wholly devoted to her interest. He understood how to bring her into close relations with Pothinus and other rulers of the state, and thus at last united all who possessed any power in the royal palace in an endeavour to thrust Cleopatra from the throne. Pothinus, Theodotus, and Achillas hated her because she saw their failings and made them feel the superiority of her intellect. Their combined efforts might have succeeded in overthrowing her before, had not the Alexandrians, headed by the Ephebi, over whom I still had some influence, stood by her so steadfastly. Whoever could still be classed as a 'youth' glowed with enthusiasm for her, and most of the Macedonian nobles in the body-guard would have gone to death for her sake, though she had forced them to gaze hopelessly up to her as if she were some unapproachable goddess.
"When her father died she was seventeen, but she knew how to resist oppressors and foes as if she were a man. My sister, Charmian, whom she had appointed to a place in her service, loyally aided her. At that time she was a beautiful and lovable girl, but the spell exerted by the Queen fettered her like chains and bonds. She voluntarily resigned the love of a noble man--he afterwards became your husband, Berenike--in order not to leave her royal friend at a time when she so urgently needed her. Since then my sister has shut her heart against love. It belonged to Cleopatra. She lives, thinks, cares for her alone. She is fond of you, Barine, because your father was so dear to her. Iras, whose name is so often associated with hers, is the daughter of my oldest sister, who was already married when the King entrusted the princesses to our father's care. She is thirteen years younger than Cleopatra, but her mistress holds the first place in her heart also. Her father, the wealthy Krates, made every effort to keep her from entering the service of the Queen, but in vain. A single conversation with this marvellous woman had bound her forever.
"But I must be brief. You have doubtless heard how completely Cleopatra bewitched Pompey's son during his visit to Alexandria. She had not been so gracious to any man since her meeting with Antony, and it was not from affection, but to maintain the independence of her beloved native land. At that time the father of Gnejus was the man who possessed the most power, and statecraft commanded her to win him through his son. The young Roman also took his leave 'full of her,' as the Egyptians say. This pleased her, but the visit greatly aided her foes. There was no slander which was not disseminated against her. The commanders of the body-guard, whom she had always treated as a haughty Queen, had seen her associate with Pompey's son in the theatre as if he were a friend of equal rank; and on many other occasions the Alexandrians saw her repay his courtesies in the same coin. But in those days hatred of Rome surged high. The regents, leagued with Arsinoë, spread the rumour that Cleopatra would deliver Egypt up to Pompey, if the senate would secure to her the sole sovereignty of the new province, and leave her free to rid herself of her royal brother and husband.
"She was compelled to fly, and went first to the Syrian frontier, to gain friends for her cause among the Asiatic princes. My brother Straton--you remember the noble youth who won the prize for wrestling at Olympia, Berenike--and I were commissioned to carry the treasure to her. We doubtless exposed ourselves to great peril, but we did so gladly, and left Alexandria with a few camels, an ox-cart, and some trusted slaves. We were to go to Gaza, where Cleopatra was already beginning to collect an army, and had disguised ourselves as Nabatæan merchants. The languages which I had learned, in order not to be distanced by Cleopatra, were now of great service.
"Those were stirring times. The names of Cæsar and Pompey were in every mouth. After the defeat at Dyrrachium the cause of Julius seemed lost, but the Pharsalian battle again placed him uppermost, unless the East rose in behalf of Pompey. Both seemed to be favourites of Fortune. The question now was to which the goddess would prove most faithful.
"My sister Charmian was with the Queen, but through one of Arsinoë's maids, who was devoted to her, we had learned from the palace that Pompey's fate was decided. He had come a fugitive from the defeat of Pharsalus, and begged the King of Egypt--that is, the men who were acting in his name--for a hospitable reception. Pothinus and his associates had rarely confronted a greater embarrassment. The troops and ships of the victorious Cæsar were close at hand; many of Gabinius' men were serving in the Egyptian army. To receive the vanquished Pompey kindly was to make the victorious Cæsar a foe. I was to witness the terrible solution of this dilemma. The infamous words of Theodotus, 'Dead dogs no longer bite,' had turned the scale.
"My brother and I reached Mount Casius with our precious freight, and pitched our tents to await a messenger, when a large body of armed men approached from the city. At first we feared that we were pursued; but a spy reported that the King himself was among the soldiery, and at the same time a large Roman galley drew near the coast. It must be Pompey's. So they had changed their views, and the King was coming in person to receive their guest. The troops encamped on the flat shore on which stood the Temple of the Casian Amon.
"The September sun shone brightly, and was reflected from the weapons. From the high bank of the dry bed of the river, where we had pitched our tent, we saw something scarlet move to and fro. It was the King's mantle. The waves, stirred by the autumn breeze, rippled lightly, blue as cornflowers, over the yellow sand of the dunes; but the King stood still, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed at the galley. Meanwhile, Achillas, the commander of the troops, and Septimius, the tribune, who belonged to the Roman garrison in Alexandria, and who, I knew, had served under Pompey and owed him many favours, had entered a boat and put off to the vessel, which could not come nearer the land on account of the shallow water.
"The conference now began, and Achillas's offer of hospitality must have been very warm and well calculated to inspire confidence, for a tall lady--it was Cornelia, the wife of the Imperator--waved her hand to him in token of gratitude."
Here the speaker paused, drew a long breath, and, pressing his hand to his brow, continued: "What follows--alas, that it was my fate to witness the dreadful scene! How often a garbled account has been given, and yet the whole was so terribly simple!
"Fortune makes her favourites confiding. Pompey was also. Though more than fifty years old--he lacked two years of sixty--he sprang into the boat quickly enough, with merely a little assistance from a freedman. A sailor--he was a negro--shoved the skiff off from the side of the huge ship as violently as if the pole he used for the purpose was a spear, and the galley his foe. The boat, urged by his companions' oars, had already moved forward, and he stumbled, the brown cap falling from his woolly head in the act. It seems as if I could still see him. Ere I clearly realized that this was an evil omen, the boat stopped.
"The water was shallow. I saw Achillas point to the shore. It could be reached by a single bound. Pompey looked towards the King. The freedman put his hand under his arm to help him rise. Septimius also stood up. I thought he intended to assist him. But no! What did this mean? Something flashed by the Imperator's silver-grey hair as if a spark had fallen from the sky. Would Pompey defend himself, or why did he raise his hand? It was to draw around him the toga, with which he silently covered his face. The tribune's arm was again raised high into the air, and then--what confusion! Here, there, yonder, hands suddenly appeared aloft, bright flashes darted through the clear air. Achillas, the general, dealt blows with his dagger as if he were skilled in murder. The Imperator's stalwart figure sank forward. The freedman supported him.
"Then shouts arose, here a cry of fury, yonder a wail of grief, and, rising above all, a woman's shriek of anguish. It came from the lips of Cornelia, the murdered man's wife. Shouts of applause from the King's camp followed, then the blast of a trumpet; the Egyptians drew back from the shore. The scarlet cloak again appeared. Septimius, bearing in his hand a bleeding head, went towards it and held the ghastly trophy aloft. The royal boy gazed into the dull eyes of the victim, who had guided the destinies of many a battlefield, of Rome, of two quarters of the globe. The sight was probably too terrible for the child upon the throne, for he averted his head. The ship moved away from the land, the Egyptians formed into ranks and marched off. Achillas cleansed his blood-stained hands in the sea-water. The freedman beside him washed his master's headless trunk. The general shrugged his shoulders as the faithful fellow heaped reproaches on him."
Here Archibius paused, drawing a long breath. Then he continued more calmly: "Achillas did not lead the troops back to Alexandria, but eastward, towards Pelusium, as I learned later.
"My brother and I stood on the rocky edge of the ravine. It was long ere either spoke. A cloud of dust concealed the King and his body-guard, the sails of the galley disappeared. Twilight closed in, and Straton pointed westward towards Alexandria. Then the sun set. Red! red! It seemed as if a torrent of blood was pouring over the city.
"Night followed. A scanty fire was glimmering on the strand. Where had the wood been gathered in this desert? How had it been kindled? A wrecked, mouldering boat had lain close beside the scene of the murder. The freedman and his companions had broken it up and fed the flames with withered boughs, the torn garments of the murdered man, and dry sea-weed. A blaze soon rose, and a body was carefully placed upon the wretched funeral pyre. It was the corpse of the great Pompey. One of the Imperator's veterans aided the faithful servant."
Here Archibius sank back again among the cushions, adding in explanation: "Cordus, the man's name was Servius Cordus. He fared well later. The Queen provided for him. The others? Fate overtook them all soon enough. Theodotus was condemned by Brutus to a torturing death. Amid his loud shrieks of agony one of Pompey's veterans shouted, 'Dead dogs no longer bite, but they howl when dying!'
"It was worthy of Cæsar that he averted his face in horror from the head of his enemy, which Theodotus sent to him. Pothinus, too, vainly awaited the reward of his infamous deed.
"Julius Cæsar had cast anchor before Alexandria shortly after the King's return. Not until after his arrival in Egypt did he learn how Pompey had been received there. You know that he remained nine months. How often I have heard it said that Cleopatra understood how to chain him here! This is both true and false. He was obliged to stay half a year; the following three months he did indeed give to the woman whom he loved. Ay, the heart of the man of fifty-four had again opened to a great passion. Like all wounds, those inflicted by the arrows of Eros heal more slowly when youth lies behind the stricken one. It was not only the eyes and the senses which attracted a couple so widely separated by years, but far more the mental characteristics of both. Two winged intellects had met. The genius of one had recognized that of the other. The highest type of manhood had met perfect womanhood. They could not fail to attract each other. I expected it; for Cleopatra had long watched breathlessly the flight of this eagle who soared so far above the others, and she was strong enough to keep at his side.
"We succeeded in joining Cleopatra, and heard that, spite of the hostility of our citizens, Cæsar had occupied the palace of the Ptolemies and was engaged in restoring order.
"We knew in what way Pothinus, Achillas, and Arsinoë would seek to influence him. Cleopatra had good reason to fear that her foes might deliver Egypt unconditionally to Rome, if Cæsar should leave the reins of government in their hands and shut her out. She had cause to dread this, but she also had the courage to act in person in her own behalf.
"The point now was to bring her into the city, the palace--nay, into direct communication with the dictator. Children tell the tale of the strong man who bore Cleopatra in a sack through the palace portals. It was not a sack which concealed her, but a Syrian carpet. The strong man was my brother Straton. I went first, to secure a free passage.
"Julius Cæsar and she saw and found each other. Fate merely drew the conclusion which must result from such premises. Never have I seen Cleopatra happier, more exalted in mind and heart, yet she was menaced on all sides by serious perils. It required all the military genius of Cæsar to conquer the fierce hostility which he encountered here. It was this, not the thrall of Cleopatra, I repeat, which first bound him to Egypt. What would have prevented him--as he did later--from taking the object of his love to Rome, had it been possible at that time? But this was not the case. The Alexandrians provided for that.
"He had recognized the flute-player's will, nay, had granted more to the royal house than could have been given to the former. Cleopatra and her brother-husband, Dionysus, were to share the government, and he also bestowed on Arsinoë and her youngest brother the island of Cyprus, which had been wrested from their uncle Ptolemy by the republic. Rome was, of course, to remain the guardian of the brothers and sisters.
"This arrangement was unendurable to Pothinus and the former rulers of the state. Cleopatra as Queen, and Rome--that is Cæsar, the dictator, her friend, as guardian--meant their removal from power, their destruction, and they resisted violently.
"The Egyptians and even the Alexandrians supported them. The young King hated nothing more than the yoke of the unloved sister, who was so greatly his superior. Cæsar had come with a force by no means equal to theirs, and it might be possible to draw the mighty general into a snare. They fought with all the power at their command, with such passionate eagerness, that the dictator had never been nearer succumbing to peril. But Cleopatra certainly did not paralyze his strength and cautious deliberation. No! He had never been greater; never proved the power of his genius so magnificently. And against what superior power, what hatred he contended! I myself saw the young King, when he heard that Cleopatra had succeeded in entering the palace and meeting Cæsar, rush into the street, fairly crazed by rage, tear the diadem from his head, hurl it on the pavement, and shriek to the passers-by that he was betrayed, until Cæsar's soldiers forced him back into the palace, and dispersed the mob.
"Arsinoë had received more than she could venture to expect; but she was again most deeply angered. After Cæsar's entry into the palace, she had received him as Queen, and hoped everything from his favour. Then her hated sister had come and, as so often happened, she was forgotten for Cleopatra's sake.
"This was too much, and with the eunuch Ganymedes, her confidant, and--as I have already said--an able warrior, she left the palace and joined the dictator's foes.
"There were severe battles on land and sea; in the streets of the city, for the drinkable water excavated by the foe; and against the conflagration which destroyed part of the Bruchium and the library of the museum. Yet, half dead with thirst, barely escaped from drowning, threatened on all sides by fierce hatred, he stood firm, and remained victor also in the open field, after the young King had placed himself at the head of the Egyptians and collected an army.
"You know that the boy was drowned in the flight.
"In battle and mortal peril, amid blood and the clank of arms, Cæsar and Cleopatra spent half a year ere they were permitted to pluck the fruit of their common labour. The dictator now made her Queen of Egypt, and gave her, as co-regent, her youngest brother, a boy not half her own age. To Arsinoë he granted the life she had forfeited, but sent her to Italy.
"Peace followed the victory. Now, it is true, grave duties must have summoned the statesman back to Rome, but he tarried three full months longer.
"Whoever knows the life of the ambitious Julius, and is aware what this delay might have cost him, may well strike his brow with his hand, and ask, 'Is it true and possible that he used this precious time to take a trip with the woman he loved up the Nile, to the island of Isis, which is so dear to the Queen, to the extreme southern frontier of the country?' Yet it was so, and I myself went in the second ship, and not only saw them together, but more than once shared their banquets and their conversation. It was giving and taking, forcing down and elevating, a succession of discords, not unpleasant to hear, because experience taught that they would finally terminate in the most beautiful harmony. It was a festal day for all the senses."
"I imagine the whole Nile journey," interrupted Barine, "to be like the fairy voyage, when the purple silk sails of Cleopatra's galley bore Antony along the Cydnus."
"No, no," replied Archibius, "she first learned from Antony the art of filling this earthly existence with fleeting pleasures. Cæsar demanded more. Her intellect offered him the highest enjoyment."
Here he hesitated.
"True, the skill with which, to please Antony, she daily offered him for years fresh charms for every sense, was not a matter of accident."
"And this," cried Barine, "this was undertaken by the woman who had recognized the chief good in peace of mind!"
"Ay," replied Archibius thoughtfully, "yet this was the inevitable result. Pleasure had been the young girl's object in life. Ere passion awoke in her soul, peace of mind was the chief good she knew. When the hour arrived that this proved unattainable, the firmly rooted yearning for happiness still remained the purpose of her existence. My father would have been wiser to take her to the Stoa and impress it upon her that, if life must have a goal, it should be only to live in accordance with the sensibly arranged course of the world, and in harmony with one's own nature. He should have taught her to derive happiness from virtue. He should have stamped goodness upon the soul of the future Queen as the fundamental law of her being. He omitted to do this, because in his secluded life he had succeeded in finding the happiness which the master promises to his disciples. From Athens to Cyrene, from Epicurus to Aristippus, is but a short step, and Cleopatra took it when she forgot that the master was far from recognizing the chief good in the enjoyment of individual pleasure. The happiness of Epicurus was not inferior to that of Zeus, if he had only barley bread and water to appease his hunger and thirst.
"Yet she still considered herself a follower of Epicurus, and later, when Antony had gone to the Parthian war, and she was a long time alone, she once more began to strive for freedom from pain and peace of mind, but the state, her children, the marriage of Antony--who had long been her lover--to Octavia, the yearning of her own heart, Anubis, magic, and the Egyptian teachings of the life after death, above all, the burning ambition, the unresting desire to be loved, where she herself loved, to be first among the foremost----" Here he was interrupted by the messenger, who informed him that the ship was ready.
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Archibius had buried himself so deeply in the past that it was several minutes ere he could bring himself back to the present. When he did so, he hastily discussed with the two ladies the date of their departure.
It was hard for Berenike to leave her injured brother, and Barine longed to see Dion once more before the journey. Both were reluctant to quit Alexandria ere decisive news had arrived from the army and the fleet. So they requested a few days' delay; but Archibius cut them short, requiring them, with a resolution which transformed the amiable friend into a stern master, to be ready for the journey the next day at sunset. His Nile boat would await them at the Agathodæmon harbour on Lake Mareotis, and his travelling chariot would convey them thither, with as much luggage and as many female slaves as they desired to take with them. Then softening his tone, he briefly reminded the ladies of the great annoyances to which a longer stay would expose them, excused his rigour on the plea of haste, pressed the hands of the mother and daughter, and retired without heeding Barine, who called after him, yet could desire nothing save to plead for a longer delay. The carriage bore him swiftly to the great harbour.
The waxing moon was mirrored like a silver column, now wavering and tremulous, now rent by the waves tossing under a strong southeast wind, and illumined the warm autumn night. The sea outside was evidently running high. This was apparent by the motion of the vessels lying at anchor in the angle which the shore in front of the superb Temple of Poseidon formed with the Choma. This was a tongue of land stretched like a finger into the sea, on whose point stood a little palace which Cleopatra, incited by a chance remark of Antony, had had built there to surprise him.
Another, of white marble, glimmered in the moonlight from the island of Antirrhodus; and farther still a blazing fire illumined the darkness. Its flames flared from the top of the famous lighthouse on the island of Pharos at the entrance of the harbour, and, swayed to and fro by the wind, steeped the horizon and the outer edge of the dark water in the harbour with moving masses of light which irradiated the gloomy distance, sometimes faintly, anon more brilliantly.
Spite of the late hour, the harbour was full of bustle, though the wind often blew the men's cloaks over their heads, and the women were obliged to gather their garments closely around them. True, at this hour commerce had ceased; but many had gone to the port in search of news, or even to greet before others the first ship returning from the victorious fleet; for that Antony had defeated Octavianus in a great battle was deemed certain.
Guards were watching the harbour, and a band of Syrian horsemen had just passed from the barracks in the southern part of the Lochias to the Temple of Poseidon.
Here the galleys lay at anchor, not in the harbour of Eunostus, which was separated from the other by the broad, bridge-like dam of the Heptastadium, that united the city and the island of Pharos. Near it were the royal palaces and the arsenal, and any tidings must first reach this spot. The other harbour was devoted to commerce, but, in order to prevent the spread of false reports, newly arrived ships were forbidden to enter.
True, even at the great harbour, news could scarcely be expected, for a chain stretching from the end of the Pharos to a cliff directly opposite in the Alveus Steganus, closed the narrow opening. But it could be raised if a state galley arrived with an important message, and this was expected by the throng on the shore.
Doubtless many came from banquets, cookshops, taverns, or the nocturnal meeting-places of the sects that practised the magic arts, yet the weight of anxious expectation seemed to check the joyous activity, and wherever Archibius glanced he beheld eager, troubled faces. The wind forced many to bow their heads, and, wherever they turned their eyes, flags and clouds of dust were fluttering in the air, increasing the confusion.
As the galley put off from the shore, and the flutes summoned the oarsmen to their toil, its owner felt so disheartened that he did not even venture to hope that he was going in quest of good tidings.
Long-vanished days had, as it were, been called from the grave, and many a scene from the past rose before him as he lay among the cushions on the poop, gazing at the sky, across which dark, swiftly sailing clouds sometimes veiled the stars and again revealed them.
"How much we can conceal by words without being guilty of falsehood!" he murmured, while recalling what he had told the women.
Ay, he had been Cleopatra's confidant in his early youth, but how he had loved her, how, even as a boy, he had been subject to her, body and soul! He had allowed her to see it, displayed, confessed it; and she had accepted it as her rightful due. She had repelled with angry pride his only attempt to clasp her, in his overflowing affection, in his arms; but to show his love for her is a crime for which the loftiest woman pardons the humblest suitor, and a few hours later Cleopatra had met him with the old affectionate familiarity.
Again he recalled the torments which he had endured when compelled to witness how completely she yielded to the passion which drew her to Antony. At that time the Roman had merely swept through her life like a swiftly passing meteor, but many things betrayed that she did not forget him; and while Archibius had seen without pain her love for the great Cæsar bud and grow, the torturing feeling of jealousy again stirred in his heart, though youth was past, when at Tarsus, on the river Cydnus, she renewed the bond which still united her to Antony.
Now his hair had grown grey, and though nothing had clouded his friendship for the Queen, though he had always been ready to serve her, this foolish feeling had not been banished, and again and again mastered his whole being. He by no means undervalued Antony's attractions; but he saw his foibles no less clearly. All in all, whenever he thought of this pair, he felt like the lover of art who entrusts the finest gem in his collection to a rich man who knows not how to prize its real value, and puts it in the wrong place.
Yet he wished the Roman the most brilliant victory; for his defeat would have been Cleopatra's also, and would she endure the consequences of such a disaster?
The galley was approaching the flickering circle of light at the foot of the Pharos, and Archibius was just producing the token which was to secure the lifting of the chain, when his name echoed through the stillness of the night.
It was Dion hailing him from a boat tossing near the mouth of the harbour on the waves surging in from the turbulent sea. He had recognized Archibius's swift galley from the bust of Epicurus which was illumined by the light of the lantern in the prow. Cleopatra had had it placed upon the ship which, by her orders, had been built for her friend.
Dion now desired to join him, and was soon standing on the deck at his side. He had landed on the island of Pharos, and entered a sailors' tavern to learn what was passing. But no one could give him any definite information, for the wind was blowing from the land and allowed large vessels to approach the Egyptian coast only by the aid of oars. Shortly before the breeze had veered from south to southeast, and an experienced Rhodian would "never again lift cup of wine to his lips" if it did not blow from the north to-morrow or the day after. Then ships bearing news might reach Alexandria by the dozen--that is, the greybeard added with a defiant glance at the daintily clad city gentleman--if they were allowed to pass the Pharos or go through the Poseidon basin into the Eunostus. He had fancied that he saw sails on the horizon at sunset, but the swiftest galley became a hedgehog when the wind blew against its prow, and even checked the oars.
Others, too, had fancied that they had seen sails, and Dion would gladly have gone out to sea to investigate, but he was entirely alone in a frail hired boat, and this would not have been permitted to pass beyond the harbour. The expectation that every road would be open to Archibius had not deceived him, and the harbour chain was drawn aside for the Epicurus. With swelling sails, urged by the strong wind blowing from the southeast, its keel cut the rolling waves.
Soon a faint, tremulous light appeared in the north. It must be a ship; and though the helmsman in the tavern at Pharos, who looked as though he had not always steered peaceful trading-vessels, had spoken of some which did not let the ships they caught pass unscathed, the men on the well-equipped, stately Epicurus did not fear pirates, especially as morning was close at hand, and it had just shot by two clumsy men-of-war which had been sent out by the Regent.
The strong wind filled every sail, rowing would have been useless labour, and the light in front seemed to be coming nearer.
A wan glimmer was already beginning to brighten the distant east when the Epicurus approached the vessel with the light, but it seemed to wish to avoid the Alexandrian, and turned suddenly towards the northeast.
Archibius and Dion now discussed whether it would be worth while to pursue the fugitive. It was a small ship, which, as the dark masses of clouds became bordered with golden edges, grew more distinct and appeared to be a Cilician pirate of the smallest size.
As to its crew, the tried sailors on the Epicurus, a much larger vessel, which lacked no means of defence, showed no signs of alarm, the helmsman especially, who had served in the fleet of Sextus Pompey, and had sprung upon the deck of many a pirate ship.
Archibius deemed it foolish to commence a conflict unnecessarily. But Dion was in the mood to brave every peril.
If life and death were at stake, so much the better!
He had informed his friend of Iras's fears.
The fleet must be in a critical situation, and if the little Cilician had had nothing to conceal she would not have shunned the Epicurus.
It was worth while to learn what had induced her to turn back just before reaching the harbour.
The warlike helmsman also desired to give chase, and Archibius yielded, for the uncertainty was becoming more and more unbearable. Dion's soul was deeply burdened too. He could not banish Barine's image; and since Archibius had told him that he had found her resolved to shut her house against guests, and how willingly she had accepted his invitation to the country, again and again he pondered over the question what should prevent his marrying the quiet daughter of a distinguished artist, whom he loved?
Archibius had remarked that Barine would be glad to greet her most intimate friends--among whom he was included--in her quiet country home.
Dion did not doubt this, but he was equally sure that the greeting would bind him to her and rub him of his liberty, perhaps forever. But would the Alexandrian possess the lofty gift of freedom, if the Romans ruled his city as they governed Carthage or Corinth? If Cleopatra were defeated, and Egypt became a Roman province, a share in the business of the council, which was still addressed as "Macedonian men," and which was dear to Dion, could offer nothing but humiliation, and no longer afford satisfaction.
If a pirate's spear put an end to bondage under the Roman yoke and to this unworthy yearning and wavering, so much the better!
On this autumn morning, under this grey sky, from which sank a damp, light fog, with these hopes and fears in his heart, he beheld in both the present and future naught save shadows.
The Epicurus overtook and captured the fugitive. The slight resistance the vessel might have offered was relinquished when Archibius's helmsman shouted that the Epicurus did not belong to the royal navy, and had come in search of news.
The Cilician took in his oars; Archibius and Dion entered the vessel and questioned the commander.
He was an old, weather-beaten seaman, who would give no information until after he had learned what his pursuers really desired.
At first he protested that he had witnessed on the Peloponnesian coast a great victory gained by the Egyptian galleys over those commanded by Octavianus; but the queries of the two friends involved him in contradictions, and he then pretended to know nothing, and to have spoken of a victory merely to please the Alexandrian gentlemen.
Dion, accompanied by a few men from the crew of the Epicurus, searched the ship, and found in the little cabin a man bound and gagged, guarded by one of the pirates.
It was a sailor from the Pontus, who spoke only his native language. Nothing intelligible could be obtained from him; but there were important suggestions in a letter, found in a chest in the cabin, among clothing, jewels, and other stolen articles.
The letter--Dion could scarcely believe his own eyes--was addressed to his friend, the architect Gorgias. The pirate, being ignorant of writing, had not opened it, but Dion tore the wax from the cord without delay. Aristocrates, the Greek rhetorician, who had accompanied Antony to the war, had written from Tænarum, in the south of the Peloponnesus, requesting the architect, in the general's name, to set the little palace at the end of the Choma in order, and surround it on the land side with a high wall.
No door would be necessary. Communication with the dwelling could be had by water. He must do his utmost to complete the work speedily.
The friends gazed at each other in astonishment, as they read this commission.
What could induce Antony to give so strange an order? How did it fall into the hands of the pirates?
This must be understood.
When Archibius, whose gentle nature, so well adapted to inspire confidence, quickly won friends, burst into passionate excitement, the unexpected transition rarely failed to produce its effect, especially as his tall, strong figure and marked features made a still more threatening impression.
Even the captain gazed at him with fear, when the Alexandrian threatened to recall all his promises of consideration and mercy if the pirate withheld even the smallest trifle connected with this letter. The man speedily perceived that it would be useless to make false statements; for the captive from Pontus, though unable to speak Greek, understood the language, and either confirmed every remark of the other with vehement gestures, or branded it in the same manner as false.
Thus it was discovered that the pirate craft, in company with a much larger vessel, owned by a companion, had lurked behind the promontory of Crete for a prize. They had neither seen nor heard aught concerning the two fleets, when a dainty galley, "the finest and fleetest that ever sailed in the sea"--it was probably the "Swallow," Antony's despatch-boat--had run into the snare. To capture her was an easy task. The pirates had divided their booty, but the lion's share of goods and men had fallen to the larger ship.
A pouch containing letters and money had been taken from a gentleman of aristocratic appearance--probably Antony's messenger--who had received a severe wound, died, and had been flung into the sea. The former had been used to light the fire, and only the one addressed to the architect remained.
The captured sailors had said that the fleet of Octavianus had defeated Cleopatra's, and the Queen had fled, but that the land forces were still untouched, and might yet decide the conflict in Antony's favour. The pirate protested that he did not know the position of the army--it might be at Tænarum, whence the captured ship came. It was a sin and a shame, but his own crew had set it on fire, and it sank before his eyes.
This report seemed to be true, yet the Acharnanian coast, where the battle was said to have been fought, was so far from the southern point of the Peloponnesus, whence Antony's letter came, that it must have been written during the flight.
One thing appeared to be certain--the fleet had been vanquished and dispersed on the 2d or 3d of September.
Where would the Queen go now? What had become of the magnificent galleys which had accompanied her to the battle?
Even the contrary winds would not have detained them so long, for they were abundantly supplied with rowers.
Had Octavianus taken possession of them?
Were they burned or sunk?
But in that case how had Antony reached Tænarum?
The pirate could give no answer to these questions, which stirred both heart and brain. Why should he conceal what had reached his ears?
At last Archibius ordered the property stolen from Antony's ship, and the liberated sailor to be brought on board the Epicurus, but the pirate was obliged to swear not to remain in the waters between Crete and Alexandria. Then he was suffered to pursue his way unmolested.
This adventure had occupied many hours, and the return against the wind was slow; for, during the chase the Epicurus had been carried by the strong breeze far out to sea. Yet, when still several miles from the mouth of the harbour at the Pharos, it was evident that the Rhodian helmsman in the island tavern had predicted truly; for the weather changed with unusual speed, and the wind now blew from the north. The sea fairly swarmed with ships, some belonging to the royal fleet, some to curious Alexandrians, who had sailed out to take a survey. Archibius and Dion had spent a sleepless night and day. The heavy air, pervaded by a fine mist, had grown cool. After refreshing themselves by a repast, they paced up and down the deck of the Epicurus.
Few words were exchanged, and they wrapped their cloaks closer around them. Both had quaffed large draughts of the fiery wine with which the Epicurus was well supplied, but it would not warm them. Even the fire, blazing brightly in the richly furnished cabin, could scarcely do so.
Archibius's thoughts lingered with his beloved Queen, and his vivid power of imagination conjured before his mind everything which could distress her. No possible chance, not even the most terrible, was forgotten, and when he saw her sinking in the ship, stretching her beautiful arms imploringly towards him, to whom she had so long turned in every perilous position, when he beheld her a captive in the presence of the hostile, cold-hearted Octavianus, the blood seemed to freeze in his veins. At last he dropped his felt mantle and, groaning aloud, struck his brow with his clenched hand. He had fancied her walking with gold chains on her slender wrists before the victor's four-horse chariot, and heard the exulting shouts of the Roman populace.
That would have been the most terrible of all.
To pursue this train of thought was beyond the endurance of the faithful friend, and Dion turned in surprise as he heard him sob and saw the tears which bedewed his face.
His own heart was heavy enough, but he knew his companion's warm devotion to the Queen; so, passing his arm around his shoulder, he entreated him to maintain that peace of soul and mind which he had so often admired. In the most critical situations he had seen him stand high above them, as yonder man who fed the flames on the summit of the Pharos stood above the wild surges of the sea. If he would reflect over what had happened as dispassionately as usual, he could not fail to see that Antony must be free and in a position to guide his own future, since he directed the palace in the Choma to be put in order. He did not understand about the wall, but perhaps he was bringing home some distinguished captive whom he wished to debar from all communication with the city. It might prove that everything was far better than they feared, and they would yet smile at these grievous anxieties. His heart, too, was heavy, for he wished the Queen the best fortune, not only for her own sake, but because with her and her successful resistance to the greed of Rome was connected the liberty of Alexandria.
"My love and anxiety, like yours," he concluded, "have ever been given to her, the sovereign of this country. The world will be desolate, life will no longer be worth living, if the iron foot of Rome crushes our independence and freedom."
The words had sounded cordial and sincere, and Archibius followed Dion's counsel. Calm thought convinced him that nothing had yet happened which compelled belief in the worst result; and, as one who needs consolation often finds relief in comforting another, Archibius cheered his own heart by representing to his younger friend that, even if Octavianus were the victor and should deprive Egypt of her independence, he would scarcely venture to take from the citizens of Alexandria the free control of their own affairs. Then he explained to Dion that, as a young, resolute, independent man, he might render himself doubly useful if it were necessary to guard the endangered liberty of the city, and told him how many beautiful things life still held in store.
His voice expressed anxious tenderness for his young friend. No one had spoken thus to Dion since his father's death.
The Epicurus would soon reach the mouth of the harbour, and after landing he must again leave Archibius.
The decisive hour which often unites earnest men more firmly than many previous years had come to both. They had opened their hearts to each other. Dion had withheld only the one thing which, at the first sight of the houses in the city, filled his soul with fresh uneasiness.
It was long since he had sought counsel from others. Many who had asked his, had left him with thanks, to do exactly the opposite of what he had advised, though it would have been to their advantage. More than once he, too, had done the same, but now a powerful impulse urged him to confide in Archibius. He knew Barine, and wished her the greatest happiness. Perhaps it would be wise to let another person, who was kindly disposed, consider what his own heart so eagerly demanded and prudence forbade.
Hastily forming his resolution, he again turned to his friend, saying: "You have shown yourself a father to me. Imagine that I am indeed your son, and, as such wished to confess that a woman had become dear to my heart, and to ask whether you would be glad to greet her as a daughter."
Here Archibius interrupted him with the exclamation: "A ray of light amid all this gloom? Grasp what you have too long neglected as soon as possible! It befits a good citizen to marry. The Greek does not attain full manhood till he becomes husband and father. If I have remained unwedded, there was a special reason for it, and how often I have envied the cobbler whom I saw standing before his shop in the evening, holding his child in his arms, or the pilot, to whom large and small hands were stretched in greeting when he returned home! When I enter my dwelling only my dogs rejoice. But you, whose beautiful palace stands empty, to whose proud family it is due that you should provide for its continuance----" "That is just what brings me into a state of indecision, which is usually foreign to my nature," interrupted Dion. "You know me and my position in the world, and you have also known from her earliest childhood the woman to whom I allude."
"Iras?" asked his companion, hesitatingly. His sister, Charmian, had told him of the love felt by the Queen's younger waiting-woman.
But Dion eagerly denied this, adding: "I am speaking of Barine, the daughter of your dead friend Leonax. I love her, yet my pride is sensitive, and I know that it will extend to my future wife. The contemptuous glances which others might cast at her I should scorn, for I know her worth. Surely you remember my mother: she was a very different woman. Her house, her child, the slaves, her loom, were everything to her. She rigidly exacted from other women the chaste reserve which was a marked trait in her own character. Yet she was gentle, and loved me, her only son, beyond aught else. I think she would have opened her arms to Barine, had she believed that she was necessary to my happiness. But would the young beauty, accustomed to gay intercourse with distinguished men, have been able to submit to her demands? When I consider that she cannot help taking into her married life the habit of being surrounded and courted; when I think that the imprudence of a woman accustomed to perfect freedom might set idle tongues in motion, and cast a shadow upon the radiant purity of my name; when I even--" and he raised his clenched right hand. But Archibius answered soothingly: "That anxiety is groundless if Barine warmly and joyfully gives you her whole heart. It is a sunny, lovable, true woman's heart, and therefore capable of a great love. If she bestows it on you--and I believe she will--go and offer sacrifices in your gratitude; for the immortals desired your happiness when they guided your choice to her and not to Iras, my own sister's child. If you were really my son, I would now exclaim, 'You could not bring me a dearer daughter, if--I repeat it--if you are sure of her love.'"
Dion gazed into vacancy a short time, and then cried firmly: "I am!"
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{
"id": "5482"
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The Epicurus anchored before the Temple of Poseidon. The crew had been ordered to keep silence, though they knew nothing, except that a letter from Antony, commanding the erection of a wall, had been found on board the pirate. This might be regarded as a good omen, for people do not think of building unless they anticipate a time of peace.
The light rain had ceased, but the wind blew more strongly from the north, and the air had grown cool. A dense throng still covered the quay from the southern end of the Heptastadium to the promontory of Lochias. The strongest pressure was between the peninsula of the Choma and the Sebasteum; for this afforded a view of the sea, and the first tidings must reach the residence of the Regent, which was connected with the palace.
A hundred contradictory rumours had been in circulation that morning; and when, at the third hour in the afternoon, the Epicurus arrived, it was surrounded by a dense multitude eager to hear what news the ship had brought from without. Other vessels shared the same fate, but none could give reliable tidings.
Two swift galleys from the royal fleet reported meeting a Samian trireme, which had given news of a great victory gained by Antony on the land and Cleopatra on the sea, and, as men are most ready to believe what they desire, throngs of exulting men and women moved to and fro along the shore, strengthening by their confidence many a timorous spirit. Prudent people, who had regarded the long delay of the first ships of the fleet with anxiety, had opened their ears to the tales of evil, and looked forward to the future with uneasiness. But they avoided giving expression to their fears, for the overseer of an establishment for gold embroidery, who had ventured to warn the people against premature rejoicing, had limped home badly beaten, and two other pessimists who had been flung in the sea had just been dragged out dripping wet.
Nor could the multitude be blamed for this confidence; for at the Serapeum, the theatre of Dionysus, the lofty pylons of the Sebasteum, the main door of the museum, in front of the entrance of the palace in the Bruchium, and before the fortress-like palaces in the Lochias, triumphal arches had been erected, adorned with gods of victory and trophies hastily constructed of plaster, inscriptions of congratulations and thanks to the deities, garlands of foliage and flowers. The wreathing of the Egyptian pylons and obelisks, the principal temple, and the favourite statues in the city had been commenced during the night. The last touches were now being given to the work.
Gorgias, like his friend Dion, had not closed his eyes since the night before; for he had had charge of all the decorations of the Bruchium, where one superb building adjoined another.
Sleep had also fled from the couches of the occupants of the Sebasteum, the royal palace where Iras lived during the absence of the Queen, and the prætorium, facing its southern front, which contained the official residence of the Regent.
When Archibius was conducted to the Queen's waiting-woman, her appearance fairly startled him. She had been his guest in Kanopus only the day before yesterday, and how great was the alteration within this brief time! Her oval face seemed to have lengthened, the features to have grown sharper; and this woman of seven-and-twenty years, who had hitherto retained all the charms of youth, appeared suddenly to have aged a decade. There was a feverish excitement in her manner, as, holding out her hand to her uncle, in greeting, she exclaimed hastily, "You, too, bring no good tidings?"
"Nor any evil ones," he answered quietly. "But, child, I do not like your appearance--the dark circles under your keen eyes. You have had news which rouses your anxiety?"
"Worse than that," she answered in a low tone.
"Well?"
"Read!" gasped Iras, her lips and nostrils quivering as she handed Archibius a small tablet.
With a gesture of haste very unusual in him, he snatched it from her hand and, as his eyes ran over the words traced upon it, every vestige of colour vanished from his cheeks and lips.
They were written by Cleopatra's own hand, and contained the following lines: "The naval battle was lost--and by my fault. The land forces might still save us, but not under his command. He is with me, uninjured, but apparently exhausted; like a different being, bereft of courage, listless as if utterly crushed. I foresee the beginning of the end. As soon as this reaches you, arrange to have some unpretending litters ready for us every evening at sunset. Make the people believe that we have conquered until trustworthy intelligence arrives concerning the fate of Canidius and the army. When you kiss the children in my name, be very tender with them. Who knows how soon they may be orphaned? They already have an unhappy mother; may they be spared the memory of a cowardly one! Trust no one except those whom I left in authority, and Archibius, not even Cæsarion or Antyllus. Provide for having every one whose aid may be valuable to me within reach when I come. I cannot close with the familiar 'Rejoice'--the 'Fresh Courage' placed on many a tombstone seems more appropriate. You who did not envy me in my happiness will help me to bear misfortune. Epicurus, who believes that the gods merely watch the destiny of men inactively from their blissful heights, is right. Were it otherwise, how could the love and loyalty which cleave to the hapless, defeated woman, be repaid with anguish of heart and tears? Yet--continue to love her."
Archibius, pale and silent, let the tablet fall. It was long ere he gasped hoarsely: "I foresaw it; yet now that it is here--" His voice failed, and violent, tearless sobs shook his powerful frame.
Sinking on a couch he buried his face amid the cushions.
Iras gazed at the strong man and shook her head.
She, too, loved the Queen; the news had brought tears to her eyes also; but even while she wept, a host of plans coping with this disaster had darted through her restless brain. A few minutes after the arrival of the message of misfortune she had consulted with the members of Cleopatra's council, and adopted measures for sustaining the people's belief in the naval victory.
What was she, the delicate, by no means courageous girl, compared to this man of iron strength who, she was well aware, had braved the greatest perils in the service of the Queen? Yet there he lay with his face hidden in the pillows as if utterly overwhelmed.
Did a woman's soul rebound more quickly after being crushed beneath the burdens of the heaviest suffering, or was hers of a special character, and her slender body the casket of a hero's nature?
She had reason to believe so when she recalled how the Regent and the Keeper of the Seal had received the terrible news. They had rushed frantically up and down the vast hall as if desperate; but Mardion the eunuch had little manhood, and Zeno was a characterless old author who had won the Queen's esteem, and the high office which he occupied solely by the vivid power of imagination, that enabled him constantly to devise new exhibitions, amusements, and entertainments, and present them with magical splendour.
But Archibius, the brave, circumspect counsellor and helper?
His shoulders again quivered as if they had received a blow, and Iras suddenly remembered what she had long known, but never fully realized--that yonder grey-haired man loved Cleopatra, loved her as she herself loved Dion; and she wondered whether she would have been strong enough to maintain her composure if she had learned that a cruel fate threatened to rob him of life, liberty, and honour.
Hour after hour she had vainly awaited the young Alexandrian, yet he had witnessed her anxiety the day before. Had she offended him? Was he detained by the spell of Didymus's granddaughter?
It seemed a great wrong that, amid the unspeakably terrible misfortune which had overtaken her mistress, she could not refrain from thinking continually of Dion. Even as his image filled her heart, Cleopatra's ruled her uncle's mind and soul, and she said to herself that it was not alone among women that love paid no heed to years, or whether the locks were brown or tinged with grey.
But Archibius now raised himself, left the couch, passed his hand across his brow, and in the deep, calm tones natural to his voice, began with a sorrowful smile: "A man stricken by an arrow leaves the fray to have his wound bandaged. The surgeon has now finished his task. I ought to have spared you this pitiable spectacle, child. But I am again ready for the battle. Cleopatra's account of Antony's condition renders a piece of news which we have just received somewhat more intelligible."
"We?" replied Iras. "Who was your companion?"
"Dion," answered Archibius; but when he was about to describe the incidents of the preceding night, she interrupted him with the question whether Barine had consented to leave the city. He assented with a curt "Yes," but Iras assumed the manner of having expected nothing different, and requested him to continue his story.
Archibius now related everything which they had experienced, and their discovery in the pirate ship. Dion was even now on the way to carry Antony's order to his friend Gorgias.
"Any slave might have attended to that matter equally well," Iras remarked in an irritated tone. "I should think he would have more reason to expect trustworthy tidings here. But that's the way with men!"
Here she hesitated but, meeting an inquiring glance from her uncle, she went on eagerly; "Nothing, I believe, binds them more firmly to one another than mutual pleasure. But that must now be over. They will seek other amusements, whether with Heliodora or Thais I care not. If the woman had only gone before! When she caught young Cæsarion----" "Stay, child," her uncle interrupted reprovingly. "I know how much she would rejoice if Antyllus had never brought the boy to her house."
"Now--because the poor deluded lad's infatuation alarms her."
"No, from his first visit. Immature boys do not suit the distinguished men whom she receives."
"If the door is always kept open, thieves will enter the house."
"She received only old acquaintances, and the friends whom they presented. Her house was closed to all others. So there was no trouble with thieves. But who in Alexandria could venture to refuse admittance to a son of the Queen?"
"There is a wide difference between quiet admittance and fanning a passion to madness. Wherever a fire is burning, there has certainly been a spark to kindle it. You men do not detect such women's work. A glance, a pressure of the hand, even the light touch of a garment, and the flame blazes, where such inflammable material lies ready."
"We lament the violence of the conflagration. You are not well disposed towards Barine."
"I care no more for her than this couch here cares for the statue of Mercury in the street!" exclaimed Iras, with repellent arrogance. "There could be no two things in the world more utterly alien than we. Between the woman whose door stands open, and me, there is nothing in common save our sex."
"And," replied Archibius reprovingly, "many a beautiful gift which the gods bestowed upon her as well as upon you. As for the open door, it was closed yesterday. The thieves of whom you spoke spoiled her pleasure in granting hospitality. Antyllus forced himself with noisy impetuosity into her house. This made her dread still more unprecedented conduct in the future. In a few hours she will be on the way to Irenia. I am glad for Cæsarion's sake, and still more for his mother's, whom we have wronged by forgetting so long for another."
"To think that we should be forced to do so!" cried Iras excitedly--"now, at this hour, when every drop of blood, every thought of this poor brain should belong to the Queen! Yet it could not be avoided. Cleopatra is returning to us with a heart bleeding from a hundred wounds, and it is terrible to think that a new arrow must strike her as soon as she steps upon her native soil. You know how she loves the boy, who is the living image of the great man with whom she shared the highest joys of love. When she learns that he, the son of Cæsar, has given his young heart to the cast-off wife of a street orator, a woman whose home attracted men as ripe dates lure birds, it will be--I know--like rubbing salt into her fresh wounds. Alas! and the _one_ sorrow will not be all. Antony, her husband, also found the way to Barine. He sought her more than once. You cannot know it as I do; but Charmian will tell you how sensitive she has become since the flower of her youthful charms--you don't perceive it--is losing one leaf after another. Jealousy will torture her, and--I know her well--perhaps no one will ever render the siren a greater service than I did when I compelled her to leave the city."
The eyes of Archibius's clever niece had glittered with such hostile feeling as she spoke that he thought with just anxiety of his dead friend's daughter. What did not yet threaten Barine as serious danger Iras had the power to transform into grave peril.
Dion had begged him to maintain strict secrecy; but even had he been permitted to speak, he would not have done so now. From his knowledge of Iras's character she might be expected, if she learned that some one had come between her and the friend of her youth, to shrink from no means of spoiling her game. He remembered the noble Macedonian maiden whom the Queen had begun to favour, and who was hunted to death by Iras's hostile intrigues. Few were more clever, and--if she once loved--more loyal and devoted, more yielding, pliant, and in happy hours more bewitching, yet even in childhood she had preferred a winding path to a straight one. It seemed as if her shrewdness scorned to attain the end desired by the simple method lying close at hand. How willingly his mother and his younger sister Charmian had cared for the slaves and nursed them when they were ill; nay, Charmian had gained in her Nubian maid Aniukis a friend who would have gone to death for her sake! Cleopatra, too, when a child, had found sincere delight in taking a bouquet to his parents' sick old housekeeper and sitting by her bedside to shorten the time for her with merry talk. She had gone to her unasked, while Iras had often been punished because she had made the lives of numerous slaves in her parents' household still harder by unreasonable harshness. This trait in her character had roused her uncle's anxiety and, in after-years, her treatment of her inferiors had been such that he could not number her among the excellent of her sex. Therefore he was the more joyfully surprised by the loyal, unselfish love with which she devoted herself to the service of the Queen. Cleopatra had gratified Charmian's wish to have her niece for an assistant; and Iras, who had never been a loving daughter to her own faithful mother, had served her royal mistress with the utmost tenderness.
Archibius valued this loyalty highly, but he knew what awaited any one who became the object of her hatred, and the fear that it would involve Barine in urgent peril was added to his still greater anxiety for Cleopatra.
When about to depart, burdened by the sorrowful conviction that he was powerless against his niece's malevolent purpose, he was detained by the representation that every fresh piece of intelligence would first reach the Sebasteum and her. Some question might easily arise which his calm, prudent mind could decide far better than hers, whose troubled condition resembled a shallow pool disturbed by stones flung into the waves.
The apartments of his sister Charmian, which were connected with his by a corridor, were empty, and Iras begged him to remain there a short time. The anxiety and dread that oppressed her heart would kill her. To know that he was near would be the greatest comfort.
When Archibius hesitated because he deemed it his duty to urge Cæsarion, over whom he possessed some influence, to give up his foolish wishes for his mother's sake, Iras assured him that he would not find the youth. He had gone hunting with Antyllus and some other friends. She had approved the plan, because it removed him from the city and Barine's dangerous house.
"As the Queen does not wish him to know the terrible news yet," she concluded, "his presence would only have caused us embarrassment. So stay, and when it grows dark go with us to the Lochias. I think it will please the sorrowing woman, when she lands, to see your familiar face, which will remind her of happier days. Do me the favour to stay." She held out both hands beseechingly as she spoke, and Archibius consented.
A repast was served, and he shared it with his niece; but Iras did not touch the carefully chosen viands, and Archibius barely tasted them. Then, without waiting for dessert, he rose to go to his sister's apartments. But Iras urged him to rest on the divan in the adjoining room, and he yielded. Yet, spite of the softness of the pillows and his great need of sleep, he could not find it; anxiety kept him awake, and through the curtain which divided the room in which Iras remained from the one he occupied he sometimes heard her light footsteps pacing restlessly to and fro, sometimes the coming and going of messengers in quest of news.
All his former life passed before his mind. Cleopatra had been his sun, and now black clouds were rising which would dim its light, perchance forever. He, the disciple of Epicurus, who had not followed the doctrines of other masters until later in life, held the same view of the gods as his first master. To him also they had seemed immortal beings sufficient unto themselves, dwelling free from anxiety in blissful peace, to whom mortals must look upward on account of their supreme grandeur, but who neither troubled themselves about the guidance of the world, which was fixed by eternal laws, nor the fate of individuals. Had he been convinced of the contrary, he would have sacrificed everything he possessed in order, by lavish offerings, to propitiate the immortals in behalf of her to whom he had devoted his life and every faculty of his being.
Like Iras, he, too, could find no rest upon his couch, and when she heard his step she called to him and asked why he did not recover the sleep which he had lost. No one knew the demands the next night might make upon him.
"You will find me awake," he answered quietly.
Then he went to the window which, above the pylons that rose before the main front of the Sebasteum, afforded a view of the Bruchium and the sea. The harbour was now swarming with vessels of every size, garlanded with flowers and adorned with gay flags and streamers. The report of the successful issue of the first naval battle was believed, and many desired to greet the victorious fleet and hail their sovereign as she entered the harbour.
Many people, equipages, and litters had also gathered on the shore, between the lofty pylons and the huge door of the Sebasteum. They were representatives of the aristocracy of the city; for the majority were attended by richly attired slaves. Many wore costly garlands, and numerous chariots and litters were adorned with gold or silver ornaments, gems, and glittering paste. The stir and movement in front of the palace were ceaseless, and Iras, who was now standing beside her uncle, waved her hand towards it, saying: "The wind of rumour! Yesterday only one or two came; to-day every one who belongs to the 'Inimitable Livers' flocks hither in person to get news. The victory was proclaimed in the market-place, at the theatre, the gymnasium, and the camp. Every one who wears garlands or weapons heard of a battle won. Yesterday, among all the thousands, there was scarcely a single doubter; but to-day--how does it happen? Even among those who as 'Inimitables' have shared all the pleasures, entertainments, and festivities of our noble pair, faith wavers; for if they were firmly convinced of the brilliant victory which was announced loudly enough, they would not come themselves to watch, to spy, to listen. Just look down! There is the litter of Diogenes--yonder that of Ammonius. The chariot beyond belongs to Melampous. The slaves in the red bombyx garments serve Hermias. They all belong to the society of 'Inimitables,' and shared our banquets. That very Apollonius who, for the last half hour, has been trying to question the palace servants, day before yesterday ordered fifty oxen to be slaughtered to Ares, Nike, and the great Isis, as the Queen's goddess, and when I met him in the temple he exclaimed that this was the greatest piece of extravagance he had ever committed; for even without the cattle Cleopatra and Antony would be sure of victory. But now the wind of rumour has swept away his beautiful confidence also. They are not permitted to see me. The doorkeepers say that I am in the country. The necessity of showing every one a face radiant with the joy of victory would kill me. There comes Apollonius. How his fat face beams! He believes in the victory, and after sunset none of yonder throng will appear here; he is already giving orders to his slaves. He will invite all his friends to a banquet, and won't spare his costly wines. Capital! At least no one from that company can disturb us. Dion is his cousin, and will be present also. We shall see what these pleasure-lovers will do when they are forced to confront, the terrible reality."
"I think," replied Archibius, "they will afford the world a remarkable spectacle; friends won in prosperity who remain constant in adversity."
"Do you?" asked Iras, with sparkling eyes. "If that proves true, how I would praise and value men--the majority of whom without their wealth would be poorer than beggars. But look at yonder figure in the white robe beside the left obelisk--is it not Dion? The crowd is bearing him away--I think it was he."
But she had been deceived; the man whom she fancied she had seen, because her heart so ardently yearned for him, was not near the Sebasteum, and his thoughts were still farther away.
At first he had intended to give the architect the letter which was addressed to him. He would be sure to find him at the triumphal arch which was being erected on the shore of the Bruchium. But on reaching the former place he learned that Gorgias had gone to remove the statues of Cleopatra and Antony from the house of Didymus, and erect them in front of the Theatre of Dionysus. The Regent, Mardion, had ordered it. Gorgias was already superintending the erection of the foundation.
The huge hewn stones which he required for this purpose had been taken from the Temple of Nemesis, which he was supervising. Whatever number of government slaves he needed were at his disposal, so Gorgias's foreman reported, proudly adding that before the sun went down, the architect would have shown the Alexandrians the marvel of removing the twin statues from one place to another in a single day, and yet establishing them as firmly as the Colossus which had been in Thebes a thousand years.
Dion found the piece of sculpture in front of Didymus's garden, ready for removal, but the slaves who had placed before the platform the rollers on which it was to be moved had already been kept waiting a long time by the architect.
This was his third visit to the old philosopher's house. First, he had been obliged to inform him and his family that their property was no longer in danger; then he had come to tell them at what hour he would remove the statues, which still attracted many curious spectators; and, finally, he had again appeared, to announce that they were to be taken away at once. His foreman or a slave could probably have done this, but Helena--Didymus's granddaughter, Barine's sister--drew him again and again to the old man's home. He would gladly have come still more frequently, for at every meeting he had discovered fresh charms in the beautiful, quiet, thoughtful maiden, who cared so tenderly for her aged grandparents. He believed that he loved her, and she seemed glad to welcome him. But this did not entitle him to seek her hand, though his large, empty house so greatly needed a mistress. His heart had glowed with love for too many. He wished first to test whether this new fancy would prove more lasting. If he succeeded in remaining faithful even a few days, he would, as it were, reward himself for it, and appear before Didymus as a suitor.
He excused his frequent visits to himself on the pretext of the necessity of becoming acquainted with his future wife, and Helena made the task easier for him. The usual reserve of her manner lessened more and more; nay, the great confidence with which he at first inspired her was increased by his active assistance. When he entered just now, she had even held out her hand to him, and inquired about the progress of his work.
He was overwhelmed with business, but so great was his pleasure in talking with her that he lingered longer than he would have deemed right under any other circumstances, and regarded it as an unpleasant interruption when Barine--for whom his heart had throbbed so warmly only yesterday--entered the tablinum.
The young beauty was by no means content with a brief greeting; but drew Helena entirely away from him. Never had he seen her embrace and kiss her sister so passionately as while hurriedly telling her that she had come to bid farewell to the loved ones in her grandparents' house.
Berenike had arrived with her, but went first to the old couple.
While Barine was telling Helena and Gorgias, also, why all this plan had been formed so hastily, Gorgias was silently comparing the two sisters. He found it natural that he had once believed that he loved Barine; but she would not have been a fitting mistress of his house. Life at her side would have been a chain of jealous emotions and anxieties, and her stimulating remarks and searching questions, which demanded absolute attention, would not have permitted him, after his return home, wearied by arduous toil, to find the rest for which he longed. His eye wandered from her to her sister, as if testing the space between two newly erected pillars; and Barine, who had noticed his strange manner, suddenly laughed merrily, and asked whether they might know what building was occupying his thoughts, while a good friend was telling him that the pleasant hours in her house were over.
Gorgias started, and the apology he stammered showed so plainly how inattentively he had listened, that Barine would have had good reason to feel offended. But one glance at her sister and another at him enabled her speedily to guess the truth. She was pleased; for she esteemed Gorgias, and had secretly feared that she might be forced to grieve him by a refusal, but he seemed as if created for her sister. Her arrival had probably interrupted them so, turning to Helena, she exclaimed: "I must see my mother and our grandparents. Meanwhile entertain our friend here. We know each other well. He is one of the few men who can be trusted. That is my honest opinion, Gorgias, and I say it to you also, Helena."
With these words she nodded to both, and Gorgias was again alone with the maiden whom he loved.
It was difficult to begin the conversation anew, and when, spite of many efforts, it would not flow freely, the shout of the overseer, which reached his ear through the opening of the roof, urging the men to work, was like a deliverance. Promising to return again soon, as eagerly as if he had been requested to do so, he took his leave and opened the door leading into the adjoining room. But on the threshold he started back, and Helena, who had followed him, did the same, for there stood his friend Dion, and Barine's beautiful head lay on his breast, while his hand rested as if in benediction on her fair hair. And--no, Gorgias was not mistaken--the slender frame of the lovely woman, whose exuberant vivacity had so often borne him and others away with it, trembled as if shaken by deep and painful emotion.
When Dion perceived his friend, and Barine raised her head, turning her face towards him, it was indeed wet with tears, but their source could not be sorrow; for her blue eyes were sparkling with a happy light.
Yet Gorgias found something in her features which he was unable to express in words--the reflection of the ardent gratitude that had taken possession of her soul and filled it absolutely.
While seeking the architect, Dion had met Barine, who was on her way to her grandparents, and what he had dreaded the day before happened.
The first glance from her eyes which met his forced the decisive question from his lips.
In brief, earnest words he confessed his love for her, and his desire to make her his own, as the pride and ornament of his house.
Then, in the intensity of her bliss, her eyes overflowed and, under the spell of a great miracle wrought in her behalf, she found no words to answer; but Dion had approached, clasped her right hand in both of his, and frankly acknowledged how, with the image of his strict mother before his eyes, he had wavered and hesitated until love had overmastered him. Now, full of the warmest confidence, he asked whether she would consent to rule as mistress of his home, the honour and ornament of his ancient name? He knew that her heart was his, but he must hear one thing more from her lips---- Here she had interrupted him with the cry, "This one thing--that your wife, in joy and in sorrow, will live for you and you alone? The whole world can vanish for her, now that you have raised her to your side and she is yours."
After this assurance, which sounded like an oath, Dion felt as if a heavy burden had fallen from his heart, and clasping her in his arms with passionate tenderness, he repeated, "In joy and in sorrow!"
Thus Gorgias and Helena had surprised them, and the architect felt for the first time that there is no distinction between our own happiness and that of those whom we love.
His friend Helena seemed to have the same feeling, when she saw what this day had given her sister; and the philosopher's house, so lately shadowed by anxiety, and many a fear, would soon ring with voices uttering joyous congratulations.
The architect no longer felt that he had a place in this circle, which was now pervaded by a great common joy, and after Dion made a brief explanation, Gorgias's voice was soon heard outside loudly issuing orders to the workmen.
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Gorgias went to his work without delay. When the twin statues were only waiting to be erected in front of the Theatre of Dionysus, Dion sought him. Some impulse urged him to talk to his old friend before leaving the city with his betrothed bride. Since they parted the latter had accomplished the impossible; for the building of the wall on the Choma, ordered by Antony, was commenced, the restoration of the little palace at the point, and many other things connected with the decoration of the triumphal arches, were arranged. His able and alert foreman found it difficult to follow him as he dictated order after order in his writing-tablet.
The conversation with his friend was not a long one, for Dion had promised Barine and her mother to accompany them to the country. Notwithstanding the betrothal, they were to start that very day; for Cæsarion had called upon Barine twice that morning. She had not received him, but the unfortunate youth's conduct induced her to hasten the preparations for her departure.
To avoid attracting attention, they were to use Archibius's large travelling chariot and Nile boat, although Dion's were no less comfortable.
The marriage was to take place in the "abode of peace." The young Alexandrian's own ship, which was to convey the newly wedded pair to Alexandria, bore the name of Peitho, the goddess of persuasion, for Dion liked to be reminded of his oratorical powers in the council. Henceforward it would be called the _Barine_, and was to receive many an embellishment.
Dion confided to his friend what he had learned in relation to the fate of the Queen and the fleet, and, notwithstanding the urgency of the claims upon Gorgias's time, he lingered to discuss the future destiny of the city and her threatened liberty; for these things lay nearest to his heart.
"Fortunately," cried Dion, "I followed my inclination; now it seems to me that duty commands every true man to make his own house a nursery for the cultivation of the sentiments which he inherited from his forefathers and which must not die, so long as there are Macedonian citizens in Alexandria. We must submit if the superior might of Rome renders Egypt a province of the republic, but we can preserve to our city and her council the lion's share of their freedom. Whatever may be the development of affairs, we are and shall remain the source whence Rome draws the largest share of the knowledge which enriches her brain."
"And the art which adorns her rude life," replied Gorgias. "If she is free to crush us without pity, she will fare, I think, like the maiden who raises her foot to trample on a beautiful, rare flower, and then withdraws it because it would be a crime to destroy so exquisite a work of the Creator."
"And what does the flower owe to your maiden," cried Dion, "or our city to Rome? Let us meet her claims with dignified resolution, then I think we shall not have the worst evils to fear."
"Let us hope so. But, my friend, keep your eyes open for other than Roman foes. Now that it will become known that you do not love her, beware of Iras. There is something about her which reminds me of the jackal. Jealousy! --I believe she would be capable of the worst----" "Yet," Dion interrupted, "Charmian will soften whatever injury Iras plans to do me, and, though I cannot rely much upon my uncle, Archibius is above both and favours us and our marriage."
Gorgias uttered a sigh of relief, and exclaimed, "Then on to happiness!"
"And you must also begin to provide for yours," replied Dion warmly. "Forbid your heart to continue this wandering, nomad life. The tent which the wind blows down is not fit for the architect's permanent residence. Build yourself a fine house, which will defy storms, as you built my palace. I shall not grudge it, and have already said, the times demand it."
"I will remember the advice," replied Gorgias. "But six eyes are again bent upon me for direction. There are so many important things to be done while we waste the hours in building triumphal arches for the defeated--trophies for an overthrow. But your uncle has just issued orders to complete the work in the most magnificent style. The ways of destiny and the great are dark; may the brightest sunshine illumine yours! A prosperous journey! We shall hear, of course, when you celebrate the wedding, and if I can I shall join you in the Hymenæus. Lucky fellow that you are! Now I'm summoned from over yonder! May Castor and Pollux, and all the gods favourable to travel, Aphrodite, and all the Loves attend your trip to Irenia, and protect you in the realm of Eros and Hymen!"
With these words the warm-hearted man clasped his friend to his breast for the first time. Dion cordially responded, and at last shook his hard right hand with the exclamation: "Farewell, then, till we meet in Irenia on the wedding day, you dear, faithful fellow."
Then he entered the chariot which stood waiting, and Gorgias gazed after him thoughtfully.
The hyacinthine purple cloak which Dion wore that day had not vanished from his sight when a loud crashing, rattling, and roaring arose behind him. A hastily erected scaffold, which was to support the pulleys for raising the statues, had collapsed. The damage could be easily repaired, but the accident aroused a troubled feeling in the architect's mind. He was a child of his time, a period when duty commanded the prudent man to heed omens. Experience also taught him that when such a thing happened in his work something unpleasant was apt to occur within the circle of his friends. The veil of the future concealed what might be in store for the beloved couple; but he resolved to keep his eyes open on Dion's behalf and to request Archibius to do the same.
The pressure of work, however, soon silenced the sense of uneasiness. The damage was speedily repaired, and later Gorgias, sometimes with one, sometimes with another tablet or roll of MS. in his hand, issued the most varied orders.
Gradually the light of this dismal day faded.
Ere the night, which threatened to bring rain and storm, closed in, he again rode on his mule to the Bruchium to overlook the progress of the work in the various buildings and give additional directions, for the labour was to be continued during the night.
The north wind was now blowing so violently from the sea that it was difficult to keep the torches and lamps lighted. The gale drove the drops of rain into his face, and a glance northward showed him masses of black clouds beyond the harbour and the lighthouse. This indicated a bad night, and again the boding sense of coming misfortune stole over him. Yet he set to work swiftly and prudently, helping with his own hands when occasion required.
Night closed in. Not a star was visible in the sky, and the air, chilled by the north wind, grew so cold that Gorgias at last permitted his body slave to wrap his cloak around him. While drawing the hood over his head, he gazed at a procession of litters and men moving towards Lochias.
Perhaps the Queen's children were returning home from some expedition. But probably they were rather private citizens on their way to some festival celebrating the victory; for every one now believed in a great battle and a successful issue of the war. This was proved by the shouts and cheers of the people, who, spite of the storm, were still moving to and fro near the harbour.
The last of the torch-bearers had just passed Gorgias, and he had told himself that a train of litters belonging to the royal family would not move through the darkness so faintly lighted, when a single man, bearing in his hand a lantern, whose flickering rays shone on his wrinkled face, approached rapidly from the opposite direction. It was old Phryx, Didymus's house slave, with whom the architect had become acquainted, while the aged scholar was composing the inscription for the Odeum which Gorgias had erected. The aged servant had brought him many alterations of his master's first sketch, and Gorgias had reminded him of it the previous day.
The workmen by whom the statues had been raised to the pedestal, amid the bright glare of torches, to the accompaniment of a regular chant, had just dropped the ropes, windlasses, and levers, when the architect recognized the slave.
What did the old man want at so late an hour on this dark night? The fall of the scaffold again returned to his mind.
Was the slave seeking for a member of the family? Did Helena need assistance? He stopped the gray-haired man, who answered his question with a heavy sigh, followed by the maxim, "Misfortunes come in pairs, like oxen." Then he continued: "Yesterday there was great anxiety. Today, when there was so much rejoicing on account of Barine, I thought directly, 'Sorrow follows joy, and the second misfortune won't be spared us.' And so it proved."
Gorgias anxiously begged him to relate what had happened, and the old man, drawing nearer, whispered that the pupil and assistant of Didymus--young Philotas of Amphissa, a student, and, moreover, a courteous young man of excellent family--had gone to a banquet to which Antyllus, the son of Antony, had invited several of his classmates. This had already happened several times, and he, Phryx, had warned him, for, when the lowly associate with the lofty, the lowly rarely escape kicks and blows. The young fellow, who usually had behaved no worse than the other Ephebi, had always returned from such festivities with a flushed face and unsteady steps, but to-night he had not even reached his room in the upper story. He had darted into the house as though pursued by the watch, and, while trying to rush up the stairs--it was really only a ladder--he had made a misstep and fell. He, Phryx, did not believe that he was hurt, for none of his limbs ached, even when they were pulled and stretched, and Dionysus kindly protected drunkards; but some demon must have taken possession of him, for he howled and groaned continually, and would answer no questions. True, he was aware, from the festivals of Dionysus, that the young man was one of those who, when intoxicated, weep and lament; but this time something unusual must have occurred, for in the first place his handsome face was coloured black and looked hideous, since his tears had washed away the soot in many places, and then he talked nothing but a confused jargon. It was a pity.
When an attempt was made, with the help of the garden slave, to carry him to his room, he dealt blows and kicks like a lunatic. Didymus now also believed that he was possessed by demons, as often happens to those who, in falling, strike their heads against the ground, and thus wake the demons in the earth. Well, yes, they might be demons, but only those of wine. The student was just "crazy drunk," as people say. But the old gentleman was very fond of his pupil, and had ordered him, Phryx, to go to Olympus, who, ever since he could remember, had been the family physician.
"The Queen's leech?" asked Gorgias, disapprovingly, and when the slave assented, the architect exclaimed in a positive tone: "It is not right to force the old man out of doors in such a north wind. Age is not specially considerate to age. Now that the statues stand yonder, I can leave my post for half an hour and will go with you. I don't think a leech is needed to drive out _these_ demons."
"True, my lord, true!" cried the slave, "but Olympus is our friend. He visits few patients, but he will come to our house in any weather. He has litters, chariots, and splendid mules. The Queen gives him whatever is best and most comfortable. He is skilful, and perhaps can render speedy help. People must use what they have."
"Only where it is necessary," replied the architect. "There are my two mules; follow me on the second. If I don't drive out the demons, you will have plenty of time to trot after Olympus."
This proposal pleased the old slave, and a short time after Gorgias entered the venerable philosopher's tablinum.
Helena welcomed him like an intimate friend. Whenever he appeared she thought the peril was half over. Didymus, too, greeted him warmly, and conducted him to the little room where the youth possessed by demons lay on a divan.
He was still groaning and whimpering. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and, whenever any member of the household approached, he pushed him away.
When Gorgias held his hands and sternly ordered him to confess what wrong he had done, he sobbed out that he was the most ungrateful wretch on earth. His baseness would ruin his kind parents, himself, and all his friends.
Then he accused himself of having caused the destruction of Didymus's granddaughter. He would not have gone to Antyllus again had not his recent generosity bound him to him, but now he must atone--ay, atone. Then, as if completely crushed, he continued to mumble the word, "atone!" and for a time nothing more could be won from him.
Didymus, however, had the key to the last sentence. A few weeks before, Philotas and several other pupils of the rhetorician whose lectures in the museum he attended had been invited to breakfast with Antyllus. When the young student loudly admired the beautiful gold and silver beakers in which the wine was served, the reckless host cried: "They are yours; take them with you." When the guests departed the cup-bearer asked Philotas, who had been far from taking the gift seriously, to receive his property. Antyllus had intended to bestow the goblets; but he advised the youth to let him pay their value in money, for among them were several ancient pieces of most artistic workmanship, which Antony, the extravagant young fellow's father, might perhaps be unwilling to lose.
Thereupon several rolls of gold _solidi_ were paid to the astonished student--and they had been of little real benefit, since they had made it possible for him to keep pace with his wealthy and aristocratic classmates and share many of their extravagances. Yet he had not ceased to fulfil his duty to Didymus.
Though he sometimes turned night into day, he gave no serious cause for reproof. Small youthful errors were willingly pardoned; for he was a good-looking, merry young fellow, who knew how to make himself agreeable to the entire household, even to the women.
What had befallen the poor youth that day? Didymus was filled with compassion for him, and, though he gladly welcomed Gorgias, he gave him to understand that the leech's absence vexed him.
But, during a long bachelor career in Alexandria, a city ever gracious to the gifts of Bacchus, Gorgias had become familiar with attacks like those of Philotas and their treatment, and after several jars of water had been brought and he had been left alone a short time with the sufferer, the philosopher secretly rejoiced that he had not summoned the grey-haired leech into the stormy night for Gorgias led forth his pupil with dripping hair, it is true, but in a state of rapid convalescence.
The youth's handsome face was freed from soot, but his eyes were bent in confusion on the ground, and he sometimes pressed his hand upon his aching brow. It needed all the old philosopher's skill in persuasion to induce him to speak, and Philotas, before he began, begged Helena to leave the room.
He intended to adhere strictly to the truth, though he feared that the reckless deed into which he had suffered himself to be drawn might have a fatal effect upon his future life.
Besides, he hoped to obtain wise counsel from the architect, to whom he owed his speedy recovery, and whose grave, kindly manner inspired him with confidence; and, moreover, he was so greatly indebted to Didymus that duty required him to make a frank confession--yet he dared not acknowledge one of the principal motives of his foolish act.
The plot into which he had been led was directed against Barine, whom he had long imagined he loved with all the fervour of his twenty years. But, just before he went to the fatal banquet, he had heard that the young beauty was betrothed to Dion. This had wounded him deeply; for in many a quiet hour it had seemed possible to win her for himself and lead her as his wife to his home in Amphissa. He was very little younger than she, and if his parents once saw her, they could not fail to approve his choice. And the people in Amphissa! They would have gazed at Barine as if she were a goddess.
And now this fine gentleman had come to crush his fairest hopes. No word of love had ever been exchanged between him and Barine, but how kindly she had always looked at him, how willingly she had accepted trivial services! Now she was lost.
At first this had merely saddened him, but after he had drunk the wine, and Antyllus, Antony's son, in the presence of the revellers, over whom Cæsarion presided as "symposiarch"* had accused Barine of capturing hearts by magic spells, he had arrived at the conviction that he, too, had been shamefully allured and betrayed.
[* Director of a banquet.]
He had served for a toy, he said to himself, unless she had really loved him and merely preferred Dion on account of his wealth. In any case, he felt justified in cherishing resentment against Barine, and with the number of goblets which he drained his jealous rage increased.
When urged to join in the escapade which now burdened his conscience he consented with a burning brain in order to punish her for the wrong which, in his heated imagination, she had done him.
All this he withheld from the older men and merely briefly described the splendid banquet which Cæsarion, pallid and listless as ever, had directed, and Antyllus especially had enlivened with the most reckless mirth.
The "King of kings" and Antony's son had escaped from their tutors on the pretext of a hunting excursion, and the chief huntsman had not grudged them the pleasure--only they were obliged to promise him that they would be ready to set out for the desert early the next morning.
When, after the banquet, the mixing-vessels were brought out and the beakers were filled more rapidly, Antyllus whispered several times to Cæsarion and then turned the conversation upon Barine, the fairest of the fair, destined by the immortals for the greatest and highest of mankind. This was the "King of kings," Cæsarion, and he also claimed the favour of the gods for himself. But everybody knew that Aphrodite deemed herself greater than the highest of kings, and therefore Barine ventured to close her doors upon their august symposiarch in a manner which could not fail to be unendurable, not only to him but to all the youth of Alexandria. Whoever boasted of being one of the Ephebi might well clench his fist with indignation, when he heard that the insolent beauty kept young men at a distance because she considered only the older ones worthy of her notice. This must not be! The Ephebi of Alexandria must make her feel the power of youth. This was the more urgently demanded, because Cæsarion would thereby be led to the goal of his wishes.
Barine was going into the country that very evening. Insulted Eros himself was smoothing their way. He commanded them to attack the arrogant fair one's carriage and lead her to him who sought her in the name of youth, in order to show her that the hearts of the Ephebi, whom she disdainfully rejected, glowed more ardently than those of the older men on whom she bestowed her favours.
Here Gorgias interrupted the speaker with a loud cry of indignation, but old Didymus's eyes seemed to be fairly starting from their sockets as he hoarsely shouted an impatient-- "Go on!"
And Philotas, now completely sobered, described with increasing animation the wonderful change that had taken place in the quiet Cæsarion, as if some magic spell had been at work; for scarcely had the revellers greeted Antyllus's words with shouts of joy, declaring themselves ready to avenge insulted youth upon Barine, than the "King of kings" suddenly sprang from the cushions on which he had listlessly reclined, and with flashing eyes shouted that whoever called himself his friend must aid him in the attack.
Here he was urged to still greater haste by another impatient "Go on!" from his master, and hurriedly continued his story, describing how they had blackened their faces and armed themselves with Antyllus's swords and lances. As the sun was setting they went in a covered boat through the Agathodæmon Canal to Lake Mareotis. Everything must have been arranged in advance; for they landed precisely at the right hour.
As, during the trip, they had kept up their courage by swallowing the most fiery wine, Philotas had staggered on shore with difficulty and then been dragged forward by the others. After this he knew nothing more, except that he had rushed with the rest upon a large _harmamaxa_, and in so doing fell. When he rose from the earth all was over.
As if in a dream he saw Scythians and other guardians of the peace seize Antyllus, while Cæsarion was struggling on the ground with another man. If he was not mistaken it was Dion, Barine's betrothed husband.
These communications were interrupted by many exclamations of impatience and wrath; but now Didymus, fairly frantic with alarm, cried: "And the child--Barine?"
But when Philotas's sole reply to this question was a silent shake of the head, indignation conquered the old philosopher, and clutching his pupil's _chiton_ with both hands, he shook him violently, exclaiming furiously: "You don't know, scoundrel? Instead of defending her who should be dear to you as a child of this household, you joined the rascally scorners of morality and law as the accomplice of this waylayer in purple!"
Here the architect soothed the enraged old man with expostulations, and the assertion that everything must now yield to the necessity of searching for Barine and Dion. He did not know which way to turn, in the amount of labour pressing upon him, but he would have a hasty talk with the foreman and then try to find his friend.
"And I," cried the old man, "must go at once to the unfortunate child. --My cloak, Phryx, my sandals!"
In spite of Gorgias's counsel to remember his age and the inclement weather, he cried angrily: "I am going, I say! If the tempest hurls me to the earth, and the bolts of Zeus strike me, so be it. One misfortune more or less matters little in a life which has been a chain of heavy blows of Fate. I buried three sons in the prime of manhood, and two have been slain in battle. Barine, the joy of my heart, I myself, fool that I was, bound to the scoundrel who blasted her joyous existence; and now that I believed she would be protected from trouble and misconstruction by the side of a worthy husband, these infamous rascals, whose birth protects them from vengeance, have wounded, perhaps killed her betrothed lover. They trample in the dust her fair name and my white hair! --Phryx, my hat and staff."
The storm had long been raging around the house, which stood close by the sea, and the sailcloth awning which was stretched over the impluvium noisily rattled the metal rings that confined it. Now so violent a gust swept from room to room that two of the flames in the three-branched lamp went out. The door of the house had been opened, and drenched with rain, a hood drawn over his black head, Barine's Nubian doorkeeper crossed the threshold.
He presented a pitiable spectacle and at first could find no answer to the greetings and questions of the men, who had been joined by Helena, her grandmother leaning on her arm; his rapid walk against the fury of the storm had fairly taken away his breath.
He had little, however, to tell. Barine merely sent a message to her relatives that, no matter what tales rumour might bring, she and her mother were unhurt. Dion had received a wound in the shoulder, but it was not serious. Her grandparents need have no anxiety; the attack had completely failed.
Doris, who was deaf, had listened vainly, holding her hand to her ear, to catch this report; and Didymus now told his granddaughter as much as he deemed it advisable for her to know, that she might communicate it to her grandmother, who understood the movements of her lips.
The old man was rejoiced to learn that his granddaughter had escaped so great a peril uninjured, yet he was still burdened by sore anxiety. The architect, too, feared the worst, but by dint of assuring him that he would return at once with full details when he had ascertained the fate of Dion and his betrothed bride, he finally persuaded the old man to give up the night walk through the tempest.
Philotas, with tears in his eyes, begged them to accept his services as messenger or for any other purpose; but Didymus ordered him to go to bed. An opportunity would be found to enable him to atone for the offence so recklessly committed.
The scholar's peaceful home was deprived of its nocturnal repose, and when Gorgias had gone and Didymus had refused Helena's request to have the aged porter take her to her sister, the old man remained alone with his wife in the tablinum.
She had been told nothing except that thieves had attacked her granddaughter, Barine, and slightly wounded her lover; but her own heart and the manner of the husband, at whose side she had grown grey, showed that many things were being concealed. She longed to know the story more fully, but it was difficult for Didymus to talk a long time in a loud tone, so she silenced her desire to learn the whole truth. But, in order to await the architect's report, they did not go to rest.
Didymus had sunk into an armchair, and Doris sat near at her spindle, but without drawing any threads from her distaff. When she heard her husband sigh and saw him bury his face in his hands, she limped nearer to him, difficult as it was for her to move, and stroked his head, now nearly bald, with her hand. Then she uttered soothing words, and, as the anxious, troubled expression did not yet pass from his wrinkled face, she reminded him in faltering yet tender tones how often they had thought they must despair, and yet everything had resulted well.
"Ah! husband," she added, "I know full well that the clouds hanging over us are very black, and I cannot even see them clearly, because you show them at such a distance. Yet I feel that they threaten us with sore tribulation. But, after all, what harm can they do us, if we only keep close together, we two old people and the children of the children whom Hades rent from us? We need only to grow old to perceive that life has a head with many faces. The ugly one of to-day can last no longer than you can keep that deeply furrowed brow. But you need not coerce yourself for my sake, husband. Let it be so. I need merely close my eyes to see how smooth and beautiful it was in youth, and how pleasant it will look when better days say, 'Here we are!'"
Didymus, with a mournful smile, kissed her grey hair and shouted into her left ear, which was a little less deaf than the other: "How young you are still, wife!"
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{
"id": "5482"
}
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10
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The tempest swept howling from the north across the island of Pharos, and the shallows of Diabathra in the great harbour of Alexandria. The water, usually so placid, rose in high waves, and the beacon on the lighthouse of Sastratus sent the rent abundance of its flames with hostile impetuosity towards the city. The fires in the pitch-pans and the torches on the shore sometimes seemed on the point of being extinguished, at others burst with a doubly brilliant blaze through the smoke which obscured them.
The royal harbour, a fine basin which surrounded in the form of a semicircle the southern part of the Lochias and a portion of the northern shore of the Bruchium, was brightly illuminated every night; but this evening there seemed to be an unusual movement among the lights on its western shore, the private anchorage of the royal fleet.
Was it the storm that stirred them? No. How could the wind have set one torch in the place of another, and moved lights or lanterns in a direction opposite to its violent course? Only a few persons, however, perceived this; for, though joyous anticipation or anxious fears urged many thither, who would venture upon the quay on such a tempestuous night? Besides, no one would have found admittance to the royal port, which was closed on all sides. Even the mole which, towards the west, served as the string to the bow of land surrounding it, had but a single opening and--as every one knew--that was closed by a chain in the same way as the main entrance to the harbour between the Pharos and Alveus Steganus.
About two hours before midnight, spite of the increasing fury of the tempest, the singular movement of the lights diminished, but rarely had the hearts of those for whom they burned throbbed so anxiously. These were the dignitaries and court officials who stood nearest to Cleopatra--about twenty men and a single woman, Iras. Mardion and she had summoned them because the Queen's letter permitted those to whom she had given authority to offer her a quiet reception. After a long consultation they had not invited the commanders of the little Roman garrison left behind. It was doubtful whether those whom they expected would return that night, and the Roman soldiers who were loyal to Antony had gone with him to the war.
The hall in the centre of the private roadstead of the royal harbour, where they had assembled, was furnished with regal magnificence; for it was a favourite resort of the Queen. The spacious apartment lacked no requisite of comfort, and most of those who were waiting used the well-cushioned couches, while others, harassed by mental anxiety, paced to and fro.
As the room had remained unused for months, bats had made nests there, and now that it was lighted, dazzled by the glare of the lamps and candles, they darted to and fro above the heads of the assembly. Iras had ordered the commander of the Mellakes, or youths, a body-guard composed of the sons of aristocratic Macedonian families, to expel the troublesome creatures, and it diverted the thoughts of these devoted soldiers of the Queen to strike at them with their swords.
Others preferred to watch this futile battle rather than give themselves up to the anxiety which filled their minds. The Regent was gazing mutely at the ground; Iras, pale and absent-minded, was listening to Zeno's statements; and Archibius had gone out of doors, and, unheeding the storm, was looking across the tossing waves of the harbour for the expected ships.
In a wooden shed, whose roof was supported by gaily painted pillars, through which the wind whistled, the servants, from the porters to the litter-bearers, had gathered in groups under the flickering light of the lanterns. The Greeks sat on wooden stools, the Egyptians upon mats on the floor. The largest circle contained the parties who attended to the Queen's luggage and the upper servants, among whom were several maids.
They had been told that the Queen was expected that night, because it was possible that the strong north wind would bear her ship home with unexpected speed after the victory. But they were better informed: palaces have chinks in doors and curtains, and are pervaded by a very peculiar echo which bears even a whisper distinctly from ear to ear.
The body-slave of the commander-in-chief Seleukus was the principal spokesman. His master had reached Alexandria but a few hours ago from the frontier fortress of Pelusium, which he commanded. A mysterious order from Lucilius, Antony's most faithful friend, brought from Tænarum by a swift galley, had summoned him hither.
The freedman Beryllus, a loquacious Sicilian, who, as an actor, had seen better days ere pirates robbed him of his liberty, had heard many new things, and his hearers listened eagerly; for ships coming from the north, which touched at Pelusium, had confirmed and completed the evil tidings that had penetrated the Sebasteum.
According to his story, he was as well informed as if he had been an eye-witness of the naval battle; for he had been present during his master's conversation with many ship-captains and messengers from Greece. He even assumed the air of a loyal, strictly silent servant, who would only venture to confirm and deny what the Alexandrians had already learned. Yet his knowledge consisted merely of a confused medley of false and true occurrences. While the Egyptian fleet had been defeated at Actium, and Antony, flying with Cleopatra, had gone first to Tænarum at the end of the Peloponnesian coast, he asserted that the army and fleet had met on the Peloponnesian coast and Octavianus was pursuing Antony, who had turned towards Athens, while Cleopatra was on her way to Alexandria.
His "trustworthy intelligence" had been patched together from a few words caught from Seleukus at table, or while receiving and dismissing messengers. In other matters his information was more accurate.
While for several days the harbour of Alexandria had been closed, vessels were permitted to enter Pelusium, and all captains of newly arrived ships and caravans were compelled to report to Beryllus's master, the commandant of the important frontier fortress.
He had quitted Pelusium the night before. The strong wind had driven the trireme before it so swiftly that it was difficult for even the sea gulls to follow. It was easy for the listeners to believe this; for the storm outside howled louder and louder, whistling through the open hall where the servants had gathered. Most of the lamps and torches had been blown out, the pitch-pans only sent forth still blacker clouds of smoke, lit by red and yellow flames, and the closed lanterns alone continued to diffuse a flickering light. So the wide space, dim with smoke, was illumined only by a dull, varying glimmer.
One of the porters had furnished wine to shorten the hours of waiting; but it could only be drunk in secret, so there were no goblets. The jars wandered from mouth to mouth, and every sip was welcome, for the wind blew keenly, and besides, the smoke irritated their throats.
The freedman, Beryllus, was often interrupted by paroxysms of coughing, especially from the women, while relating the evil omens which were told to his master in Pelusium. Each was well authenticated and surpassed its predecessor in significance.
Here one of Iras's maids interrupted him to tell the story of the swallows on the "Antonius," Cleopatra's admiral galley. He could scarcely report from Pelusium an omen of darker presage.
But Beryllus gazed at her with a pitying smile, which so roused the expectations of the others that the overseer of the litter and baggage porters, who were talking loudly together, hoarsely shouted, "Silence!"
Soon no sound was heard in the open space save the shrill whistling of the wind, a word of command to the harbour-guards, and the freedman's voice, which he lowered to increase the charm of the mysterious events he was describing.
He began with the most fulsome praise of Cleopatra and Antony, reminding his hearers that the Imperator was a descendant of Herakles. The Alexandrians especially were aware that their Queen and Antony claimed and desired to be called "The new Isis" and "The new Dionysus." But every one who beheld the Roman must admit that in face and figure he resembled a god far more than a man.
The Imperator had appeared as Dionysus, especially to the Athenians. In the proscenium of the theatre in that city was a huge bas-relief of the Battle of the Giants, the famous work of an ancient sculptor--he, Beryllus, had seen it--and from amid the numerous figures in this piece of sculpture the tempest had torn but a single one--which? Dionysus, the god as whose mortal image Antony had once caroused in a vine-clad arbour in the presence of the Athenians. The storm to-night was at the utmost like the breath of a child, compared with the hurricane which could wrest from the hard marble the form of Dionysus. But Nature gathers all her forces when she desires to announce to short-sighted mortals the approach of events which are to shake the world.
The last words were quoted from his master who had studied in Athens. They had escaped from his burdened soul when he heard of another portent, of which a ship from Ostia had brought tidings. The flourishing city Pisaura---- Here, however, he was interrupted, for several of those present had learned, weeks before, that this place had sunk in the sea, but merely pitied the unfortunate inhabitants.
Beryllus quietly permitted them to free themselves from the suspicion that people in Alexandria had had tidings of so remarkable an event later than those in Pelusium, and at first answered their query what this had to do with the war merely by a shrug of the shoulders; but when the overseer of the porters also put the question, he went on "The omen made a specially deep impression upon our minds, for we know what Pisaura is, or rather how it came into existence. The hapless city which dark Hades ingulfed really belonged to Antony, for in the days of its prosperity he was its founder."
He measured the group with a defiant glance, and there was no lack of evidences of horror; nay, one of the maid-servants shrieked aloud, for the storm had just snatched a torch from the iron rings in the wall and hurled it on the floor close beside the listener.
Suspense seemed to have reached its height. Yet it was evident that Beryllus had not yet drawn his last arrow from the quiver.
The maid-servant, whose scream had startled the others, had regained her composure and seemed eager to hear some other new and terrible omen, for, with a beseeching glance, she begged the freedman not to withhold the other things he knew.
He pointed to the drops of perspiration which, spite of the wind sweeping through the hall, covered her brow: "You must use your handkerchief. Merely listening to my tale will dampen your skin. Stone statues are made of harder material, but a soul dwells within them too. Their natures may be harsher or more gentle; they bring us woe or heal heavy sorrows, according to their mood. Every one learns this who raises his hands to them in prayer. One of these statues stands in Alba. It represents Mark Antony, in whose honour it was erected by the city. And it foresaw what menaced the man whose stone double it is. Ay, open your ears! About four days ago a ship's captain came to my master and in my presence this man reported--he grew as pale as ashes while he spoke--what he himself had witnessed. Drops of perspiration had oozed from the statue of Antony in Alba. Horror seized all the citizens; men and women came to wipe the brow and cheeks of the statue, but the drops of perspiration did not cease to drip, and this continued several days and nights. The stone image had felt what was impending over the living Mark Antony. It was a horrible spectacle, the man said."
Here the speaker paused, and the group of listeners started, for the clang of a gong was heard outside, and the next instant all were on their feet hastening to their posts.
The officials in the magnificent hall had also risen. Here the silence had been interrupted only by low whispers. The colour had faded from most of the grave, anxious faces, and their timid glances shunned one another.
Archibius had first perceived, by the flames of the Pharos, the red glimmer which announced the approach of the royal galley. It had not been expected so early, but was already passing the islands into the great harbour. It was probably the Antonius, the ship on which the old swallows had pecked the young ones to death.
Though the waves were running high, even in the sheltered harbour, they scarcely rocked the massive vessel. An experienced pilot must have steered it past the shallows and cliffs on the eastern side of the roadstead, for instead of passing around the island of Antirrhodus as usual, it kept between the island and the Lochias, steering straight towards the entrance into the little royal harbour. The pitch-pans on both sides had been filled with fresh resin and tow to light the way. The watchers on the shore could now see its outlines distinctly.
It was the Antonius, and yet it was not.
Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, who was standing beside Iras, wrapped his cloak closer around his shivering limbs, pointed to it, and whispered, "Like a woman who leaves her parents' house in the rich array of a bride, and returns to it an impoverished widow."
Iras drew herself up, and with cutting harshness replied, "Like the sun veiled by mists, but which will soon shine forth again more radiantly than ever."
"Spoken from the depths of my soul," said the old courtier eagerly, "so far as the Queen is concerned. Of course, I did not allude to her Majesty, but to the ship. You were ill when it left the harbour, garlanded with flowers and adorned with purple sails. And now! Even this flickering light shows the wounds and rents. I am the last person whom you need tell that our sun Cleopatra will soon regain its old radiance, but at present it is very chilly and cold here by the water's edge in this stormy air; and when I think of our first moment of meeting----" "Would it were over!" murmured Iras, wrapping herself closer in her cloak. Then she drew back shivering, for the rattle of the heavy chain, which was drawn aside from the opening of the harbour, echoed with an uncanny sound through the silence of the night. A mountain seemed to weigh upon the watchers' breasts, for the wooden monster which now entered the little harbour moved forward as slowly and silently as a spectral ship. It seemed as if life were extinct on the huge galley usually swarming with a numerous crew; as if a vessel were about to cast anchor whose sailors had fallen victims to the plague. Nothing was heard save an occasional word of command, and the signal whistles of the fluteplayer who directed the rowers. A few lanterns burned with a wavering light on the vast length of her decks. The brilliant illumination which usually shone through the darkness would have attracted the attention of the Alexandrians.
Now it was close to the landing. The group on shore watched every inch of its majestic progress with breathless suspense, but when the first rope was flung to the slaves on shore several men in Greek robes pressed forward hurriedly among the courtiers.
They had come with a message, whose importance would permit no delay, to the Regent Mardion, who stood between Zeno and Iras, gazing gloomily at the ground with a frowning brow. He was pondering over the words in which to address the Queen, and within a few minutes the ship would have made her landing, and Cleopatra might cross the bridge. To disturb him at that moment was an undertaking few who knew the irritable, uncertain temper of the eunuch would care to risk. But the tall Macedonian, who for a short time attracted the eyes of most of the spectators from the galley, ventured to do so. It was the captain of the nightwatch, the aristocratic commander of the police force of the city.
"Only a word, my lord," he whispered to the Regent, "though the time may be inopportune."
"As inopportune as possible," replied the eunuch with repellent harshness.
"We will say as inopportune as the degree of haste necessary for its decision. The King Cæsarion, with Antyllus and several companions, attacked a woman. Blackened faces. A fight. Cæsarion and the woman's companion--an aristocrat, member of the Council--slightly wounded. Lictors interfered just in time. The young gentlemen were arrested. At first they refused to give their names----" "Cæsarion slightly, _really_ only slightly wounded?" asked the eunuch with eager haste.
"Really and positively. Olympus was summoned at once. A knock on the head. The man who was attacked flung him on the pavement in the struggle."
"Dion, the son of Eumenes, is the man," interrupted Iras, whose quick ear had caught the officer's report. "The woman--is Barine, the daughter of the artist Leonax."
"Then you know already?" asked the Macedonian in surprise.
"So it seems," answered Mardion, gazing into the girl's face with a significant glance. Then, turning to her rather than to the Macedonian, he added, "I think we will have the young rascals set free and brought to Lochias with as little publicity as possible."
"To the palace?" asked the Macedonian.
"Of course," replied Iras firmly. "Each to his own apartments, where they must remain until further orders."
"Everything else must be deferred until after the reception," added the eunuch, and the Macedonian, with a slight, haughty nod, drew back.
"Another misfortune," sighed the eunuch.
"A boyish prank," Iras answered quickly, "but even a still greater misfortune is less than nothing so long as we are not conscious of it. This unpleasant occurrence must be concealed for the present from the Queen. Up to this time it is a vexation, nothing more--and it can and must remain so; for we have it in our power to uproot the poisonous tree whence it emanates."
"You look as if no one could better perform the task," the Regent interrupted, with a side glance at the galley, "so you shall have the commission. It is the last one I shall give, during the Queen's absence, in her name."
"I shall not fail," she answered firmly.
When Iras again looked towards the landing-place she saw Archibius standing alone, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Impulse prompted her to tell her uncle what had happened; but at the first step she paused, and her thin lips uttered a firm "No."
Her friend had become a stone in her path. If necessary, she would find means to thrust him also aside, spite of his sister Charmian and the old tie which united him to Cleopatra. He had grown weak, Charmian had always been so.
She would have had time enough now to consider what step to take first, had not her heart ached so sorely.
After the huge galley lay moored, several minutes elapsed ere two _pastophori_ of the goddess Isis, who guarded the goblet of Nektanebus, taken from the temple treasures and borne along in a painted chest, stepped upon the bridge, followed by Cleopatra's first chamberlain, who in a low tone announced the approach of the Queen and commanded the waiting groups to make way. A double line of torch-bearers had been stationed from the landing to the gate leading into the Bruchium, and the other on the north, which was the entrance to the palaces on the Lochias, since it was not known where Cleopatra would desire to go. The chamberlain, however, said that she would spend the night at Lochias, where the children lived, and ordered all the flickering, smoking torches, save a few, to be extinguished.
Mardion, the Keeper of the Seal, Archibius, and Iras were standing by the bridge a little in advance of the others, when voices were heard on the ship, and the Queen appeared, preceded by several lantern-bearers and followed by a numerous train of court officials, pages, maids, and female slaves. Cleopatra's little hand rested on Charmian's arm, as, with a haughty carriage of the head, she moved towards the shore. A thick veil covered her face, and a large, dark cloak concealed her figure. How elastic her step was still! how proud yet graceful was the gesture with which she waved a greeting to Mardion and Zeno!
Extending her hand to raise Iras, who had sunk prostrate before her, she kissed her on the forehead, whispering, "The children?"
"All is well with them," replied the girl.
Then the returning sovereign greeted the others with a gracious gesture, but vouchsafed a word to no one until the eunuch stepped before her to deliver his address of welcome. She motioned him aside with a curt "Later"; and when Zeno held open the door of the litter, she said in a stifled tone: "I will walk. After the rocking of the galley in this tempest, I feel reluctant to enter the litter. There are many things to be considered to-day. An idea came to me on the way home. Summon the captain of the harbour and his chief counsellors, the heads of the war office, the superintendent of the fortifications on land and water, especially the Aristarch and Gorgias--I want to see them. Time presses. They must be here in two hours--no, in an hour and a half. I wish to examine all their plans and charts of the eastern frontier, especially the river channels and canals in the Delta."
Then she turned to Archibius, who had approached the litter, laid her hand upon his arm, and though her veil prevented him from seeing her sparkling eyes, he felt them shining deep into his heart, as the voice whose melody had often enthralled his soul cried, "We will take it as a favourable omen that it is again _you_ who lead me to this palace in a time of trouble."
His overflowing heart found expression in the warm reply, "Whenever it may be, forever and ever this arm and this life are yours!" And the Queen answered in a tone of earnest belief, "I know it."
Then, with her hand still resting on his arm, she moved forward; but when he began to ask whether she really had cause to speak of a time of trouble, she cut him short with the entreaty "Not now. Let us say nothing. It is worse than bad--as evil as possible. Yet no. Few are permitted, in an hour of trouble, to lean on the arm of a faithful friend."
The words were accompanied with a light pressure of her little hand, and it seemed as if his old heart was growing young.
He dared not speak, for her wish was law; but while moving silently at her side, first along the shore, then through the gate, and finally over the marble flagstones which led to the palace portal, it seemed as if he beheld, instead of the veiled head of the hapless Queen, the soft, light-brown locks which floated around the face of a happy child. Before his mental vision rose the little mistress of the garden of Epicurus. He saw the sparkle of her large blue eyes, which never ceased to question, yet appeared to contain the mystery of the world. He fancied he heard once more the silvery cadence of her voice and the bewitching magic of her pure, childlike laughter, and it was hard to remember what she had become.
Snatched away from the present, yet conscious that Fate had granted him a great boon in this sorrowful hour, he moved on at her side and led her through the main entrance, the spacious inner court-yard of the palace. At the rear was the great door opening into the Queen's apartments, before which Mardion, Iras, and their companions had already stationed themselves. At the left was a smaller one leading into the wing occupied by the children.
Archibius was about to conduct Cleopatra across the lighted court-yard, but she motioned towards the children's rooms, and he understood her.
At the threshold her hand fell from his arm, and when he bowed as if to retire, she said kindly: "There is Charmian. You both deserve to accompany me to the spot where childhood is dreaming and peace of mind and painlessness have their abode. But respect for the Queen has prevented the brother and sister from greeting each other after so long a separation. Do so now! Then, follow me."
While speaking, she hastened with the swift step of youth into the atrium and up the staircase which led to the sleeping-rooms of the princes and princesses.
Archibius and Charmian obeyed her bidding; the brother clasped his sister affectionately in his arms, and in hurried tones, with tears streaming from her eyes, she informed him that to her all seemed lost.
Antony had behaved in a manner for which no words of condemnation or regret were adequate. Probably he would follow Cleopatra; the fleet, and perhaps the army also, were destroyed. Her fate lay in the hands of Octavianus.
Then she preceded him towards the staircase, where Iras was standing with a tall Syrian, who bore a striking resemblance to Philostratus, Barine's former husband. It was his brother Alexas, the trusted favourite of Mark Antony. His place should now have been with him, and Archibius asked his sister with a hasty look how this man chanced to be in the Queen's train.
"His skill in reading the stars," was the reply. "His flattering tongue. He is a parasite of the worst kind, but he tells her many things, he diverts her, and she tolerates him near her person."
As soon as Iras saw the direction in which Cleopatra had turned, she had hastened after her to accompany her to the children. The Syrian Alexas had stopped her to express his joy in meeting her again. Even before the outbreak of the war he had devoted himself zealously to her, and he now plainly showed that during the long period of separation his feelings had by no means cooled. Like his brother, he had a head too small for his body, but his well-formed features were animated by a pair of eyes sparkling with a keen, covetous expression.
Iras, too, seemed glad to welcome the favourite, but ere the brother and sister reached the staircase she left him to embrace Charmian, her aunt and companion, with the affection of a daughter.
They found the Queen in the anteroom of the children's apartments. Euphronion, their tutor, had awaited her there, and hurriedly gave, in the most rapturous terms, his report of them and the wonderful gifts which became more and more apparent in each, now as a heritage from their mother, now from their father.
Cleopatra had interrupted the torrent of his enthusiastic speech with many a question, meanwhile endeavouring to loose the veil wound about her head; but the little hands, unaccustomed to the task, failed. Iras noticed it from the stairs and, hastening up the last steps, skilfully released her from the long web of lace.
The Queen acknowledged the service by a gracious nod, but when the chief eunuch opened the door leading into the children's rooms, she called joyously to the brother and sister, "Come!" The tutor, who was obliged to leave the charge of his pupils' sleeping apartments to the eunuchs and nurses, drew back, but Iras felt it a bitter affront to be excluded from this visit. Her cheeks flushed and paled; her thin lips were more firmly compressed, and she gazed intently at the basket of fruit in the mosaic floor at her feet as if she were counting the cherries that filled it. But she suddenly pushed the little curls back from her forehead, darted swiftly down the stairs, and called to Alexas just as he was about to leave the atrium.
The Syrian hastened towards her, extolling the good fortune that made his sun rise for him a second time that night, but she cut him short with the words: "Cease this foolish love-making. It would be far better for us both to become allies in serious, bitter earnest. I am ready."
"So am I!" cried the Syrian rapturously, pressing his hand upon his heart.
Meanwhile Cleopatra had entered the chamber where the children lay sleeping. Deep silence pervaded the lofty hall hung with bright-hued carpets, and softly lighted by three lamps with rose-colored globes. An arch, supported by pillars of Libyan marble, divided the wide space. In the first, near a window closely muffled with draperies, stood two ivory beds, surmounted with crowns of gold and silver set with pearls and turquoises. Around the edge, carved by the hands of a great artist, ran a line of happy children dancing to the songs of birds in blossoming bushes.
The couches were separated by a heavy curtain which the eunuchs had raised at the approach of the Queen. Cleopatra could now see them all at a single glance, and the picture was indeed one of exquisite charm; for on these beautiful couches slept the twins, the ten-year-old children of Cleopatra and Antony--Antonius Helios and Cleopatra Selene. The girl was pink and white, fair and wonderfully lovely; the boy no less beautiful, but with ebon-black hair, like his father. Both curly heads were turned towards the side, and rested on a dimpled hand pressed upon the silken pillow.
Upon a third bed, beyond the arch, was Alexander, the youngest prince, a lovely boy of six, the Queen's darling.
After gazing a long while at the twins, and pressing a light kiss upon cheeks flushed with slumber, she turned to the youngest child and sank beside his couch as if forced to bend the knee before some apparition which Heaven had vouchsafed to her. Tears streamed from her eyes as, drawing the child carefully towards her, she kissed his mouth, eyes, and cheeks, and then laid him gently back upon the pillows. The boy, however, did not instantly relapse into slumber, but threw his little plump arms around his mother's neck, murmuring incomprehensible words. She joyously submitted to his caresses, till sleep again overpowered him, and his little hands fell back upon the bed.
She lingered a short time longer, with her brow resting on the ivory of the couch, praying for this child and his brother and sister. When she rose again her cheeks were wet with tears, and she pressed her hand upon her breast. Then, beckoning to Charmian and Archibius, she motioned towards Alexander and the twins, saying, as she saw tears glittering in the eyes of both: "I know you have lost this happiness for my sake. For each one of these children a great empire would not be too high a price; for them all---- What does earth contain that I would not bestow? Yet what can I still call my own?"
Her smiling face clouded as she asked the question. The vision of the lost battle again rose before her mind. Her own power was lost, forfeited, and with it the independence of the native land which she loved. Rome was already stretching out her hand to add it to the others as a new province. But this should not be! Her twin children yonder, sleeping beneath crowns, must _wear_ them! And the boy slumbering on the pillows? How many kingdoms Antony had bestowed! What remained for her to give?
Again she bent to the child. A beautiful dream must have hovered over him, for he was smiling in his sleep. A flood of maternal love welled up in her agitated heart, and, as she saw the companions of her childhood also gazing tenderly at the little steeper, she remembered the days of her own youth, and the quiet happiness which she had enjoyed in her garden of Epicurus.
Power and splendour had begun for her beyond its confines, but the greater the heights of worldly grandeur she attained, the more distant, the more irrecoverable became the consciousness of the happiness which she had once gratefully enjoyed, and for which she had never ceased to long. And as she now gazed once more at the peaceful, smiling face, whence all pain and anxiety seemed worlds away, and all the love which her heart contained appeared to be pouring towards him, the question arose in her mind whether this boy, for whom she possessed no crown, might not be the only happy mortal of them all--happy in the sense of the master. Deeply moved by this thought, she turned to Archibius and Charmian, exclaiming in a subdued tone, in order not to rouse the sleeper: "Whatever destiny may await us, I commend this child to your special love and care. If Fate denies him the lustre of the crown and the elation of power, teach him to enjoy that other happiness, which--how long ago it is! --your father unfolded to his mother."
Archibius kissed her robe, and Charmian her hands; but Cleopatra, drawing a long breath, said: "The mother has already taken too much time from the Queen. I have ordered the news of my arrival to be kept from Cæsarion. This was well. The most important matters will be settled before our meeting. Everything relating to me and to the state must be decided within an hour. But, first, I am something more than mother and Queen. The woman also asserts her claim. I will find time for you, my friend, to-morrow! --To my chamber first, Charmian. But you need rest still more than I. Go with your brother. Send Iras to me. She will be glad to use her skilful fingers again in her mistress's service."
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The Queen had left her bath. Iras had arranged the still abundant waves of her hair, now dark-brown in hue, and robed her magnificently to receive the dignitaries whom, spite of the late hour of the night, she expected.
How wonderfully she had retained her beauty! It seemed as if Time had not ventured to touch this masterpiece of feminine loveliness; yet the Greek's keen eye detected here and there some token of the vanishing spell of youth. She loved her mistress, yet her inmost soul rejoiced whenever she detected in her the same changes which began to appear in herself, the woman of seven-and-twenty, so many years her sovereign's junior. She would gladly have given Cleopatra everything at her command, yet she felt as if she must praise Nature for an act of justice, when she perceived that even her royal favourite was not wholly relieved from the law which applied to all.
"Cease your flattery," said Cleopatra, smiling mournfully. "They say that the works of the Pharaohs here on the Nile flout Time. The inexorable destroyer is less willing to permit this from the Queen of Egypt. These are grey hairs, and they came from this head, however eagerly you may deny it. Whose save my own are these lines around the corners of the eyes and on the brow? What say you to the tooth which my lips do not hide so kindly as you assert? It was injured the night before the luckless battle. My dear, faithful, skilful Olympus, the prince of leeches, is the only one who can conceal such things. But it would not do to take the old man to the war, and Glaucus is far less adroit. How I missed Olympus during those fatal hours! I seemed a monster even to myself, and he--Antony's eye is only too keen for such matters. What _is_ the love of men? A blackened tooth may prove its destruction. An aspect obnoxious to the gaze will pour water on the fiercest fire. What hours I experienced, Iras! Many a glance from him seemed an insult, and, besides, my heart was filled with torturing anxiety.
"Something had evidently come between us! I felt it. The trouble began soon after he left Alexandria. It gnawed my soul like a worm, and now that I am here again I must see clearly. He will follow me in a few days, I know. Pinarius Scarpus, with his untouched legions, is in Parætonium, whither he went. At Tænarum he resolved to retire from the world which he, on whom it had bestowed so much that is great, hates because he has given it cause for many a shake of the head. But the old spirit woke again, and if Fortune, usually so faithful, still aids him, a large force will soon join the new African army. The Asiatic princes---- But the ruler of the state must be silent. I entered this room to give the woman her just rights, and the woman shall have them. He will soon be here. He cannot live without me. It is not alone the beaker of Nektanebus which draws him after me!"
"When the greatest of the great, Julius Cæsar, sued for your love in Alexandria, and Antony on the Cydnus, you did not possess the goblet," observed Iras. "It is two years since Anubis permitted you to borrow the masterpiece from the temple treasures, and within a few days you will be obliged to restore it. That a mysterious spell emanates from the cup is certain, but one still more powerful dwells in the magic of your own nature."
"Would that it might assert itself to-day!" cried the Queen. "At any rate the power of the beaker impelled Antony to do many things. I am not vain enough to believe that it was love, that it was solely the spell of my own personality which drew him to me in that disastrous hour. That battle, that incomprehensible, disgraceful battle! You were ill, and could not see our fleet when it set sail; but even experienced spectators said that handsomer, larger vessels were never beheld. I was right in insisting that the decision of the conflict should be left to them. I was entitled to call them mine. Had we conquered, what a proud delight it would have been to say, 'The weapons which you gave to the man you loved gained him the sovereignty of the world!' Besides, the stars had assured me that good fortune would attend us on the sea. They had given the same message to Anubis here and to Alexas upon Antony's galley. I also trusted the spell of the goblet, which had already compelled Antony to do many things he opposed. So I succeeded in having the decision of the conflict left to the fleet, but the prediction was false, false, false! --how utterly, was to be proved only too soon.
"If I had only been told in time what I learned later! After the defeat people were more loquacious. That one remark of a veteran commander of the foot-soldiers would probably have sufficed to open my eyes. He had asked Mark Antony why he fixed his hopes on miserable wood, exclaiming, 'Let the Phœnician's and Egyptians war on the water, but leave _us_ the land where we are accustomed, with our feet firmly set upon the earth, to fight, conquer, or die!' This alone, I am sure, would have changed my resolve in a happy hour. But it was kept from me.
"The conflict began. Our troops had lost patience. The left wing of the fleet advanced. At first I watched the battle eagerly, with a throbbing heart. How proudly the huge galleys moved forward! Everything was going admirably. Antony had made an address, assuring the warriors that, even without soldiers, our ships would destroy the foe by their mere height and size. What orator can so carry his hearers with him! I, too, was still fearless. Who cherishes anxiety when confidently expecting victory? When he went on board his own ship, after bidding me farewell far less cordially than usual, I became more troubled. I thought it was evident that his love was waning. What had I become since we left Alexandria, and Olympus no longer attended me! Matters could not continue in this way. I would leave the direction of the war to him, and vanish from his eyes. After he had looked into the beaker of Nektanebus, he yielded to my will, but often with indignation. The unconcealed, ineffaceable lines, and the years, the cruel years!"
"What thoughts are these?" cried Iras. "Let me take oath, my sovereign mistress, that as you stand before me----" "Thanks to this toilet-table and the new compounds of Olympus in these boxes! At that time, I tell you, I was fairly startled at the sight of my own face. Trouble does not enhance beauty, and what condemnation the Romans had heaped on the woman who meddled with war, the craft of man! I had answers for them, but I would not endure it longer. I had previously determined to hold aloof from the battle on land; but even at the commencement of the conflict, spite of its favourable promise, I longed to leave Antony and return to the children. They do not heed the colour of their mother's hair, nor her wrinkles; and he, when he had looked for and called me in vain, would feel for the first time what he possessed in me, would miss me, and with the longing the old love would awaken with fresh ardour. As soon as the fleet had gained the victory I would have the prow of my galley turned southward and, without a farewell, exclaiming only, 'We will meet in Alexandria!' set sail for Egypt.
"I summoned Alexas, who had remained with me, and ordered him to give me a signal as soon as the battle was decided in our favour. I remained on deck. Then I saw the ships of the foe describing a wide circle. The _nauarch_ told me that Agrippa was trying to surround us. This roused a feeling of discomfort. I began to repent having meddled with men's work.
"Antony looked across at me from his galley. I waved my hand to point out the peril, but instead of eagerly and lovingly answering the greeting, as of yore, he turned his back, and in a short time after the wildest uproar arose around me. One ship became entangled with another, planks and poles shattered with a loud crash. Shouts, the cries and moans of the combatants and the wounded, mingled with the thunder of the stones hurled by the catapults, and the sharp notes of the signals which sounded like calls for help. Two soldiers, stricken by arrows, fell beside me. It was horrible! Yet my courage remained steadfast, even when a squadron--it was commanded by Aruntius--pressed upon the fleet. I saw another line of galleys steering directly towards us, and a Roman vessel assailed by one of mine--I had named her the Selene--turn on her side and sink. This pleased me and seemed like the first presage of victory. I again ordered Alexas to have the ship's prow turned as soon as the result of the battle was decided. Ere I had ceased speaking, Jason, the steward--you know him--appeared with refreshments. I took the beaker, but, ere I could raise it to my lips, he fell to the deck with a cloven skull, mingling his blood with the spilled juice of the grape. My blood seemed fairly to freeze in my veins, and Alexas, trembling and deadly pale, asked, 'Do you command us to quit the battle?'
"Every fibre of my being urged me to give the order, but I controlled myself, and asked the _nauarch_, who was standing on the bridge before me, 'Are we gaining the advantage?' The reply was a positive 'Yes.' I thought the fitting time had come, and called to him to steer the galley southward. But the man did not seem to understand. Meanwhile the noise of the conflict had grown louder and louder. So, in spite of Charmian, who besought me not to interfere in the battle, I sent Alexas to the commander on the bridge, and while he talked with the grey-bearded seaman, who wrathfully answered I know not what, I glanced at the nearest ship--I no longer knew whether it was friend or foe--and as I saw the rows of restless oars moving in countless numbers to and fro, it seemed as if every ship had become a huge spider, and the long wooden handles of the oars were its legs and feet. Each of these monsters appeared to be seeking to snare me in a horrible net, and when the _nauarch_ came to beseech me to wait, I imperiously commanded him to obey my orders.
"The luckless man bowed, and performed his Queen's behest. The giant was turned, and forced a passage through the maze.
"I breathed more freely.
"What had threatened me like the legs of huge spiders became oars once more. Alexas led me under a roof, where no missiles could reach me. My desire was fulfilled. I had escaped Antony's eyes, and we were going towards Alexandria and my children. When I at last looked around I saw that my other ships were following. I had not given this order, and was terribly startled. When I sought Alexas, he had vanished. The centurion whom I sent to order the _nauarch_ to give the signal to the other ships to return to the battle, reported that the captain's dead body has just been borne away, but that the command should be given. How this was done I do not know, but it produced no effect, and no one noticed the anxious waving of my handkerchief.
"We had left Antony's galley--he was standing on the bridge--far behind.
"I had waved my hand as we passed close by, and he hurried down to bend far over the bulwark and shout to me. I can still see his hands raised to his bearded lips. I did not understand what he said, and only pointed southward and in spirit wished him victory and that this separation might tend to the welfare of our love. But he shook his head, pressed his hand despairingly to his brow, and waved his arms as though to give me a sign, but the Antonias swept far ahead of his ship and steered straight towards the south.
"I breathed more freely, in the pleasant consciousness of escaping a two-fold danger. Had I remained long before Antony's eyes, looking as I did then, it might---- "Wretched blunder of a wretched woman, I say now. But at that time I could not suspect what a terrible doom I had brought down in that hour upon ourselves, my children, perhaps the whole world; so I remained under the thrall of these petty fears and thoughts until wounded men were carried past me. The sight distressed me; you know how sensitive I am, and with what difficulty I endure and witness suffering.
"Charmian led me to the cabin. There I first realized what I had done. I had hoped to aid in crushing the hated foe, and now perhaps it was I who had built for him the bridge to victory, to sovereignty, to our destruction. Pursued by such thoughts, as if by the Furies, I paced restlessly to and fro.
"Suddenly I heard a loud noise on deck. A crashing blow seemed to shake the huge ship. We were pursued! A Roman galley had boarded mine! This was my thought as I grasped the dagger Antony had given me.
"But Charmian came back with tidings which seemed scarcely less terrible than the baseless fear. I had angrily commanded her to leave me because she had urged me to revoke the command to turn back. Now, deadly pale, she announced that Mark Antony had left his galley, followed me in a little five-oared boat, and come on board our ship.
"My blood froze in my veins.
"He had come, I imagined, to force me to return to the battle and, drawing a long breath, my defiant pride urged me to show him that I was the Queen and would obey only my own will, while my heart impelled me to sink at his feet and beseech him, without heeding me, to issue any order which promised to secure a victory.
"But he did not come.
"I sent Charmian up again. Antony had been unable to continue the conflict when parted from me. Now he sat in front of the cabin with his head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one distraught. He, he--Antony! The bravest horseman, the terror of the foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by the wolves. Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers, had flung down his sword. Why, why? Because a woman had yielded to idle fears, obeyed the yearning of a mother's heart, and fled? Of all human weaknesses, not one had been more alien than cowardice to the man whose recklessness had led him to many an unprecedented venture. And now? No, a thousand times no! Fire and water would unite sooner than Mark Antony and cowardice! He had been under the coercive power of a demon; a mysterious spell had forced him----."
"The mightiest power, love," interrupted Iras with enthusiastic warmth--"a love as great and overmastering as ever subjugated the soul of man."
"Ay, love," repeated Cleopatra, in a hollow tone. Then her lips curled with a faint tinge of derision, and her voice expressed the very bitterness of doubt, as she continued: "Had it been merely the love which makes two mortals one, transfers the heart of one to the other, it might perchance have borne my timorous soul into the hero's breast! But no. Violent tempests had raged before the battle. It had not been possible always to appear before him in the guise in which we would fain be seen by those whom we love. Even now, when your skilful hands have served me--there is the mirror--the image it reflects--seems to me like a carefully preserved wreck----" "O my royal mistress," cried Iras, raising her hands beseechingly, "must I again declare that neither the grey hairs which are again brown, nor the few lines which Olympus will soon render invisible, nor whatever else perhaps disturbs you in the image you behold reflected, impairs your beauty? Unclouded and secure of victory, the spell of your godlike nature----" "Cease, cease!" interrupted Cleopatra. "I know what I know. No mortal can escape the great eternal laws of Nature. As surely as birth commences life, everything that exists moves onward to destruction and decay."
"Yet the gods," Iras persisted, "give to their works different degrees of existence. The waterlily blooms but a single day, yet how full of vigour is the sycamore in the garden of the Paneum, which has flourished a thousand years! Not a petal in the blossoms of your youth has faded, and is it conceivable that there is even the slightest diminution in the love of him who cast away all that man holds dearest because he could not endure to part, even for days or weeks, from the woman whom he worshipped?"
"Would that he had done so!" cried Cleopatra mournfully. "But are you so sure that it was love which made him follow me? I am of a different opinion. True love does not paralyze, but doubles the high qualities of man. I learned this when Cæsar was prisoned by a greatly superior force within this very palace, his ships burned, his supply of water cut off. In him also, in Antony, I was permitted to witness this magnificent spectacle twenty--what do I say? --a hundred times, so long as he loved me with all the ardour of his fiery soul. But what happened at Actium? That shameful flight of the cooing dove after his mate, at which generations yet unborn will point in mockery! He who does not see more deeply will attribute to the foolish madness of love this wretched forgetfulness of duty, honour, fame, the present and the future; but I, Iras--and this is the thought which whitens one hair after another, which will speedily destroy the remnant of your mistress's former beauty by the exhaustion of sleepless nights--I know better. It was not love which drew Antony after me, not love that trampled in the dust the radiant image of reckless courage, not love that constrained the demigod to follow the pitiful track of a fugitive woman."
Here her voice fell, and seizing the girl's wrist with a painful pressure, she drew her closer to her side and whispered: "The goblet of Nektanebus is connected with it. Ay, tremble! The powers that emanate from the glittering wonder are as terrible as they are unnatural. The magic spell exerted by the beaker has transformed the heroic son of Herakles, the more than mortal, into the whimpering coward, the crushed, broken nonentity I found upon the galley's deck. You are silent? Your nimble tongue finds no reply. How could you have forgotten that you aided me to win the wager which forced Antony to gaze into the beaker before I filled it for him? How grateful I was to Anubis when he finally consented to trust to my care this marvel of the temple treasures, when the first trial succeeded, and Antony, at my bidding, placed the magnificent wreath which he wore upon the bald brow of that crabbed old follower of Aristoteles, Diomedes, whom he detested in his inmost soul! It was scarcely a year ago, and you know how rarely at first I used the power of the terrible vessel. The man whom I loved obeyed my slightest glance, without its aid. But later--before the battle--I felt how gladly he would have sent me, who might ruin all, back to Egypt. Besides, I felt--I have already said so--that something had come between us. Yet, often as he was on the point of sacrificing me to the importunate Romans, I need only bid him gaze into the beaker, and exclaim 'You will not send me hence. We belong together. Whither one goes, the other will follow!' and he besought me not to leave him. The very morning before the battle I gave him the drinking cup, urging him, whatever might happen, never, never to leave me. And he obeyed this time also, though the person to whom a magic spell bound him was a fleeing woman. It is terrible. And yet, have I a right to execrate the thrall of the beaker? Scarcely! For without the Magian's glittering vessel--a secret voice in my soul has whispered the warning a thousand times during the sleepless nights--he would have taken another on the galley. And I believe I know this other--I mean the woman whose singing enthralled my heart too at the Adonis festival just before our departure. I noticed the look with which his eyes sought hers. Now I know that it was not merely my old deceitful foe, jealousy, which warned me against her. Alexas, the most faithful of his friends, also confirmed what I merely feared--ah! and he told me other things which the stars had revealed to him. Besides, he knows the siren, for she was the wife of his own brother. To protect his honour, he cast off the coquettish Circe."
"Barine!" fell in resolute tones from the lips of Iras.
"So you know her?" asked Cleopatra, eagerly.
The girl raised her clasped hands beseechingly to the Queen, exclaiming: "I know this woman only too well, and how my heart rages against her! O my mistress, that I, too, should aid in darkening this hour! Yet it must be said. That Antony visited the singer, and even took his son there more than once, is known throughout the city. Yet that is not the worst. A Barine entering into rivalry with you! It would be too ridiculous. But what bounds can be set to the insatiate greed of these women? No rank, no age is sacred. It was dull in the absence of the court and the army. There were no men who seemed worth the trouble of catching, so she cast her net for boys, and the one most closely snared was the King Cæsarion."
"Cæsarion!" exclaimed Cleopatra, her pale cheeks flushing. "And his tutor Rhodon? My strict commands?"
"Antyllus secretly presented him to her," replied Iras. "But I kept my eyes open. The boy clung to the singer with insensate passion. The only expedient was to remove her from the city. Archibius aided me."
"Then I shall be spared sending her away."
"Nay, that must still be done; for, on the journey to the country Cæsarion, with several comrades, attacked her."
"And the reckless deed was successful?"
"No, my royal mistress. I wish it had been. A love-sick fool who accompanied her drew his sword in her defence, raised his hand against the son of Cæsar, and wounded him. Calm yourself, I beseech you, I conjure you--the wound is slight. The boy's mad passion makes me far more anxious."
The Queen's pouting scarlet lips closed so firmly that her mouth lost the winning charm which was peculiar to it, and she answered in a firm, resolute tone: "It is the mother's place to protect the son against the temptress. Alexas is right. Her star stands in the path of mine. A woman like this casts a deep shadow on her Queen's course. I will defend myself. It is she who has placed herself between us; she has won Antony. But no! Why should I blind myself? Time and the charms he steals from women are far more powerful than twenty such little temptresses. Then, there are the circumstances which prevented my concealing the defects that wounded the eyes of this most spoiled of all spoiled mortals. All these things aided the singer. I feel it. In her pursuit of men she had at her command all the means which aid us women to conceal what is unlovely and enhance what is beautiful in a lover's eyes, while I was at a disadvantage, lacking your aid and the long-tested skill of Olympus. The divinity on the ship, amid the raging of the storm, was forced more than once to appear before the worshipper ungarlanded, without ornament for the head, or incense."
"But though she used all the combined arts of Aphrodite and Isis, she could not vie with you, my royal mistress!" cried Iras. "How little is required to delude the senses of one scarcely more than a child!"
"Poor boy!" sighed the Queen, gently. "Had he not been wounded, and were it not so hard to resign what we love, I should rejoice that he, too, understands how to plan and act. Perhaps--O Iras, would that it might be so! --now that the gate is burst open, the brain and energy of the great Cæsar will enter his living image. As the Egyptians call Horus 'the avenger of his father,' perhaps he may become his mother's defender and avenger. If Cæsar's spirit wakes within him, he will wrest from the dissembler Octavianus the heritage of which the nephew robbed the son. You swear that the wound is but a slight one?"
"The physicians have said so."
"Well, then we will hope so. Let him enter the conflict of life. We will afford him ample opportunity to test his powers. No foolish passion shall prevent the convalescent youth from following his father upward along the pathway of fame. But send for the woman who ensnared him, the audacious charmer whose aspirations mount to those I hold dearest. We will see how she appears beside me!"
"These are grievous times," said Iras, who saw in amazement the Queen's eyes sparkle with the confident light of victory. "Grant your foot its right. Let it crush her! Monsters enough, on whom you cannot set your foot, throng your path. Hence to Hades, in these days of conflict, with all who can be quickly removed!"
"Murder?" asked Cleopatra, her noble brow contracting in a frown.
"If it must be, ay," replied Iras, sharply. "If possible, banishment to an island, an oasis. If necessity requires, to the mines with the siren!"
"If necessity requires?" repeated the Queen. "I think that means, if it proves that she has deserved the harshest punishment."
"She has brought it upon herself by every hour of my sovereign's life clouded through her wiles. In the mines the desire to set snares for husbands and sons soon vanishes."
"And people languish in the most terrible torture till death ends their suffering," added Cleopatra, in a tone of grave reproof. "No, girl, this victory is too easy. I will not send even my foe to death without a hearing, especially at this time, which teaches me what it is to await the verdict of one who is more powerful. This woman who, as it were, summons me to battle, shall have her wish. I am curious to see the singer again, and to learn the means by which she has succeeded in chaining to her triumphal car so many captives, from boys up to the most exacting men."
"What do you intend, my royal mistress?" cried Iras in horror.
"I intend," said Cleopatra imperiously, "to see the daughter of Leonax, the granddaughter of Didymus, two men whom I hold in high esteem, ere I decide her destiny. I wish to behold, test, and judge my rival, heart and mind, ere I condemn her. I will engage in the conflict to which she challenged the loving wife and mother! But--this is my right--I will compel her to show herself to me as Antony so often saw me during the past few weeks, unaided and unimproved by the arts which we both have at command."
Then, without paying any further heed to her attendant, she went to a window, and, after a swift glance at the sky, added quietly: "The first hour after midnight is drawing to a close. The council will begin immediately. The matter to be under discussion is a venture which might save much from the wreck. The council will last two hours, perchance only one. The singer can wait. Where does she live?"
"In the house which belonged to her father, the artist Leonax, in the garden of the Paneum," replied Iras hoarsely. "But, O my Queen, if ever my opinion had the slightest weight with you----" "I desire no counsel now, but demand the fulfilment of my orders!" cried Cleopatra resolutely. "As soon as those whom I expect are here----" The Queen was interrupted by a chamberlain, who announced the arrival of the men whom she had summoned, and Cleopatra bade him tell them that she was on her way to the council chamber. Then she turned again to Iras and in rapid words commanded her to go at once in a closed carriage, accompanied by a reliable person, to Barine's house. She must be brought to the palace without the least delay--Iras would understand--even if it should be necessary to rouse her from her sleep. "I wish to see her as if a storm had forced her suddenly upon the deck of a ship," she said in conclusion.
Then snatching a small tablet from the dressing-table, she scrawled upon the wax with a rapid hand: "Cleopatra, the Queen, desires to see Barine, the daughter of Leonax, without delay. She must obey any command of Iras, Cleopatra's messenger, and her companion."
Then, closing the diptychon, she handed it to her attendant, asking: "Whom will you take?"
She answered without hesitation, "Alexas."
"Very well," answered Cleopatra. "Do not allow her a moment for preparations, whatever they may be. But do not forget--I command you--that she is a woman."
With these words she turned to follow the chamberlain, but Iras hurried after her to adjust the diadem upon her head and arrange some of the folds of her robe.
Cleopatra submitted, saying kindly, "Something else, I see, is weighing on your heart."
"O my mistress!" cried the girl. "After these tempests of the soul, these harassing months, you are turning night into day and assuming fresh labours and anxieties. If the leech Olympus----" "It must be," interrupted Cleopatra kindly. "The last two weeks seemed like a single long and gloomy night, during which I sometimes left my couch for a few hours. One who seeks to drag what is dearest from the river does not consider whether the cold bath is agreeable. If we succumb, it does not matter whether we are well or ill; if, on the contrary, we succeed in gathering another army and saving Egypt, let it cost health and life. The minutes I intend to grant to the woman will be thrown into the bargain. Whatever may come, I shall be ready to meet my fate. I am at one of life's great turning points. At such a time we fulfil our obligations and demands, both great and small."
A few minutes later Cleopatra entered the throne-room and saluted the men whom she had roused from their slumber in order to lay before them a bold plan which, in the lowest depths of misfortune, her yearning to offer fresh resistance to the victorious foe had caused her vigorous, restless mind to evoke.
When, many years before, the boy with whom, according to her father's will, she shared the throne, and his guardian Pothinus, had compelled her to fly from Alexandria, she had found in the eastern frontier of the Delta, on the isthmus which united Egypt to Asia, the remains of the canal which the energetic Pharaohs of former times had constructed to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
Even at that period she had deemed this ruinous work worthy of notice, had questioned the Ænites who dwelt there about the remains, and even visited some of them herself during the leisure hours of waiting.
From this survey it had seemed possible, by a great expenditure of labour, to again render navigable the canal which the Pharaohs had used to reach both seas in the same galleys, and by which, less than five hundred years before, Darius, the founder of the Persian Empire, had brought his fleet to his support.
With the tireless desire for knowledge characteristic of her, Cleopatra had sought information concerning all these matters, and in quiet hours had more than once pondered over plans for again uniting the Grecian and Arabian seas.
Clearly, plainly, fully, with more thorough knowledge of many details than even the superintendent of the water works, she explained her design to the assembled professionals. If it proved practicable, the rescued ships of the fleet, with others lying in the roadstead of Alexandria, could be conveyed across the isthmus into the Red Sea, and thus saved to Egypt and withdrawn from the foe. Supported by this force, many things might be attempted, resistance might be considerably prolonged, and the time thus gained used in gathering fresh aid and allies.
If the opportunity to make an attack arrived, a powerful fleet would be at her disposal, for which smaller ships also should now be built at Klysma, on the basis of the experience gained at Actium.
The men who had been robbed of their night's rest listened in amazement to the melodious words of this woman who, in the deepest disaster, had devised a plan of escape so daring in its grandeur, and understood how to explain it better than any one of their number could have done. They followed every sentence with the keenest attention, and Cleopatra's language grew more impassioned, gained greater power and depth, the more plainly she perceived the unfeigned, enthusiastic admiration paid her by her listeners.
Even the oldest and most experienced men did not consider the surprising proposal utterly impossible and impracticable. Some, among them Gorgias, who during the restoration of the Serapeum had helped his father on the eastern frontier of the Delta, and thus became familiar with the neighbourhood of Heroonopolis, feared the difficulties which an elevation of the earth in the centre of the isthmus would place in the way of the enterprise. Yet, why should an undertaking which was successful in the days of Sesostris appear unattainable?
The shortness of the time at their disposal was a still greater source of anxiety, and to this was added the information that one hundred and twenty thousand workmen had perished during the restoration of the canal which Pharaoh Necho nearly completed. The water way was not finished at that period, because an oracle had asserted that it would benefit only the foreigners, the Phœnicians.
All these points were duly considered, but could not shake the opinion that, under specially favourable conditions, the Queen's plan would be practicable; though, to execute it, obstacles mountain-high were to be conquered. All the labourers in the fields, who had not been pressed into the army, must be summoned to the work.
Not an hour's delay was permitted. Where there was no water to bear the ships, an attempt must be made to convey them across the land. There was no lack of means. The mechanics who had understood how to move the obelisks and colossi from the cataract to Alexandria, could here again find opportunity to test their brains and former skill.
Never had Cleopatra's kindling spirit roused more eager, nay, more passionate sympathy, in any counsellors gathered around her than during this nocturnal meeting, and when at last she paused, the loud acclamations of excited men greeted her. The Queen's return, and the tidings of the lost battle which she had communicated, were to be kept secret.
Gorgias had been appointed one of the directors of the enterprise, and the intellect, voice, and winning charm of Cleopatra had so enraptured him that he already fancied he saw the commencement of a new love which would be fatal to his regard for Helena.
It was foolish to raise his wishes so high, but he told himself that he had never beheld a woman more to be desired. Yet he cherished a very warm memory of the philosopher's granddaughter, and lamented that he would scarcely find it possible to bid her farewell.
Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, Dion's uncle, had questioned him about his nephew in a very mysterious manner as soon as he entered the council chamber, and received the reply that the wound in the shoulder, which Cæsarion had dealt with a short Roman sword, though severe, was--so the physicians assured them--not fatal.
This seemed to satisfy Zeno, and ere Gorgias could urge him to extend a protecting hand over his nephew, he excused himself and, with a message to the wounded man, turned his back upon him.
The courtier had not yet learned what view the Queen would take of this unfortunate affair, and besides, he was overloaded with business. The new enterprise required the issue of a large number of documents conferring authority, which all passed through his hands.
Cleopatra addressed a few kind, encouraging words to each one of the experts who had been entrusted with the execution of her plan. Gorgias, too, was permitted to kiss her robe, which stirred his blood afresh. He would fain have flung himself at the feet of this marvellous woman and, with his services, place his life at her disposal. And Cleopatra noticed the enthusiastic ardour of his glance.
He, too, had been mentioned in the list of Barine's admirers. There must be something unusual about this woman! But could she have fired a body of grave men in behalf of a great, almost impossible deed, roused them to such enthusiastic admiration as she, the vanquished, menaced Queen? Certainly not.
She felt in the right mood to confront Barine as judge and rival.
In the midst of the deepest misery she had spent one happy hour. She had again felt, with joyous pride, that her intellect, fresh and unclouded, would be capable of outstripping the best powers, and in truth she needed no magic goblet to win hearts.
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Barine had been an hour in the palace. The magnificently furnished room to which she was conducted was directly above the council chamber, and sometimes, in the silence of the night, the voice of the Queen or the loud cheers of men were distinctly heard.
Barine listened without making the slightest effort to catch the meaning of the words which reached her ears. She longed only for something to divert her thoughts from the deep and bitter emotion which filled her soul. Ay, she was roused to fury, and yet she felt how completely this passionate resentment contradicted her whole nature.
True, the shameless conduct of Philostratus during their married life had often stirred the inmost depths of her placid, kindly spirit, and afterwards his brother Alexas had come to drive her, by his disgraceful proposals, to the verge of despair; rage was added to the passionate agitation of her soul, and for this she had cause to rejoice--but for this mighty resentment during the time of struggle she might have, perhaps, succumbed from sheer weariness and the yearning desire to rest.
At last, at last, she and her friends, by means of great sacrifices, had succeeded in releasing her from these tortures. Philostratus's consent to liberate her was purchased. Alexas's persecution had ceased long before; he had first been sent away as envoy by his patron Antony, and afterwards been compelled to accompany him to the war.
How she had enjoyed the peaceful days in her mother's house! How quickly the bright cheerfulness which she had supposed lost had returned to her soul! --and to-day Fate had blessed her with the greatest happiness life had ever offered. True, she had had only a few brief hours in which to enjoy it, for the attack of the unbridled boys and the wound inflicted upon her lover had cast a heavy shadow on her bliss.
Her mother had again proved to be in the right when she so confidently predicted a second misfortune which would follow the first only too soon.
Barine had been torn at midnight from her peaceful home and her wounded lover's bedside. This was done by the Queen's command, and, full of angry excitement, she said to herself that the men were right who cursed tyranny because it transformed free human beings into characterless chattels.
There could be nothing good awaiting her; that was proved by the messengers whom Cleopatra had sent to summon her at this unprecedented hour. They were her worst enemies: Iras, who desired to wed her lover--Dion had told her so after the assault--and Alexas, whose suit she had rejected in a way which a man never forgives.
She had already learned Iras's feelings. The slender figure with the narrow head, long, delicate nose, small chin, and pointed fingers, seemed to her like a long, sharp thorn. This strange comparison had entered her head as Iras stood rigidly erect, reading aloud in a shrill, high voice the Queen's command. Everything about this hard, cold face appeared as sharp as a sting, and ready to destroy her.
Her removal from her mother's house to the royal palace had been swift and simple.
After the attack--of which she saw little, because, overpowered by fear and horror, she closed her eyes--she had driven home with her lover, where the leech had bandaged his injuries, and Berenike had quickly and carefully transformed her own sleeping chamber into a sick-room.
Barine, after changing her dress, did not leave Dion's side. She had attired herself carefully, for she knew his delight in outward adornment. When she returned from her grandparents, before sunset, she was alone with him, and he, kissing her arm, had murmured that wherever the Greek tongue was spoken there was not one more beautiful. The gem was worthy of its loveliness. So she had opened her baggage to take out the circlet which Antony had given, and it again enclasped her arm when she entered the sick-room.
Because Dion had told her that he deemed her fairest in the simple white robe she had worn a few days before, when there were no guests save himself and Gorgias, and she had sung until after midnight his favourite songs as though all were intended for him alone, her choice had fallen upon this garment. And she rejoiced that she had worn it--the wounded man's eyes rested upon her so joyously when she sat down opposite to him.
The physician had forbidden him to talk, and urged him to sleep if possible. So Barine only held his hand in silence, whispering, whenever he opened his eyes, a tender word of love and encouragement.
She had remained with him for hours, leaving her place at his side merely to give him his medicine, or, with her mother's aid, place poultices on his wounds.
When his manly face was distorted by suffering, she shared his pain; but during most of the time a calm, pleasant sense of happiness pervaded her mind. She felt safe and sheltered in the possession of the man whom she loved, though fully aware of the perils which threatened him, and, perhaps, her also. But the assurance of his love completely filled her heart and cast every care entirely into the shade. Many men had seemed estimable and agreeable, a few even desirable husbands, but Dion was the first to awaken love in her ardent but by no means passionate soul. She regarded the experiences of the past few days as a beautiful miracle. How she had yearned and pined until the most fervent desire of her heart was fulfilled! Now Dion had offered her his love, and nothing could rob her of it.
Gorgias and the sons of her uncle Arius had disturbed her a short time. After they had gone with a good report, Berenike had entreated her daughter to lie down and let her take her place. But Barine would not leave her lover's couch, and had just loosed her hair to brush it again and fasten the thick, fair braids around her head, when, two hours after midnight, some one knocked loudly on the window shutters. Berenike was in the act of removing the poultice, so Barine herself went into the atrium to wake the doorkeeper.
But the old man was not asleep, and had anticipated her. She recognized, with a low cry of terror, the first person who entered the lighted vestibule--Alexas. Iras followed, her head closely muffled, for the storm was still howling through the streets. Last of all a lantern-bearer crossed the threshold.
The Syrian saluted the startled young beauty with a formal bow, but Iras, without a greeting or even a single word of preparation, delivered the Queen's command, and then read aloud, by the light of the lantern, what Cleopatra had scrawled upon the wax tablet.
When Barine, pallid and scarcely able to control her emotion, requested the messengers who had arrived at so late an hour to enter, in order to give her time to prepare for the night drive and take leave of her mother, Iras vouchsafed no reply, but, as if she had the right to rule the house, merely ordered the doorkeeper to bring his mistress's cloak without delay.
While the old man, with trembling knees, moved away, Iras asked if the wounded Dion was in the dwelling; and Barine, her self-control restored by the question, answered, with repellent pride, that the Queen's orders did not command her to submit to an examination in her own house.
Iras shrugged her shoulders and said, sneeringly, to Alexas: "In truth, I asked too much. One who attracts so many men of all ages can scarcely be expected to know the abode of each individual."
"The heart has a faithful memory," replied the Syrian in a tone of correction, but Iras echoed, contemptuously, "The heart!"
Then all were silent until, instead of the doorkeeper, Berenike herself came hurrying in, bringing the cloak. With pallid face and bloodless lips she wrapped it around her daughter's shoulders, whispering, amid floods of tears, almost inaudible words of love and encouragement, which Iras interrupted by requesting Barine to follow her to the carriage.
The mother and daughter embraced and kissed each other, then the closed equipage bore the persecuted woman through the storm and darkness to Lochias.
Not a word was exchanged between Barine and the Queen's messengers until they reached the room where the former was to await Cleopatra; but here Iras again endeavoured to induce her to speak. At the first question, however, Barine answered that she had no information to give.
The room was as bright as if it were noonday, though the lights flickered constantly, for the wind found its way through the thin shutters closing the windows on both sides of the corner room, and a strong, cold draught swept in. Barine wrapped her cloak more closely around her; the storm which howled about the sea-washed palace harmonized with the vehement agitation of her soul. Whether she had looked within or without, there was nothing which could have soothed her save the assurance of being loved--an assurance that held fear at bay. Now, indignation prevented dread from overpowering her, yet calm consideration could not fail to show her that danger threatened on every hand. The very manner in which Iras and Alexas whispered together, without heeding her presence, boded peril, for courtiers show such contempt only to those whom they know are threatened with the indifference or resentment of the sovereign.
Barine, during her married life with a man devoid of all delicacy of feeling, and with a disposition as evil as his tongue was ready, had learned to endure many things which were hard to bear; yet when, after a remark from Iras evidently concerning her, she heard Alexas laugh, she was compelled to exert the utmost self-restraint to avoid telling her enemy how utterly she despised the cowardly cruelty of her conduct. But she succeeded in keeping silent. Still, the painful constraint she imposed on herself must find vent in some way, and, as the tortured anguish of her soul reached its height, large tears rolled down her cheeks.
These, too, were noticed by her enemy and made the target of her wit; but this time the sarcasm failed to produce its effect upon the Syrian, for, instead of laughing, he grew grave, and whispered something which seemed to Barine a reproof or a warning. Iras's reply was merely a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
Barine had noticed long before that her mother, in her fear and bewilderment, had brought her own cloak instead of her daughter's, and this circumstance also did not seem to her foe too trivial for a sneer.
But the childish insolence that seemed to have taken possession of one who usually by no means lacked dignity, was merely the mask beneath which she concealed her own suffering. A grave motive was the source of the mirth by which she affected to be moved at the sight of her enemy's cloak. The grey, ill-fitting garment disfigured Barine, and she desired that the Queen should feel confident of surpassing her rival even in outward charms. No one, not even Cleopatra, could dispense with a protecting wrap in this cold draught, and nothing suited her better than the purple mantle in whose delicate woollen fabric black and gold dragons and griffins were embroidered. Iras had taken care that it lay ready. Barine could not fail to appear like a beggar in comparison, though Alexas said that her blue kerchief was marvellously becoming.
He was a base-minded voluptuary, who, aided by rich gifts of mind and wide knowledge, had shunned no means of ingratiating himself with Antony, the most lavish of patrons. The repulse which this man, accustomed to success, had received from Barine had been hard to forget, yet he did not resign the hope of winning her. Never had she seemed more desirable than in her touching weakness. Even base natures are averse to witnessing the torture of the defenceless, and when Iras had aimed another poisoned shaft at her, he ventured, at the risk of vexing his ally, to say, under his breath: "Condemned criminals are usually granted, before their end, a favourite dish. I have no cause to wish Barine anything good; but I would not grudge that. You, on the contrary, seem to delight in pouring wormwood on her last mouthful."
"Certainly," she answered, her eyes sparkling brightly. "Malice is the purest of pleasures; at least to me, when exercised on this woman."
The Syrian, with a strange smile, held out his hand, saying: "Keep your good-will towards me, Iras."
"Because," she retorted with a sneer, "evil may follow my enmity. I think so, too. I am not especially sensitive concerning myself, but whoever dares"--here she raised her voice--"to harm one whom I-- Just listen to the cheers! How she carries all hearts with her! Though Fate had made her a beggar, she would still be peerless among women. She is like the sun. The clouds which intrude upon her pathway of radiance are consumed and disappear."
While uttering the last sentence she had turned towards Barine, whose ear the sharp voice again pierced like a thorn, as she commanded her to prepare for the examination.
Almost at the same moment the door, caught by the wind, closed with a loud bang. The "introducer"* had opened it, and, after a hasty glance, exclaimed: [* Marshal of the court.]
"The audience will not be given in this meeting place for all the winds of heaven! Her Majesty desires to receive her late visitor in the Hall of Shells."
With these words he bowed courteously to Barine, and ushered her and her two companions through several corridors and apartments into a well-heated anteroom.
Here even the windows were thoroughly protected from the storm. Several body-guards and pages belonging to the corps of the "royal boys" stood waiting to receive them.
"This is comfortable," said Alexas, turning to Iras. "Was the winter we have just experienced intended to fill us with twofold gratitude for the delights of the mild spring in this blessed room?"
"Perhaps so," she answered sullenly, and then added in a low tone: "Here at Lochias the seasons do not follow their usual course. They change according to the pleasure of the supreme will. Instead of four, the Egyptians, as you know, have but three; in the palaces on the Nile they are countless. What is the meaning of this sudden entry of summer? Winter would have pleased me better."
The Queen--Iras knew not why--had changed her arrangements for Barine's reception. This vexed her, and her features assumed a gloomy, threatening expression as the young beauty, casting aside her cloak and kerchief, stood awaiting Cleopatra in a white robe of fine material and perfect fit. The thick, fair braids, wound simply around her shapely head, gave her an appearance of almost childish youth, and the sight made Iras feel as if she, and Cleopatra also, were outwitted.
In the dimly lighted atrium of the house near the Paneum garden, she had noticed only that Barine wore something white. Had it been merely a night robe, so much the better. But she might have appeared in her present garb at the festival of Isis. The most careful deliberation could have selected nothing more suitable or becoming. And did this vain woman go to rest with costly gold ornaments? Else how did the circlet chance to be on her arm? Each of Cleopatra's charms seemed to Iras, who knew them all, like a valuable possession of her own. To see even the least of them surpassed by another vexed her; and to behold in yonder woman a form which she could not deny was no less beautiful, enraged, nay, pierced her to the heart.
Since she had known that because of Barine she could hope for nothing more from the man to whose love she believed she possessed a claim dating from their childhood, she had hated the young beauty. And now to the many things which contributed to increase her hostile mood, was added the disagreeable consciousness that during the last few hours she had treated her contemptibly. Had she only seen earlier what her foe's cloak concealed, she would have found means to give her a different appearance. But she must remain as she was; for Chairman had already entered. Other hours, however, would follow, and if the next did not decide the fate of the woman whom she hated, future ones should.
For this purpose she did not need the aid of Charmian, her uncle Archibius's sister, who had hitherto been a beloved associate and maternal friend. But what had happened? Iras fancied that her pleasant features wore a repellent expression which she had never seen before. Was this also the singer's fault? And what was the cause?
The older woman's manner decided the question whether she should still bestow upon her returned relative the love of a grateful niece. No, she would no longer put any restraint upon herself. Charmian should feel that she (Iras) considered any favour shown to her foe an insult. To work against her secretly was not in her nature. She had courage to show an enemy her aversion, and she did not fear Charmian enough to pursue a different course. She knew that the artist Leonax, Barine's father, had been Charmian's lover; but this did not justify her favouring the woman who had robbed her niece of the heart of the man whom she--as Charmian knew--had loved from childhood.
Charmian had just had a long conversation with her brother, and had also learned in the palace that Barine had been summoned to the Queen's presence in the middle of the night; so, firmly persuaded that evil was intended to the young woman who had already passed through so many agitating scenes of joy and sorrow, she entered the waiting-room, and her pleasant though no longer youthful face, framed in smooth, grey hair, was greeted by Barine as the shipwrecked mariner hails the sight of land.
All the emotions which had darkened and embittered her soul were soothed. She hastened towards her friend's sister, as a frightened child seeks its mother, and Charmian perceived what was stirring in her heart.
It would not do, under existing circumstances, to kiss her in the palace, but she drew Leonax's daughter towards her to show Iras that she was ready to extend a protecting hand over the persecuted woman. But Barine gazed at her with pleading glances, beseeching aid, whispering amid her tears: "Help me, Charmian. She has tortured, insulted, humiliated me with looks and words--so cruelly, so spitefully! Help me; I can bear no more."
Charmian shook her kind head and urged her in a whisper to calm herself. She had robbed Iras of her lover; she should remember that. Cost what it might, she must not shed another tear. The Queen was gracious. She, Charmian, would aid her. Everything would depend on showing herself to Cleopatra as she was, not as slander represented her. She must answer her as she would Archibius or herself.
The kindly woman, as she spoke, stroked her brow and eyes with maternal tenderness, and Barine felt as if goodness itself had quelled the tempest in her soul. She gazed around her as though roused from a troubled dream, and now for the first time perceived the richly adorned room in which she stood, the admiring glances of the boys in the Macedonian corps of pages, and the bright fire blazing cheerily on the hearth. The howling of the storm increased the pleasant sense of being under a firm roof, and Iras, who had whispered to the "introducer" at the door, no longer seemed like a sharp thorn or a spiteful demon, but a woman by no means destitute of charm, who repulsed her, but on whom she had inflicted the keenest pang a woman's heart can suffer. Then she again thought of her wounded lover at home, and remembered that, whatever might happen, his heart did not belong to Iras, but to her alone. Lastly, she recalled Archibius's description of Cleopatra's childhood, and this remembrance was followed by the conviction that the omnipotent sovereign would be neither cruel nor unjust, and that it would depend upon herself to win her favour. Charmian, too, was the Queen's confidante; and if the manner of Iras and Alexas had alarmed her, Charmian's might well inspire confidence.
All these thoughts darted through her brain with the speed of lightning. Only a brief time for consideration remained; for, even as she bowed her head on the bosom of her friend, the "introducer" entered the room, crying, "Her illustrious Majesty will expect those whom she summoned in a few minutes!"
Soon after a chamberlain appeared, waving a fan of ostrich feathers and, preceded by the court official, they passed through several brilliantly lighted, richly furnished rooms.
Barine again breathed freely and moved with head erect; and when the wide, lofty folding doors of ebony, against whose deep black surface the inlaid figures of Tritons, mermaids, shells, fish, and sea monsters were sharply relieved, she beheld a glittering, magnificent scene, for the hall which Cleopatra had chosen for her reception was completely covered with various marine forms, from the shells to coral and starfish.
A wide, lofty structure, composed of masses of stalactites and unhewn blocks of stone, formed a deep grotto at the end of the hall, whence peered the gigantic head of a monster whose open jaws formed the fireplace of the chimney. Logs of fragrant Arabian wood were blazing brightly on the hearth, and the dragon's ruby glass eyes diffused a red light through the apartment which, blended with the rays of the white and pink lamps in the shape of lotus flowers fastened among gold and silver tendrils and groups of sedges on the walls and ceiling, filling the spacious apartment with the soft light whose roseate hue was specially becoming to Cleopatra's waxen complexion.
Several stewards and cup-bearers, the master of the hunt, chamberlains, female attendants, eunuchs, and other court officials were awaiting the Queen, and pages who belonged to the Macedonian cadet corps of royal boys stood sleepily, with drooping heads, around the small throne of gold, coral, and amber which, placed opposite to the chimney, awaited the sovereign.
Barine had already seen this magnificent hall, and others still more beautiful in the Sebasteum, and the splendour therefore neither excited nor abashed her; only she would fain have avoided the numerous train of courtiers. Could it be Cleopatra's intention to question her before the eyes of all these men, women, and boys?
She no longer felt afraid, but her heart still throbbed quickly. It had beat in the same way in her girlhood, when she was asked to sing in the presence of strangers.
At last she heard doors open, and an invisible hand parted the heavy curtains at her right. She expected to see the Regent, the Keeper of the Seal, and the whole brilliantly adorned train of attendants who always surrounded the Queen on formal occasions, enter the magnificent hall. Else why had it been selected as the scene of this nocturnal trial?
But what was this?
While she was still recalling the display at the Adonis festival, the curtains began to close again. The courtiers around the throne straightened their bowed figures, the pages forgot their fatigue, and all joined in the Greek salutation of welcome, and the "Life! happiness! health!" with which the Egyptians greeted their sovereign.
The woman of middle height who now appeared before the curtain, and who, as she crossed the wide hall alone and unattended, seemed to Barine even smaller than when surrounded by the gay throng at the Adonis festival, must be the Queen.
Ay, it was she!
Iras was already standing by her side, and Charmian was approaching with the "introducer." The women rendered her various little services: thus Iras took from her shoulders the purple mantle, with its embroidery of black and gold dragons. What an exquisite masterpiece of the loom it must be!
All the dangers against which she must defend herself flashed swiftly through Barine's mind; yet, for an instant, she felt the foolish feminine desire to see and handle the costly mantle.
But Iras had already laid it on the arm of one of the waiting maids, and Cleopatra now glanced around her, and with a youthful, elastic step approached the throne.
Once more the feeling of timidity which she had had in her girlhood overpowered Barine, but with it came the memory of the garden of Epicurus, and Archibius's assurance that she, too, would have left the Queen with her heart overflowing with warm enthusiasm had not a disturbing influence interposed between them.
Yet, had this disturbing influence really existed?
No. It was created solely by Cleopatra's jealous imagination. If she would only permit her to speak freely now, she should hear that Antony cared as little for her as she, Barine, for the boy Cæsarion. What prevented her from confessing that her heart was another's? Iras had no one to blame save herself if she spoke the truth pitilessly in her presence.
Cleopatra now turned to the "introducer," waving her hand towards the throne and those who surrounded it.
Ay, she was indeed beautiful. How bright and clear was the light of her large eyes, in spite of the harassing days through which she had passed and the present night of watching!
Cleopatra's heart was still elated by the reception of her bold idea of escape, and she approached Barine with gentler feelings and intentions. She had chosen a pleasanter room for the interview than the one Iras had selected. She desired a special environment to suit each mood, and as soon as she saw the group of courtiers who surrounded the throne she ordered their dismissal. The "introducer," to carry out the usual ceremonial, had commanded their presence in the audience chamber, but their attendance had given the meeting a form which was now distasteful to the Queen. She wished to question, not to condemn.
At so happy an hour it was a necessity of her nature to be gracious. Perhaps she had been unduly anxious concerning this singer. It even seemed probable; for a man who loved her like Antony could scarcely yearn for the favour of another woman. This view had been freshly confirmed by a brief conversation with the chief Inspector of Sacrifices, an estimable old man, who, after hearing how Antony had hurried in pursuit of her at Actium, raised his eyes and hands as if transported with rapture, exclaiming: "Unhappy Queen! Yet happiest of women! No one was ever so ardently beloved; and when the tale is told of the noble Trojan who endured such sore sufferings for a woman's sake, future generations will laud the woman whose resistless spell constrained the greatest man of his day, the hero of heroes, to cast aside victory, fame, and the hope of the world's sovereignty, as mere worthless rubbish."
Posterity, whose verdict she dreaded--this wise old reader of the future was right--must extol her as the most fervently beloved, the most desirable of women.
And Mark Antony? Even had the magic power of Nektanebus's goblet forced him to follow her and to leave the battle, there still remained his will, a copy of which--received from Rome--Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, had showed to her at the close of the council. "Wherever he might die," so ran the words, "he desired to be buried by the side of Cleopatra." Octavianus had wrested it from the Vestal Virgins, to whose care it had been entrusted, in order to fill the hearts of Roman citizens and matrons with indignation against his foe. The plot had succeeded, but the document had reminded Cleopatra that her heart had given this man the first of its flowers, that love for him had been the sunshine of her life. So, with head erect, she had crossed the threshold where she was to meet the woman who had ventured to sow tares in her garden. She intended to devote only a short time to the interview, which she anticipated with the satisfaction of the strong who are confident of victory.
As she approached the throne, her train left the hall; the only persons who remained were Charmian, Iras, Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, and the "introducer."
Cleopatra cast a rapid glance at the throne, to which an obsequious gesture of the courtier's hand invited her; but she remained standing, gazing keenly at Barine.
Was it the coloured rays from the ruby eyes of the dragon in the fireplace which shed the roseate glow on Cleopatra's cheeks? It certainly enhanced the beauty of a face now only too frequently pallid and colourless, when rouge did not lend its aid; but Barine understood Archibius's ardent admiration for this rare woman, when Cleopatra, with a faint smile, requested her to approach.
Nothing more winning could be imagined than the frank kindness, wholly untinged by condescending pride, of this powerful sovereign.
The less Barine had expected such a reception the more deeply it moved her; nay, her eyes grew dim with grateful emotion, which lent them so beautiful a lustre, she looked so lovely in her glad surprise, that Cleopatra thought the months which had elapsed since her first meeting with the singer had enhanced her charms. And how young she was! The Queen swiftly computed the years which Barine must have lived as the wife of Philostratus, and afterwards as the attractive mistress of a hospitable house, and found it difficult to reconcile the appearance of this blooming young creature with the result of the calculation.
She was surprised, too, to note the aristocratic bearing whose possession no one could deny the artist's daughter. This was apparent even in her dress, yet Iras had roused her in the middle of the night, and certainly had given her no time for personal adornment.
She had expected lack of refinement and boldness, in the woman who was said to have attracted so many men, but even the most bitter prejudice could have detected no trace of it. On the contrary, the embarrassment which she could not yet wholly subdue lent her an air of girlish timidity. All in all, Barine was a charming creature, who bewitched men by her vivacity, her grace, and her exquisite voice, not by coquetry and pertness. That she possessed unusual mental endowments Cleopatra did not believe. Barine had only one advantage over her--youth.
Time had not yet robbed the former of a single charm, while from the Queen he had wrested many; their number was known only to herself and her confidantes, but at this hour she did not miss them.
Barine, with a low, modest bow, advanced towards the Queen, who commenced the conversation by graciously apologizing for the late hour at which she had summoned her. "But," she added, "you belong to the ranks of the nightingales, who during the night most readily and exquisitely reveal to us what stirs their hearts----" Barine gazed silently at the floor a moment, and when she raised her eyes her voice was faint and timid. "I sing, it is true, your Majesty, but I have nothing else in common with the birds. The wings which, when a child, bore me wherever I desired, have lost their strength. They do not wholly refuse their service, but they now require favourable hours to move."
"I should not have expected that in the time of your youth, your most beautiful possession," replied the Queen. "Yet it is well. I too--how long ago it seems! --was a child, and my imagination outstripped even the flight of the eagle. It could dare the risk unpunished. Now---- Whoever has reached mature life is wise to let these wings remain idle. The mortal who ventures to use them may easily approach too near the sun, and, like Icarus, the wax will melt from his pinions. Let me tell you this: To the child the gift of imagination is nourishing bread. In later years we need it only as salt, as spice, as stimulating wine. Doubtless it points out many paths, and shows us their end; but, of a hundred rambles to which it summons him, scarcely one pleases the mature man. No troublesome parasite is more persistently and sharply rebuffed. Who can blame the ill-treated friend if it is less ready to serve us as the years go on? The wise man will keep his ears ever open, but rarely lend it his active hand. To banish it from life is to deprive the plant of blossoms, the rose of its fragrance, the sky of its stars."
"I have often said the same things to myself, though in a less clear and beautiful form, when life has been darkened," replied Barine, with a faint blush; for she felt that these words were doubtless intended to warn her against cherishing too aspiring wishes. "But, your Majesty, here also the gods place you, the great Queen, far above us. We should often find existence bare indeed but for the fancy which endows us with imaginary possessions. You have the power to secure a thousand things which to us common mortals only the gift of imagination pictures as attainable."
"You believe that happiness is like wealth, and that the happiest person is the one who receives the largest number of the gifts of fortune," answered the Queen. "The contrary, I think, can be easily proved. The maxim that the more we have the less we need desire, is also false, though in this world there are only a certain number of desirable things. He who already possesses one of ten solidi which are to be divided, ought really to desire only nine, and therefore would be poorer by a wish than another who has none. True, it cannot be denied that the gods have burdened or endowed me with a greater number of perishable gifts than you and many others. You seem to set a high value upon them. Doubtless there may be one or another which you could appropriate only by the aid of the imagination. May I ask which seems to you the most desirable?"
"Spare me the choice, I beseech you," replied Barine in an embarrassed tone. "I need nothing from your treasures, and, as for the other possessions---- I lack many things; but it is uncertain how the noblest and highest gifts in the possession of the marvellously endowed favourite of the gods would suit the small, commonplace ones I call mine, and I know not----" "A sensible doubt!" interrupted the Queen. "The lame man, who desired a horse, obtained one, and on his first ride broke his neck. The only blessing--the highest of all--which surely bestows happiness can neither be given away nor transferred from one to another. He who has gained it may be robbed of it the next moment."
The last sentence had fallen from the Queen's lips slowly and thoughtfully, but Barine, remembering Archibius's tale, said modestly, "You are thinking of the chief good mentioned by Epicurus--perfect peace of mind."
Cleopatra's eyes sparkled with a brighter light as she asked eagerly, "Do you, the granddaughter of a philosopher, know the system of the master?"
"Very superficially, your Majesty. My intellect is far inferior to yours. It is difficult for me thoroughly to comprehend all the details of any system of philosophy."
"Yet you have attempted it?"
"Others endeavoured to introduce me into the doctrines of the Stoics. I have forgotten most of what I learned; only one thing lingered in my memory, and I know why--because it pleased me."
"And _that? _" "Was the wise law of living according to the dictates of our own natures. The command to shun everything contradictory to the simple fundamental traits of our own characters pleased me, and wherever I saw affectation, artificiality, and mannerism I was repelled, while from my grandfather's teaching I drew the principle that I could do nothing better than to remain, so far as life would permit, what I had been as a child ere I had heard the first word of philosophy, or felt the constraint which society and its forms impose."
"So the system of the Stoics leads to this end also!" cried the Queen gaily, and, turning to the companion of her own studies, she added: "Did you hear, Charmian? If we had only succeeded in perceiving the wisdom and calm, purposeful order of existence which the Stoics, amid so much that is perverse, unhealthy, and provocative of contradiction, nevertheless set above everything else! How can I, in order to live wisely, imitate Nature, when in her being and action I encounter so much that is contradictory to my human reason, which is a part of the divine?"
Here she hesitated, and the expression of her face suddenly changed.
She had advanced close to Barine and, while standing directly in front of her, her eyes had rested on the gem which adorned her arm above the elbow.
Was it this which agitated Cleopatra so violently that her voice lost its bewitching melody, as she went on in a harsh, angry tone? --"So that is the source of all this misfortune. Even as a child I detested that sort of arbitrary judgment which passes under the mask of stern morality. There is an example! Do you hear the howling of the storm? In human nature, as well as in the material world, there are tempests and volcanoes which bring destruction, and, if the original character of any individual is full of such devastating forces, like the neighbourhood of Vesuvius or Etna, the goal to which his impulses would lead him is clearly visible. Ay, the Stoic is not allowed to destroy the harmony and order of things in existence, any more than to disturb those which are established by the state. But to follow our natural impulses wherever they lead us is so perilous a venture, that whoever has the power to fix a limit to it betimes is in duty bound to do so. This power is mine, and I will use it!"
Then, with iron severity, she asked: "As it seems to be one of the demands of your nature, woman, to allure and kindle the hearts of all who bear the name of man, even though they have not yet donned the garb of the Ephebi, so, too, you seem to appear to delight in idle ornaments. Or,"--and as she spoke she touched Barine's shoulder--"or why should you wear, during the hours of slumber, that circlet on your arm?"
Barine had watched with increasing anxiety the marked change in the manner and language of the Queen. She now beheld a repetition of what she had experienced at the Adonis festival, but this time she knew what had roused Cleopatra's jealousy. She, Barine, wore on her arm a gift from Antony. With pallid face she strove to find a fitting answer, but ere she could do so Iras advanced to the side of the incensed Queen, saying: "That circlet is the counterpart of the one your august husband bestowed upon you. The singer's must also be a gift from Mark Antony. Like every one else in the world, she deems the noble Imperator the greatest man of his day. Who can blame her for prizing it so highly that she does not remove it even while she sleeps?"
Again Barine felt as if a thorn had pierced her; but though the resentment which she had previously experienced once more surged hotly within her heart, she forced herself to maintain seemly external composure, and struggled for some word in answer; but she found none suitable, and remained silent.
She had told the truth. From early youth she had followed the impulses of her own nature without heeding the opinion of mortals, as the teachings of the Stoics directed, and she had been allowed to do so because this nature was pure, truthful, alive to the beautiful, and, moreover, free from those unbridled, volcanic impulses to which the Queen alluded. The cheerful patience of her soul had found ample satisfaction in the cultivation of her art, and in social intercourse with men who permitted her to share their own intellectual life. Today she had learned that the first great passion of her heart had met with a response. Now she was bound to her lover, and knew herself to be pure and guiltless, far better entitled to demand respect from sterner judges of morality than the woman who condemned her, or the spiteful Iras, who had not ceased to offer her love to Dion.
The sorrowful feeling of being misunderstood and unjustly condemned, mingled with fear of the terrible fate to which she might be sentenced by the omnipotent sovereign, whose clear intellect was clouded by jealousy and the resentment of a mother's wounded heart, paralyzed her tongue. Besides, she was confused by the angry emotion which the sight of Iras awakened. Twice, thrice she strove to utter a few words of explanation, defence, but her voice refused to obey her will.
When Charmian at last approached to encourage her, it was too late; the indignant Queen had turned away, exclaiming to Iras: "let her be taken back to Lochias. Her guilt is proved; but it does not become the injured person, the accuser, to award the punishment. This must be left to the judges before whom we will bring her."
Then Barine once more recovered the power of speech. How dared Cleopatra assert that she was convicted of a crime, without hearing her defence? As surely as she felt her own innocence she must succeed in proving it, and with this consciousness she cried out to the Queen in a tone of touching entreaty: "O your Majesty, do not leave me without hearing me! As truly as I believe in your justice, I can ask you to listen to me once more. Do not give me up to the woman who hates me because the man whom she----" Here Cleopatra interrupted her. Royal dignity forbade her to hear one woman's jealous accusation of another, but, with the subtle discernment with which women penetrate one another's moods, she heard in Barine's piteous appeal a sincere conviction that she was too severely condemned. Doubtless she also had reason to believe in Iras's hate, and Cleopatra knew how mercilessly she pursued those who had incurred her displeasure. She had rejected and still shuddered at her advice to remove the singer from her path; for an inner voice warned her not to burden her soul now with a fresh crime, which would disturb its peace. Besides, she had at first been much attracted by this charming, winning creature; but the irritating thought that Antony had bestowed the same gift upon the sovereign and the artist's daughter still so incensed her, that it taxed to the utmost her graciousness and self-control as, without addressing any special person, she exclaimed, glancing back into the hall: "This examination will be followed by another. When the time comes, the accused must appear before the judges; therefore she must remain at Lochias and in custody. It is my will that no harm befalls her. --You are her friend, Charmian. I will place her in your charge. Only"--here she raised her voice--"on pain of my anger, do not allow her by any possibility to leave the palace, even for a moment, or to hold intercourse with any person save yourself."
With these words she passed out of the hall and went into her own apartments. She had turned the night into day, not only to despatch speedily matters which seemed to her to permit of no delay, but even more because, since the battle of Actium, she dreaded the restless hours upon her lonely couch. They seemed endless; and though before she had remembered with pleasure the unprecedented display and magnificence with which she had surrounded her love-life with Antony, she now in these hours reproached herself for having foolishly squandered the wealth of her people. The present appeared unbearable, and from the future a host of black cares pressed upon her.
The following days were overcrowded with business details.
Half of her nights were spent in the observatory. She had not asked again for Barine. On the fifth night she permitted Alexas to conduct her once more to the little observatory which had been erected for her father at Lochias, and Antony's favourite knew how to prove that a star which had long threatened her planet was that of the woman whom she seemed to have forgotten as completely as she had ignored his former warning against this very foe.
The Queen denied this, but Alexas eagerly continued: "The night after your return home your kindness was again displayed in its inexhaustible and--to us less noble souls--incomprehensible wealth. Deeply agitated, we watched during the memorable examination the touching spectacle of the greatest heart making itself the standard by which to measure what is petty and ignoble. But ere the second trial takes place the wanderers above, who know the future, bid me warn you once more; for that woman's every look was calculated, every word had its fixed purpose, every tone of her voice was intended to produce a certain effect. Whatever she said or may yet say had no other design than to deceive my royal mistress. As yet there have been no definite questions and answers. But you will have her examined, and then---- What may she not make of the story of Mark Antony, Barine, and the two armlets? Perhaps it will be a masterpiece."
"Do you know its real history?" asked Cleopatra, clasping her fingers more closely around the pencil in her hand.
"If I did," replied Alexas, smiling significantly, "the receiver of stolen goods should not betray the thief."
"Not even if the person who has been robbed--the Queen--commands you to give up the dishonestly acquired possession?"
"Unfortunately, even then I should be forced to withhold obedience; for consider, my royal mistress, there are but two great luminaries around which my dark life revolves. Shall I betray the moon, when I am sure of gaining nothing thereby save to dim the warm light of the sun?"
"That means that your revelations would wound me, the sun?"
"Unless your lofty soul is too great to be reached by shadows which surround less noble women with an atmosphere of indescribable torture."
"Do you intend to render your words more attractive by the veil with which you shroud them? It is transparent, and dims the vision very little. My soul, you think, should be free from jealousy and the other weaknesses of my sex. There you are mistaken. I am a woman, and wish to remain one. As Terence's Chremes says he is a human being, and nothing human is unknown to him, I do not hesitate to confess all feminine frailties. Anubis told me of a queen in ancient times who would not permit the inscriptions to record 'she,' but 'he came,' or 'he, the ruler, conquered.' Fool! Whatever concerns me, my womanhood is not less lofty than the crown. I was a woman ere I became Queen. The people prostrate themselves before my empty litters; but when, in my youth, I wandered in disguise with Antony through the city streets and visited some scene of merrymaking, while the men gazed admiringly at me, and we heard voices behind us murmur, 'A handsome couple!' I returned home full of joy and pride. But there was something greater still for the woman to learn, when the heart in the breast of the Queen forgot throne and sceptre and, in the hours consecrated to Eros, tasted joys known to womanhood alone. How can you men, who only command and desire, understand the happiness of sacrifice? I am a woman; my birth does not exalt me above any feeling of my sex; and what I now ask is not as Queen but as woman."
"If that is the case," Alexas answered with his hand upon his heart, "you impose silence upon me; for were I to confess to the woman Cleopatra what agitates my soul, I should be guilty of a double crime--I would violate a promise and betray the friend who confided his noble wife to my protection."
"Now the darkness is becoming too dense for me," replied Cleopatra, raising her head with repellent pride. "Or, if I choose to raise the veil, I must point out to you the barriers----" "Which surround the Queen," replied the Syrian with an obsequious bow. "There you behold the fact. It is an impossibility to separate the woman from the princess. So far as I am concerned, I do not wish to anger the former against the presumptuous adorer, and I desire to yield to the latter the obedience which is her due. Therefore I entreat you to forget the armlet and its many painful associations, and pass to the consideration of other matters. Perhaps the fair Barine will voluntarily confess everything, and even add how she managed to ensnare the amiable son of the greatest of men, and the most admirable of mothers, the young King Cæsarion."
Cleopatra's eyes flashed more brightly, and she angrily exclaimed: "I found the boy just now as though he were possessed by demons. He was ready to tear the bandage from his wound, if he were refused the woman whom he loved. A magic potion was the first thought, and his tutor of course attributes everything to magic arts. Charmian, on the contrary, declares that his visits annoyed and even alarmed Barine. Nothing except a rigid investigation can throw light upon this subject. We will await the Imperator's return. Do you think that he will again seek the singer? You are his most trusted confidant. If you desire his best good, and care for my favour, drop your hesitation and answer this question."
The Syrian assumed the manner of a man who had reached a decision, and answered firmly: "Certainly he will, unless you prevent him. The simplest way would be----" "Well?"
"To inform him, as soon as he lands, that she is no longer to be found. I should be especially happy to receive this commission from my royal sun."
"And do you think it would dim the light of your moon a little, were he to seek her here in vain?"
"As surely as that the contrary would be the case if he were always as gratefully aware of the peerless brilliancy of his sun as it deserves. Helios suffers no other orb to appear so long as he adorns the heavens. His lustre quenches all the rest. Let my sun so decree, and Barine's little star will vanish."
"Enough! I know your aim now. But a human life is no small thing, and this woman, too, is the child of a mother. We must consider, earnestly consider, whether our purpose cannot be gained without proceeding to extremes. This must be done with zeal and a kindly intention---- But I---- Now, when the fate of this country, my own, and the children's is hanging in the balance, when I have not fifteen minutes at my command, and there is no end of writing and consulting, I can waste no time on such matters."
"The reflective mind must be permitted to use its mighty wings unimpeded," cried the Syrian eagerly. "Leave the settlement of minor matters to trustworthy friends."
Here they were interrupted by the "introducer," who announced the eunuch Mardion. He had come on business which, spite of the late hour, permitted no delay.
Alexas accompanied the Queen to the tablinum, where they found the eunuch. A slave attended him, carrying a pouch filled with letters which had just been brought by two messengers from Syria. Among them were some which must be answered without delay. The Keeper of the Seal and the Exegetus were also waiting. Their late visit was due to the necessity of holding a conference in relation to the measures to be adopted to calm the excited citizens. All the galleys which had escaped from the battle had entered the harbour the day before, wreathed with garlands as if a great victory had been won. Loud acclamations greeted them, yet tidings of the defeat at Actium spread with the swiftness of the wind. Crowds were now gathering, threatening demonstrations had been made in front of the Sebasteum, and on the square of the Serapeum the troops had been compelled to interfere, and blood had flowed.
There lay the letters. Zeno remarked that more papers conferring authority were required for the work on the canal, and the Exegetus earnestly besought definite instruction.
"It is much--much," murmured Cleopatra. Then, drawing herself up to her full height, she exclaimed, "Well, then, to work!"
But Alexas did not permit her to do this at once. Humbly advancing as she took her seat at the large writing-table, he whispered: "And with all this, must my royal mistress devote time and thought to the destroyer of her peace. To disturb your Majesty with this trifle is a crime; yet it must be committed, for should the affair remain unheeded longer, the trickling rivulet may become a mountain torrent----" Here Cleopatra, whose glance had just rested upon a fateful letter from King Herod, turned her face half towards her husband's favourite, exclaiming curtly, with glowing cheeks, "Presently."
Then she glanced rapidly over the letter, pushed it excitedly aside, and dismissed the waiting Syrian with the impatient words: "Attend to the trial and the rest. No injustice, but no untimely mildness. I will look into this unpleasant matter myself before the Imperator returns."
"And the authority?" asked the Syrian, with another low bow.
"You have it. If you need a written one, apply to Zeno. We will discuss the affair further at some less busy hour."
The Syrian retired; but Cleopatra turned to the eunuch and, flushed with emotion, cried, pointing to the King of Judea's letter: "Did you ever witness baser ingratitude? The rats think the ship is sinking, and it is time to leave it. If we succeed in keeping above water, they will return in swarms; and this must, must, _must_ be done, for the sake of this beloved country and her independence. Then the children, the children! All our powers must now be taxed, every expedient must be remembered and used. We will hammer each feeble hope until it becomes the strong steel of certainty. We will transform night into day. The canal will save the fleet. Mark Antony will find in Africa Pinarius Scarpus with untouched loyal legions. The gladiators are faithful to us. We can easily make them ours, and my brain is seething with other plans. But first we will attend to the Alexandrians. No violence!"
This exclamation was followed by order after order, and the promise that, if necessary, she would show herself to the people.
The Exegetus was filled with admiration as he received the clear, sagacious directions. After he had retired with his companions, the Queen again turned to the Regent, saying: "We did wisely to make the people happy at first with tidings of victory. The unexpected news of terrible disaster might have led them to some unprecedented deed of madness. Disappointment is a more common pain, for which less powerful remedies will suffice. Besides, many things could be arranged ere they knew that I was here. How much we have accomplished already, Mardion! But I have not even granted myself the joy of seeing my children. I was forced to defer the pleasure of the companionship of my oldest friends, even Archibius. When he comes again he will be admitted. I have given the order. He knows Rome thoroughly. I must hear his opinion of pending negotiations."
She shivered as she spoke, and pressing her hand upon her brow, exclaimed: "Octavianus victor, Cleopatra vanquished! I, who was everything to Cæsar, beseeching mercy from his heir. I, a petitioner to Octavia's brother! Yet, no, no! There are still a hundred chances of avoiding the horrible doom. But whoever wishes to compel the field to bear fruits must dig sturdily, draw the buckets from the well, plough, and sow the seed. To work, then, to work! When Antony returns he must find all things ready. The first success will restore his lost energy. I glanced through yonder letter while talking with the Exegetus; now I will dictate the answer."
So she sat reading, writing, and dictating, listening, answering, and giving orders, until the east brightened with the approach of dawn, the morning star grew pale, and the Regent, utterly exhausted, entreated her to consider her own health and his years, and permit him a few hours' rest.
Then she, too, allowed herself to be led into her darkened chamber, and this time a friendly, dreamless slumber closed her weary eyes and held her captive until roused by the loud shouts of the multitude, who had heard of the Queen's return and flocked to Lochias.
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