derision, and in a moment pandemonium had broken loose. The doctor
attempted to speak again and again, but about all that could be heard
was his vociferation that he was their friend. Wolffert, whose question
had caused the commotion, was now mounted on a chair and waving his arms
wildly about him, and presently, moved by curiosity, the tumult subsided
and the audience sat with their faces turned toward the man on the
chair. He turned, and with a sweep of his arm toward the stage, he
cried:
"We don't want to hear you. What have you done that you should give us
advice? What do you know of us? When have you ever hearkened to the cry
of the destitute? When have you ever visited the fatherless and the
widows in affliction, unless they were rich? When have you ever done
anything but fawn on Herod and flatter Pontius? Whom are you here to
help and set free to-day? These people? No! High-priest of wealth and
power and usurpation, we know you and your friends--the Jesus you ask to
free is not the Nazarene, but Barabbas, the robber, promoter of vice and
patron of sin!"
His long arm pointed at the platform where sat McSheen, his face black
with impotent rage. "If we are to have a priest to address us, let us
have one that we can trust. Give us a man like John Marvel. We know him
and he knows us." He turned and pointed to Marvel.
The effect was electrical. Shouts of "Marvel! Mr. Marvel! Marvel!
Marvel! John Marvel!" rang from their throats, and suddenly, as with one
impulse, the men turned to our corner where John Marvel had sunk in his
seat to escape observation, and in an instant he was seized, drawn forth
and lifted bodily on the shoulders of men and borne to the platform as
if on the crest of a tidal wave. Coll McSheen and Dr. Capon were both
shouting to the audience, but they might as well have addressed a
tropical hurricane. The cries of "Marvel, Marvel" drowned every other
sound, and presently those on the stage gathered about both McSheen and
the rector, and after a moment one of them stepped forward and asked
John Marvel to speak.
John Marvel turned, stepped forward to the edge of the platform, and
reached out one long arm over the audience with an awkward but telling
gesture that I had often seen him use, keeping it extended until, after
one great outburst of applause, the tumult had died down.
"My friends," he began. Another tumult.
"That is it. Yes, we are your friends."
Still the arm outstretched commanded silence.
He began to speak quietly and slowly and his voice suddenly struck me as
singularly sympathetic and clear, as it must have struck the entire
assembly, for suddenly the tumult ceased and the hall became perfectly
quiet. He spoke only a few minutes, declaring that he had not come to
speak to them; but to be with them, and pray that God might give them
(he said "us") peace and show some way out of the blackness which had
settled down upon them. He bade them not despair, however dark the cloud
might be which had overshadowed them. They might be sure that God was
beyond it and that He would give light in His own time. He was leading
them now, as always--the presence of that assembly, with so many of the
leading men of the city asking a conference, was in itself a proof of
the great advance their cause had made. That cause was not, as some
thought, so much money a day, but was the claim to justice and
consideration and brotherly kindness. He himself was not a business man.
He knew nothing of such matters. His duty was to preach--to preach
peace--to preach the love of God--to preach patience and long-suffering
and forgiveness, the teaching of his Lord and master, who had lived in
poverty all His life, without a place to lay His head, and had died
calling on God to forgive His enemies.
This is a poor summary of what he said very simply but with a feeling
and solemnity which touched the great audience, who suddenly crushed out
every attempt to contradict his proposition. Something had transformed
him so that I could scarcely recognize him. I asked myself, can this be
John Marvel, this master of this great audience? What is the secret of
his power? The only answer I could find was in his goodness, his
sincerity, and sympathy.
"And now," he said in closing, "whatever happens, please God, I shall be
with you and take my lot among you, and I ask you as a favor to me to
listen to Dr. Capon."
There was a great uproar and shout; for Dr. Capon had, immediately after
John Marvel got control of his audience, risen from his seat, seized his
hat and coat and cane, and stalked with great majesty from the platform.
There were, however, a number of other speeches, and although there was
much noise and tumult, some advance was made; for a general, though by
no means unanimous, opinion was shown in favor of something in the
nature of a reconciliation.
As I glanced up after John Marvel returned amid the shouts to his seat,
I saw Miss Leigh in one of the boxes leaning forward and looking with
kindled eyes in our direction. Thinking that she was looking at me, and
feeling very forgiving, I bowed to her, and it was only when she failed
to return my bow that I apprehended that she was not looking at me but
at John Marvel. If she saw me she gave no sign of it; and when I walked
the streets that night, strikes and strikers occupied but little of my
thoughts. Unless I could make up with Eleanor Leigh, the whole world
might go on strike for me. I determined to consult John Marvel. He had
somehow begun to appear to me the sanest of advisers. I began to feel
that he was, as Wolffert had once said of him, "a sort of Ark of the
Covenant."
XXXIV
THE FLAG OF TRUCE
My acquaintance was now extending rapidly. I had discovered in the
turgid tide that swept through the streets of the city other conditions
and moods than those I first remarked: dark brooding shadows and rushing
rapids catching the light, but fierce and deadly beneath; placid pools
and sequestered eddies, far apart where the sunlight sifted in and lay
soft on the drift that had escaped the flood, touching it with its magic
and lending it its sweet radiance. I had found, indeed, that the city
was an epitome of the world. It took a great many people to make it and
there were other classes in it besides the rich and the poor. It was in
one of these classes that I was beginning to find myself most at home.
I received one day an invitation to dine one evening the following week
at the house of a gentleman whom I had met a week or two before and whom
I had called on in response to an invitation unusually cordial. I had
not been to a fashionable dinner since I had come to the West, and I
looked forward with some curiosity to the company whom I should meet at
Mr. Desport's, for I knew nothing about him except that I had met him in
a law case and we had appeared to have a number of things in common,
including objects of dislike, and further, that when I called on him he
lived in a very handsome house, and I was received in one of the most
charming libraries it was ever my good fortune to enter, and with a
graciousness on the part of his wife which I had never known excelled.
It was like stepping into another world to pass from the rush of the
city into that atmosphere of refinement and culture.
My heart, however, was a little lower down than it should have been, for
I could not but reflect with how much more pleasure I would have arrayed
myself if it had been an invitation to Mr. Leigh's. In truth, the
transition from my narrow quarters and the poverty of those among whom I
had been living for some time, made this charming house appear to me the
acme of luxury, and I was conscious of a sudden feeling, as I passed
this evening through the ample and dignified hall into the sumptuous
drawing-room, that somehow I was well fitted for such surroundings.
Certainly I found them greatly to my taste. I was received again most
graciously by Mrs. Desport, and as I had followed my provincial custom
of coming a little ahead of time, I was the first visitor to arrive, a
fact which I did not regret, as Mrs. Desport took occasion to tell me
something of the guests whom she expected. After describing what I
concluded to be a somewhat staid and elderly company, she added:
"I have given you a young lady whom I feel sure you will like. She is a
little serious-minded, I think, and some people consider that she is
simply posing; but however eccentric she may be, I believe that she is
really in earnest, and so does my husband; and I have never seen a young
girl improve so much as she has done since she took up this new work of
hers."
What this work was I was prevented from inquiring by the arrival of a
number of guests all at once.
A dinner where the guests are not presented to each other differs in no
important sense from a table-d'hôte dinner. The soup is likely to be a
trifle colder and the guests a trifle more reserved--that is all. Mrs.
Desport, however, followed the old-fashioned custom of introducing her
guests to each other, preferring to open the way for them to feel at
home, rather than to leave them floundering among inanities about the
weather and their taste for opera. And though a lady, whom I presently
sat next to, informed me that they did not do it "in England or even in
New York now," I was duly grateful.
Having been presented to the company, I found them gay and full of
animation, even though their conversation was inclined to be mainly
personal and related almost exclusively to people with whom, for the
most part, I had no acquaintance. The name of young Canter figured
rather more extensively in it than was pleasant to me, and Dr. Capon was
handled with somewhat less dignity than the cloth might have been
supposed to require. I was, however, just beginning to enjoy myself when
my attention was suddenly diverted by the sound of a voice behind me, as
another guest arrived. I did not even need to turn to recognize Eleanor
Leigh, but when I moved around sufficiently to take a side glance at
her, I was wholly unprepared for the vision before me. I seemed to have
forgotten how charming she looked, and she broke on me like a fresh dawn
after a storm. I do not know what I was thinking, or whether I was not
merely just feeling, when my hostess came forward.
"Now we are all here. Mr. Glave, you are to take Miss Leigh in. You know
her, I believe?"
I felt myself red and pale by turns and, glancing at Miss Leigh, saw
that she, too, was embarrassed. I was about to stammer something when my
hostess moved away, and as it appeared that the others had all paired
off, there was nothing for me to do but accept the situation. As I
walked over and bowed, I said in a low tone:
"I hope you will understand that I had no part in this. I did not know."
She evidently heard, for she made a slight bow and then drew herself up
and took my arm.
"I should not have come," I added, "had I known of this. However, I
suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be exchanging
with ordinary interest the ordinary inanities of such an occasion."
[Illustration: "I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear
to be exchanging the ordinary inanities."]
She bowed, and then after a moment's silence added:
"I have nothing to say which could possibly interest you, and suggest
that we do what I have heard has been done under similar circumstances,
and simply count."
I thought of the molten metal pourable down an offender's throat. And
with the thought came another: Did it mean that she was going to marry
that young Canter? It was as if one who had entered Eden and
discovered Eve, had suddenly found the serpent coiling himself between
them.
"Very well." I was now really angry. I had hoped up to this time that
some means for reconciliation might be found, but this dashed my hope. I
felt that I was the aggrieved person, and I determined to prove to her
that I would make no concession. I was not her slave. "Very well,
then--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight--nine, ten, eleven,
twelve--thirteen," I said, looking straight ahead of me and dropping
every syllable as if it were an oath. She gave me a barely perceptible
side glance. I think I had taken her aback by my prompt compliance. She
hesitated a moment.
"Or, as that is not very amusing, suppose we cap verses? I hear you know
a great deal of poetry--Mr. Wolffert told me. I never knew any one with
such a memory as his." I recognized the suggestion as a flag of truce.
I bowed, and as, of course, "Mary had a little lamb," was the first
thing that popped into my head with its hint of personal application, I
foolishly quoted the first verse, intending her to make the personal
application.
She was prompt to continue it, with, I thought, a little sub-tone of
mischief in her voice:
"It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule,"
she said demurely. There she stopped, so I took up the challenge.
"Which made the children laugh and say
'A lamb's a little fool.'"
It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I had
finished--still, it conveyed my meaning.
She paused a moment and evidently started to look at me, but as
evidently she thought better of it. She, however, murmured, "I thought
we would quote verses, not make them."
I took this to be a confession that she was not able to make them, and I
determined to show how much cleverer I was; so, without noticing the cut
of the eye which told of her wavering, I launched out:
"There was a young lady of fashion,
Who, finding she'd made quite a mash on
A certain young swain,
Who built castles in Spain,
Fell straight in a terrible passion."
To this she responded with a promptness which surprised me:
"A certain young lady of fashion,
Had very good grounds for her passion,
It sprang from the pain
Of a terrible strain
On her friendship, and thus laid the lash on."
I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began rapidly:
"I'm sure the young man was as guiltless
As infant unborn and would wilt less
If thrown in the fire
Than under her ire----"
"Than under her ire," I repeated to myself. "Than under the ire"--what
the dickens will rhyme with "wilt less"? We had reached the dining-room
by this time and I could see that she was waiting with a provoking
expression of satisfaction on her face over my having stalled in my
attempt at a rhyme. I placed her in her chair and, as I took my own
seat, a rhyme came to me--a poor one, but yet a rhyme:
"And since, Spanish castles he's built less,"
I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come easily.
"I was wondering how you'd get out of that," she said with a little
smile which dimpled her cheek beguilingly. "You know you might have
said,
"'And since, milk to weep o'er he's spilt less';
or even,
"'And since, striped mosquitoes he's kilt less.'
Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and sense, too."
I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It would never do to
let her make fun of me. So I kept my serious air.
I determined to try a new tack and surprise her. I had a few shreds of
Italian left from a time when I had studied the poets as a refuge from
the desert dulness of my college course, and now having, in a pause,
recalled the lines, I dropped, as though quite naturally, Dante's
immortal wail:
'Nessun maggior dolore
Che recordarci del tempo felice
Nella miseria.'
I felt sure that this would at least impress her with my culture, while
if by any chance she knew the lines, which I did not apprehend, it would
impress her all the more and might prove a step toward a reconciliation.
For a moment she said nothing, then she asked quietly, "How does the
rest of it go?"
She had me there, for I did not know the rest of the quotation.
"'E ciò sa il tuo dottore,'"
she said with a cut of her eye, and a liquid tone that satisfied me I
had, as the saying runs, "stepped from the frying-pan into the fire."
She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that reminded me, through I
know not what subtle influence, of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she
could not tell whether I was in earnest or was jesting.
I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that I was getting
decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her murmuring so softly as
almost to appear speaking to herself:
"'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of other things--
Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax,
And cabbages and Kings.'"
I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a beguiling little
dimple was flickering near the corners of her mouth and her long lashes
caught me all anew. My heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my
Alice much better than my Dante, so when she said, "You can talk, can't
you?" I answered quietly, and quite as if it were natural to speak in
verse:
"'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the Law,
And argued each case with my wife,
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life.'"
She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she took up the next
verse:
"'You are old,' said the youth. 'One would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever,
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?'"
I hoped that she was embarrassed when I found that she had taken my
napkin by mistake, and she was undoubtedly so when she discovered that
she had it.
"I beg your pardon," she said as she handed me hers.
I bowed.
With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to the lady on my other
side, with whom I was soon in an animated discussion, but my attention
was not so engrossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out of
the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on the other side of
Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and that she had to repeat every word
that she said to him.
The lady on the other side of me was rambling on about something, but
just what, I had not the least idea (except that it related to the
problem-novel, a form of literature that I detest), as I was soon quite
engrossed in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh and her
deaf companion, in which my name, which appeared to have caught the
gentleman's attention, was figuring to some extent.
"Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?" I heard him ask in what he
doubtless imagined to be a whisper.
"Yes, I think so," said Miss Leigh.
"You say he is not?"
"No, I did not say so; I think he is."
"He is a fine lawyer," I heard him say, and I was just pluming myself on
the rapid extension of my reputation, when he added, "He is an old
friend of your father's, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to
represent your father in his case against those rascals.--A friend of
yours, too," were the next words I heard, for decency required me to
appear to be giving some attention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly
wished in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but
indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she was telling
about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, I did not know, but was ready to
damn at a venture.
"He told me he came on your account, as much as on your father's," said
the gentleman, rallyingly. "You had better look out. These old bachelors
are very susceptible. No fool like an old fool, you know."
To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from which I gathered
that her neighbor was a bachelor himself, for he answered in the high
key which he mistook for a whisper:
"You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I'll ask you to marry
me before the dessert."
I was recalled to myself by my other neighbor, who had been talking
steadily, asking me suddenly, and in a tone which showed she demanded an
answer:
"What do you think of that?"
"Why, I think it was quite natural," I said.
"You do?"
"Yes, I do," I declared firmly.
"You think it was natural for him to run off with his own
daughter-in-law!" Her eyes were wide with astonishment.
"Well, not precisely natural, but--under the circumstances, you see, it
was certainly more natural than for him to run off with his
mother-in-law--you will have to admit that."
"I admit nothing of the kind," she declared, with some heat. "I am a
mother-in-law myself, and I must say I think the jibes at mothers-in-law
are very uncalled for."
"Oh! now you put me out of court," I said. "I did not mean to be
personal. Of course, there are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law."
Happily, at this moment the gentleman on her other side insisted on
securing her attention, and I turned just in time to catch the dimples
of amusement that were playing in Eleanor Leigh's face. She had
evidently heard my mistake.
"Oh! he is so deaf!" she murmured, half turning to me, though I was not
quite sure that she was not speaking to herself. The next second she
settled the question. "He is so distressingly deaf," she repeated in an
undertone, with the faintest accent of appeal for sympathy in her voice.
I again recognized the flag of truce. But I replied calmly:
"I passed by his garden and marked with one eye
How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie.
The panther took pie-crust and gravy and meat,
While the owl had the dish as its share of the treat."
The color mantled in her cheek and she raised her head slightly.
"Are you going to keep that up? I suppose we shall have to talk a
little. I think we are attracting attention. For Heaven's sake, don't
speak so loud! We are being observed."
But I continued:
"When the pie was all finished, the owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon."
"It is very rude of you to go on in that way when I am speaking. You
remind me of a machine," she smiled. "Here am I stuck between two men,
one of whom cannot hear a word I say, while the other does nothing but
run on like a machine." I observed, with deep content, that she was
becoming exasperated.
At that moment the hostess leant forward and said:
"What are you two so interested in discussing there? I have been
watching, and you have not stopped a minute."
Eleanor Leigh burst into a laugh. "Mr. Glave is talking Arabic to me."
"Arabic!" exclaimed the hostess. "Mr. Glave, you have been in the East,
have you?"
"Yes, he came from the East where the wise men always come from," said
Miss Leigh. Then turning to me she said in an undertone, "You see what I
told you."
For reply, I simply quoted on, though I had a little pang as I saw the
shadow come into her eyes and the smile leave her mouth.
"My father was deaf,
And my mother was dumb,
And to keep myself company,
I beat the drum."
"I think that was a very good occupation for you," she said, turning
away, with her head very high.
"Will you let me say something to you?" she said in a low tone a moment
later, and, without waiting, she added:
"I think it was rather nasty in me to say what I said to you when you
first came in, but you had treated me so rudely when I spoke to you on
the street."
"You do not call it rude not to answer a letter when a gentleman writes
to explain an unfortunate mistake, and then cut him publicly?"
"I did not receive it until afterward," she said. "I was away from town,
and as to cutting you--I don't know what you are talking about."
"At the Charity Fair."
"I never saw you. I wondered you were not there."
Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more astounded, and had it
opened near me I should possibly have sprung in in my confusion. I had,
as usual, simply made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew.
At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over and with it I
feared my chance was over too.
"Give me a moment. I must have one moment," I said as she passed me on
her way out of the dining-room with the other ladies, her head held very
high.
She inclined her head and said something in so low a tone that I did not
catch it.
King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those cigars smoked that
evening. When, at last, the host moved to return to the drawing-room, I
bolted in only to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a
middle-aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about the Pooles,
whom she had heard I knew. She had heard that Lilian Poole had not
married very happily. "Did I know?"
"No, I did not know," nor, in fact, did I care, though I could not say
so. Then another question: "Could I tell why all the men appeared to
find Miss Leigh so very attractive?" Yes, I thought I could tell
that--"Because she is very attractive."
"Oh well, yes, I suppose she is--pretty and all that, with a sort of
kitteny softness--but----"
"There is no 'but' about it," I interrupted brusquely--"she is just what
you said--very attractive. For one thing, she has brains; for another,
heart. Neither of them is so common as not to be attractive." I thought
of the young tigress concealed in that "kitteny softness" of which the
lady spoke, and was determined not to permit the sly cat to see what I
really felt.