stayed, and I know I should have remained in love with her. But she did
neither. When I told her I was going away, she said, "Where?" That was
every word--in just such a tone as if she had met me on the corner, and
I had said I was going to walk. She was standing by the mantel with her
shapely arm resting lightly on the marble. I said, "God only knows, but
somewhere far enough away."
"When are you coming back?"
"Never."
"Oh, yes, you will," she said coolly, arranging a bracelet, so coolly
that it stung me like a serpent and brought me on my feet.
"I'll be--! No, I will not," I said. "Good-by."
"Good-by." She gave me her hand and it was as cool as her voice.
"Good-by." And mine was as cold as if I were dead. I swear, I believe
sometimes I did die right there before her and that a new man took my
place within me. At any rate my love for her died, slain by the ice in
her heart; and the foolish fribble I was passed into a man of
resolution.
As I walked out of her gate, I met Peck going in, and I did not care. I
did not even hate him. I remember that his collar was up to his ears. I
heard afterward that she accepted him that same week. For some
inexplicable reason I thought of John Marvel as I walked home. I
suddenly appeared nearer to him than I had done since I left college,
and I regretted not having answered his simple, affectionate letters.
I started West that night.
VII
THE HEGIRA
In my ménage was a bull-terrier puppy--brindled, bow-legged and bold--at
least, Jeams declared Dix to be a bull-pup of purest blood when he sold
him to me for five dollars and a suit of clothes that had cost sixty. I
found later that he had given a quarter for him to a negro stable-boy
who had been sent to dispose of him. Like the American people, he was of
many strains; but, like the American people, he proved to have good
stuff in him, and he had the soul of a lion. One eye was bleared, a
memento of some early and indiscreet insolence to some decisive-clawed
cat; his ears had been crookedly clipped and one perked out, the other
in, and his tail had been badly bobbed; but was as expressive as the
immortal Rab's eloquent stump. He feared and followed Jeams, but he
adored me. And to be adored by woman or dog is something for any man to
show at the last day. To lie and blink at me by the hour was his chief
occupation. To crawl up and lick my hand, or failing that, my boot, was
his heaven.
I always felt that, with all my faults, which none knew like myself,
there must be some basic good in me to inspire so devoted a love.
When I determined to leave for the West the night of my final break with
Lilian Poole, in my selfishness I forgot Dix; but when I reached home
that night, sobered and solitary, there was Dix with his earnest,
adoring gaze, his shrewd eye fixed on me, and his friendly twist of the
back. His joy at my mere presence consoled me and gave me spirit, though
it did not affect my decision.
Jeams, who had followed me from college, at times hung around my office,
carried Miss Poole my notes and flowers and, in the hour of my
prosperity, blossomed out in a gorgeousness of apparel that partly
accounted for my heavy expense account, as well as for the rapid
disappearance of the little private stock I occasionally kept or tried
to keep in a deceptive-looking desk which I used as a sideboard for
myself and friends. He usually wore an old suit of mine, in which he
looked surprisingly well, but on occasions he wore a long-tailed coat, a
red necktie and a large soft, light hat which, cocked on the side of his
head, gave him the air of an Indian potentate. I think he considered
himself in some sort a partner. He always referred to me and my business
as "us" and "our" business, and, on some one's asking him derisively if
he were a partner of mine, he replied, "Oh, no, sir, only what you might
term a minor connectee of the Captain." He was, however, a very useful
fellow, being ready to do anything in the world I ordered, except when
he was tight or had some piece of rascality on foot--occasions by no
means rare. He wore, at election time, a large and flaming badge
announcing that he was something in his party--the opposite party to
mine; but I have reason to believe that when I was in politics he
perjured himself freely and committed other crimes against the purity
of the ballot on which economists declare all Representative Government
is founded. One of my ardent friends once informed me that he thought I
ought not to allow Jeams to wear that badge--it was insulting me openly.
I told him that he was a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would insist
on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to compromise. In fact, I
had gotten rather dependent on him. Then he and I held such identical
views as to Peck, not to mention some other mutual acquaintances, and
Jeams could show his contempt in such delightfully insolent ways.
I had intimated to Jeams some time before, immediately after my first
serious reverse in the stock market, that I was no longer as flush as I
had been, and that unless affairs looked up I might move on to fresh
pastures--or, possibly, I put it, to a wider field for the exercise of
my powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his intention to accompany me
and share my fortune. But I must say, he showed plainly his belief that
it was a richer pasture which I was contemplating moving into, and he
viewed the prospect with a satisfaction much like that of a cat which,
in the act of lapping milk, has cream set before it. The only thing that
puzzled him was that he could not understand why I wanted more than I
had. He said so plainly.
"What you want to go 'way for, Cap'n? Whyn't you stay where you is? You
done beat 'em all--evy one of 'em----"
"Oh! no, I haven't."
"Go 'way f'om here--you is an' you know you is--dthat's the reason you
carry yo' head so high." (He little knew the true reason.) "An' if you
hadn't, all you got to do is to walk in yonder--up yonder (with a toss
of his head in the direction of Miss Poole's home), an' hang up your
hat, and den you ain got nuthin' to do but jus' write yo' checks."
I laughed at Jeams's idea of the situation, and of old Poole's
son-in-law's position. But it was rather a bitterer laugh than he
suspected. To soothe my conscience and also to draw him out, I said,
though I did not then really think it possible:
"Why, she's going to marry Peck."
Jeams turned around and actually spat out his disgust.
"What, dthat man!" Then, as he looked at me to assure himself that I was
jesting, and finding a shade less amusement in my countenance than he
had expected, he uttered a wise speech.
"Well, I tell you, Cap'n--if dthat man gits her he ought to have her,
'cause he done win her an' you ain't know how to play de game. You done
discard de wrong card."
I acknowledged in my heart that he had hit the mark, and I laughed a
little less bitterly, which he felt--as did Dix, lying against my foot
which he suddenly licked twice.
"An' I'll tell you another thing--you's well rid of her. Ef she likes
dthat man bes', let him have her, and you git another one. Der's plenty
mo,' jes' as good and better, too, and you'll meck her sorry some day.
Dthat's de way I does. If dey wants somebody else, I let's 'em have 'em.
It's better to let 'em have 'em befo' than after."
When Jeams walked out of my room, he had on a suit which I had not had
three months, and a better suit than I was able to buy again in as many
years. But he had paid me well for it. I had in mind his wise saying
when I faced Lilian Poole without a cent on earth, with all gone except
my new-born resolution and offered her only myself, and as I walked out
of her gate I consoled myself with Jeams's wisdom.
When I left Miss Poole I walked straight home, and having let nobody
know, I spent the evening packing up and destroying old letters and
papers and odds and ends; among them, all of Lilian Poole's letters and
other trash. At first, I found myself tending to reading over and
keeping a few letters and knickknacks; but as I glanced over the letters
and found how stiff, measured, and vacant her letters were as compared
with my burning epistles, in which I had poured out my heart, my wrath
rose, and I consigned them all to the flames, whose heat was the only
warmth they had ever known.
I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, with no companion but my
angry reflections and no witness but Dix, who was plainly aware that
something unusual was going on and showed his intense anxiety, in the
only method that dull humanity has yet learned to catalogue as Dog-talk:
by moving around, wagging his stump of a twist-tail and making odd,
uneasy sounds and movements. His evident anxiety about me presently
attracted my attention, and I began to think what I should do with him.
I knew old Mrs. Upshur would take and care for him as she would for
anything of mine; but Dix, though the best tempered of canines, had his
standards, which he lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked no
insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted no superiors.
Moreover, he needed out-door exercise as all sound creatures do, and
this poor, old decrepit Mrs. Upshur could not give him. I discarded for
one reason or another my many acquaintances, and gradually Jeams took
precedence in my mind and held it against all reasoning. He was drunken
and worthless--he would possibly, at times, neglect Dix, and at others,
would certainly testify his pride in him and prove his confidence by
making him fight; but he adored the dog and he feared me somewhat. As I
wavered there was a knock and Jeams walked in. He was dressed in my long
frock coat and his large, gray hat was on the back of his head--a sure
sign that he was tight, even had not his dishevelled collar and necktie
and his perspiring countenance given evidence of his condition. As he
stood in the door, his hand went up to his hat; but at sight of the
room, he dropped it before he could reach the hat and simply stared at
me in blank amazement.
"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.
[Illustration: "Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered.]
"Packing up."
"Where you goin'?"
"Going away."
"When you comin' back?"
"Never."
"What! Well, damned if I ain' gwine wid you, then."
The tone was so sincere and he was evidently so much in earnest that a
lump sprang into my throat. I turned away to keep him from seeing that I
was moved, and it was to keep him still from finding it out, that I
turned on him with well feigned savageness as he entered the room.
"You look like going with me, don't you! You drunken scoundrel! Take
your hat off, sir"--for in his confusion he had wholly forgotten his
manners. They now came back to him.
"Ixcuse me--Cap'n" (with a low bow). "Ixcuse me, suh. I al'ays removes
my hat in the presence of the ladies and sech distinguished gent'mens as
yourself, suh; but, Cap'n----"
"Drunken rascal!" I muttered, still to hide my feeling.
"Cap'n--I ain' drunk--I'll swear I ain' had a drink not in--" He paused
for an appropriate term and gave it up. "--Not in--I'll swear on a stack
of Bibles as--as high as Gen'l Washin's monument--you bring it heah--is
you got a Bible? You smell my breath!"
"Smell your breath! I can't smell anything but your breath. Open that
window!"
"Yes, suh," and the window was meanderingly approached, but not reached,
for he staggered slightly and caught on a chair.
"Cap'n, I ain' had a drink for a year--I'll swear to dthat. I'll prove
it to you. I ain' had a cent to buy one wid in a month--I was jus'
comin' roun' to ast you to gi' me one--jus' to git de dust out o' my
throat."
"Dust! Clean those things up there and get some dust in your throat."
"Yes, suh--yes, suh--Cap'n"--insinuatingly, as his eye fell on Dix, who
was standing looking attentively first at me and then at Jeams,
completely mystified by my tone, but ready to take a hand if there was
any need for him. "Cap'n----"
"Well, what is it? What do you want now?"
"Will you lend me a hundred?"
"A hundred dollars?"
"Yes, suh--you see----"
"No. I'll give you a hundred licks if you don't get to work and clean up
that floor."
"Cap'n--yes, suh--I'm gwine to clean 't up--but, Cap'n----"
"Well?"
"I'll let you in--jes' len' me ten--or five--or jes' one dollar--hit's a
cinch--Lord! I can meck ten for one jist as easy--Dee don' know him--Dee
think he ain' nuthing but a cur dawg--dats what I told 'em. And I'll
meck you all de money in the worl'--I will dat."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, you see, hits dthis away--I wouldn't bother you if dat yaller
bar-keeper nigger hadn' clean me up wid them d----d loaded bones of
hisn--jis' stole it from me--yes, suh--jis'----"
"Cleaned you up? When?"
"Dthis very evenin'--I had seventeen dollars right in my pocket, heah.
You ax Mr. Wills if I didn't. He seen me have it--I had jes' got it,
too----"
"You liar--you just now told me you hadn't had a cent in a month, and
now you say you had seventeen dollars this evening." Jeams reared
himself up.
"I toll you dthat?" He was now steadying himself with great gravity and
trying to keep his eyes fixed on me.
"Yes."
"No, sir. I never toll you dthat in this worl'! 'Cause 'twould a been a
lie--and I wouldn' tell you a lie for nuthin' on earth--I never had no
seventeen dollars."
"I know you didn't--I know that's true, unless you stole it; but you
said----"
"No, sir--what I said was--dthat if you'd len' me seventeen dollars I'd
take Dix there and kill any dawg dthat yaller nigger up yonder in the
Raleigh Hotel could trot out--I didn' keer what he was--and I said
I'd--give you a hundred dollars out of the skads I picked up--dthat's
what I said, and you got it wrong."
"You'll do what?"
"You see, hit's this away--dthat big-moufed, corn-fed yaller nigger--he
was allowin' dthat Mr. Mulligan had a dawg could chaw up any dawg dis
side o' torment, and I 'lowed him a ten dthat I had one 's could lick
H--l out o' any Mulligan or Mulligan's dawg top o' groun'--'n' dthat
you'd len' me th' ten to put up."
"Well, you've lost one ten anyway--I won't lend you a cent, and if I
catch you fighting Dix, I'll give you the worst lambing you ever had
since Justice John had you skinned for stealing those chickens."
Jeams threw up his eyes in reprobation.
"Now, Cap'n--you know I never stole dem stags--dthat old jestice he jes'
sentenced me 'cause you was my counsel an' cause' I was a nigger an' he
had'n had a chance at me befo'--I bet if I'd give' him half de money
'sted o' payin' you, he'd a' let me off mighty quick."
"Pay me! you never paid me a cent in your life."
"Well, I promised to pay you, didn' I? An' ain't dthat de same thin'?"
"Not by a big sight----"
"Dthat's de way gent'mens does."
"Oh! do they?"
Jeams came back to the main theme.
"Mr. Hen, ain' you gwine let me have dem ten dollars, sho' 'nough? Hit's
jes' like pickin' money up in de road: Dix kin kill dat dawg befo' you
ken say Jack Roberson."
"Jeams," I said, "look at me!"
"Yes, suh, I'm lookin'," and he was.
"I am going away to-night----"
"Well, I'm gwine width you, I ain' gwine stay heah by myself after you
and Dix is gone."
"No, you can't do that. I don't know yet exactly where I am going, I
have not yet decided. I am going West--to a big city."
"Dthat's where I want to go--" interrupted Jeams.
"And when I get settled I'll send for Dix--I'm going to leave him with
you."
"Yes, suh, I'll teck keer of him sure. I'll match him against any dawg
in dthis town--he can kill dthat dawg of dthat yaller nigger's----"
"No, if you put him in a fight, I'll kill you the first time I see
you--d'you hear?"
"Yes, suh--I ain' gwine put him in no fight. But ef he gits in a
fight--you know he's a mighty high-spirited dawg--he don' like dawgs to
come nosin' roun' him. Hit sort o' aggrivates him. An' ef he
should----?"
"I'll whip you as sure as you live----"
"Jes' ef he should?"
"Yes--if you let him."
"No, suh, I ain' gwine let him. You lef him wid me."
And though I knew that he was lying, I was content to leave the dog with
him; for I was obliged to leave him with someone, and I knew he loved
this dog and hoped my threat would, at least, keep him from anything
that might hurt him.
I drifted out to the Club later and casually dropped the information
that I was going away. I do not think it made much impression on my
friends there--in fact, I hardly think they took the information
seriously. They were a kindly lot, but took life and me lightly.
When I left town at midnight, the rain was pouring down and there was no
one at the dreary station to see me off but Jeams and Dix, and as the
train pulled out I stood on the platform to say good-by to Jeams, who
was waving his right hand sadly, while with the other he gripped the
collar of the dejected Dix who, with his eyes on me, struggled
spasmodically and viciously.
Suddenly Dix turned on his captor with a snarl and snap which startled
Jeams so that he let him go, then whirling about, he tore after the
train which was just beginning to quicken its speed. He had to rush over
ties and switch-rods, but he caught up and made a spring for the step.
He made good his footing, but Jeams was running and waving wildly and,
with his voice in my ears, I pushed the dog off with my foot and saw him
roll over between the tracks. Nothing daunted, however, he picked
himself up, and with another rush, sprang again for the step. This time
only his forefeet caught and he hung on by them for a second, then began
to slip--inch by inch he was slipping off as I stood watching him, when,
under an impulse, fearing that he might be killed, I hastily, and with a
sudden something in my throat, reached down and caught him just in time
to pull him up, and taking him in my arms I bore him into the car. I
confess that, as I felt him licking my hands, a warmer feeling than I
had had for some time came around my heart which had been like a lump of
ice during these last days, and I was glad no one was near by who knew
me. I made up my mind that, come what might, I would hold on to my one
faithful friend.
VIII
PADAN-ARAM
I first went to the town in which lived the relative, the cousin of my
father's whom I have mentioned. It was a bustling, busy city and he was
reputed the head of the Bar in his State--a man of large interests and
influence. I knew my father's regard for him. I think it was this and
his promise about me that made me go to him now. I thought he might help
me, at least with advice; for I had his name.
I left my trunk and Dix at the hotel and called on him at his large
office. In my loneliness, I was full of a new-born feeling of affection
for this sole kinsman. I thought, perhaps, he might possibly even make
me an offer to remain with him and eventually succeed to his practice. I
had not seen him two seconds, however, before I knew this was folly.
When I had sent in my name by an obtrusive-eyed office-boy, I was kept
waiting for some time in the outer office where the office-boy loudly
munched an apple, and a couple of clerks whispered to each other with
their eyes on the private office-door. And when I was ushered in, he
gave me a single keen look as I entered and went on writing without
asking me to sit down, and I would not sit without an invitation. When
he had finished he looked up, and nodded his head with a sort of jerk
toward a chair. He was a large man with a large head, short gray hair,
a strong nose, a heavy chin, and gray eyes close together, without the
kindliness either of age or of youth. I took a step toward him and in
some embarrassment began to speak rapidly. I called him "Cousin," for
blood had always counted for a great deal with us, and I had often heard
my father speak of him with pride. But his sharp look stopped me.
"Take a seat," he said, more in a tone of command than of invitation,
and called me "Mister." It was like plunging me into a colder
atmosphere. I did not sit down, but I was so far into my sentence I
could not well stop. So I went on and asked him what he thought of my
settling there, growing more and more embarrassed and hot with every
word.
"Have you any money?" he asked shortly.
"Not a cent."
"Well, I have none to lend you. You need not count on me. I would
advise--" But I did not wait for him to finish. I had got hold of myself
and was self-possessed enough now.
"I did not ask you to lend me any money, either," I said, straightening
myself up. "I did ask you to give me some advice; but now I do not want
that or anything else you have, d----n you! I made a mistake in coming
to you, for I am abundantly able to take care of myself."
Of course, I know now that he had something on his side. He supposed me
a weak, worthless dog, if not a "dead-beat." But I was so angry with him
I could not help saying what I did. I stalked out and slammed the door
behind me with a bang that made the glass in the sash rattle; and the
two or three young men, busy in the outer office, looked up in wonder. I
went straight to the hotel and took the train to the biggest city my
money would get me to. I thought a big city offered the best chances for
me, and, at least, would hide me. I think the fact that I had once
written a brief for Mr. Poole in the matter of his interest in car lines
there influenced me in my selection.
I travelled that night and the next day and the night following, and
partly because my money was running low and partly on Dix's account, I
rode in a day-coach. The first night and day passed well enough, but the
second night I was tired and dusty and lonely.
On the train that night I spent some serious hours. Disappointment is
the mother of depression and the grandmother of reflection. I took stock
of myself and tried to peer into the dim and misty future, and it was
gloomy work. Only one who has started out with the world in fee, and
after throwing it away in sheer recklessness of folly, suddenly hauls up
to find himself bankrupt of all he had spurned in his pride: a homeless
and friendless wanderer on the face of the earth, may imagine what I
went through. I learned that night what the exile feels; I dimly felt
what the outcast experiences. And I was sensible that I had brought it
all on myself. I had wantonly wasted all my substance in riotous living
and I had no father to return to--nothing, not even swine to keep in a
strange land. I faced myself on the train that night, and the effigy I
gazed on I admitted to be a fool.
The train, stuffy and hot, lagged and jolted and stopped, and still I
was conscious of only that soul-shifting process of self-facing. The
image of Peck, the tortoise, haunted me. At times I dozed or even slept
very soundly; though doubled up like a jack-knife, as I was, I could not
efface myself even in my sleep. But when I waked, there was still
myself--grim, lonely, homeless--haunting me like a stabbed corpse
chained to my side.
I was recalled to myself at last by the whimpering of children packed in
a seat across the aisle from me. They had all piled in together the
first night somewhere with much excitement. They were now hungry and
frowsy and wretched. There were five of them, red-cheeked and dirty;
complaining to their mother who, worn and bedraggled herself, yet never
lost patience with one or raised her voice above the soothing pitch in
all her consoling.
At first I was annoyed by them; then I was amused; then I wondered at
her, and at last, I almost envied her, so lonely was I and so content
was she with her little brood.
Hitched on to the train the second night was a private car, said to be
that of someone connected with a vice-president of the road. The name of
the official, which I learned later, was the same as that of an old
college friend of my father's, and I had often heard my father mention
him as his successful rival with his first sweetheart, and he used to
tease my mother by recalling the charms of Kitty MacKenzie, the young
lady in question, whose red golden hair he declared the most beautiful
hair that ever crowned a mortal head--while my mother, I remember,
insisted that her hair was merely carroty, and that her beauty, though
undeniable, was distinctly of the milkmaid order--a shaft which was will
aimed, for my mother's beauty was of the delicate, aristocratic type.
The fact was that Mr. Leigh had been a suitor of hers before my father
met her, and having been discarded by her, had consoled himself with the
pretty girl, to whom my father had been attentive before he met and fell
"head over heels in love" with a new star at a college ball.
Mr. Leigh, I knew, had gone West, and grown up to be a banker, and I
wondered vaguely if by any chance he could be the same person.