I scarcely knew what to say. The smoothness of his words and the
confidence of his manner had evidently made an impression on the others.
They had, indeed, almost influenced me, but suddenly a whole train of
reflection swept through my mind. Peck's duplicity from his earliest
appearance in Wolffert's room at college down to the present, with my
two old clients, the Miss Tippses, at the end, deceived and robbed by
Collis McSheen, with Peck, as the facile instrument, worming himself
into their confidence for what he called so paltry a thing as money, all
came clearly to my mind. I stood up slowly, for I was thinking hard; but
my duty appeared clear.
I regretted, I said, that Mr. Peck had appealed to me and to my long
acquaintance with him, for it made my position a painful one; but as he
had cited me as a witness, I felt that my duty was plain, and this was
to state the facts. In my judgment, Mr. Peck was not entitled to any
compensation whatever, as the evidence, so far as it existed outside of
Mr. Peck's statements, was contrary to his contention, and so far as it
rested on his personal testimony, I considered it as nothing, for I
would not believe one word he said where his personal interest was
concerned.
"And now," I added, "if Mr. Peck wishes me to give the grounds on which
this opinion of mine is based, either orally or in writing, I will do
so."
I paused, with my gaze fastened on him, and, with a sudden settling in
their seats, the other counsel also turned their eyes on him. His face
had suddenly blanched, but beyond this his expression did not change. He
sat for a few seconds rather limply, and then slowly rose.
"I am astonished," he began slowly, and his voice faltered. "I am
surprised, gentlemen, that Mr. Glave should think such things of me." He
took out his watch, fumblingly, and glanced at it. It was the same watch
he had got of me. "I see I must ask you to excuse me. I must catch my
train," he stammered. "Good morning," and he put on his hat and slunk
out of the door.
As the door closed every one drew a long breath and settled in his seat,
and nearly every one said, "Well."
My kinsman, whose eyes had been resting on me with a somewhat unwonted
twinkle in them, reached across the board and extended his large hand.
"Well, young man, you and I had a misunderstanding a few years ago, but
I hope you bear me no grudge for it now. I should like to be friends
with you. If you had needed it, you would have squared all accounts
to-day. I know that man. He is the greatest liar on earth. He has lost
the power to tell the truth."
It may well be believed that I had gripped his hand when he first held
it out, and the grip was one of a friendship that has lasted.
I had expected to hear from Peck, but no word came from him, and the
last I ever heard of him was that he and McSheen had had a quarrel, in
which McSheen had kicked him out of his office. A suit appeared on the
docket against McSheen, in which Peck was the plaintiff, but no
declaration was ever filed, and the case was finally dropped from the
docket.
Jeams failed to hold long the position of butler in our modest
household, for though my wife put up--on my account, as I believe--with
Jeams's occasionally marked unsteadiness of gait or mushiness of
utterance, she finally broke with him on discovering that Dix showed
unmistakable signs of a recent conflict, in which the fact that he had
been worsted had possibly something to do with Jeams's discharge, for
Dix was the idol of her heart, and it came to her ears that Jeams had
taken Dix out one night and matched him against the champion of the
town. But though Jeams lost the post of butler, he simply reverted to
his old position of factotum and general utility man about my premises.
His marriage to a very decent woman, though, according to rumor, with a
termagant's tongue, helped to keep him reasonably straight, though not
uniformly so; for one afternoon my wife and I came across him when he
showed that degree of delightful pomposity which was the unmistakable
sign of his being "half-shot."
"Jeams," I said, when I had cut short his grandiloquence, "what will
Eliza say to you when she finds you this way again?"
Jeams straightened himself and assumed his most dignified air. "My wife,
sir, knows better than to take me to task. She recognizes me, sir, as a
gentleman."
"She does? You wait and see when you get home."
Jeams's manner suddenly changed. He sank back into his half-drivelling
self. "Oh, she ain't gwine to say nothin' to me, Marse Hen. She ain't
gwine to say no more than Miss Nelly there says to you when you gets
this way. What does she say to you?"
"She doesn't say anything to me. She has no occasion to do so."
Jeams twisted his head to one side and burst into a drunken laugh. "Oh!
Yes, she do. I've done heard her. Eliza, she regalates me, and Miss
Nelly, she regalates you, an' I reckon we both knows it, and we better
know it, too."
And this was the fact. As usual, Jeams had struck the mark.
As for John Marvel, he remained the same old John--plodding, quiet,
persistent, patient, zealous, cheery and self-sacrificing, working among
the poor with an unfaltering trust in human nature which no shocks could
shake, because deep down in the untroubled depths of his soul lay an
unfaltering trust in the Divine Goodness and wisdom of God. He had been
called to a larger and quite important church, but after a few days of
consideration he, against the earnest wishes and advice of his friends,
myself among them, declined the call. He assigned among other reasons
the fact that he was expected to work to pay off the debt for which the
church was somewhat noted, and he knew nothing about business, his duty
was to preach the gospel, but when friends made it plain that the debt
would be taken care of if he became the rector, he still shook his head.
His work was among the poor and he could not leave them.
My wife and I went out to his church the Sunday evening following his
decision, and as we strolled along through the well-known squalid
streets, I could not help expressing my disappointment that after all
our work he should have rejected the offer.
"He is really the most unpractical man on earth," I fumed. "Here we have
gotten him a good call to a church that many a man would jump at, and
when he finds a difficulty in the way, we work until we have removed it
and yet he rejects it. He will remain an assistant to the end of his
days." My wife made no reply, a sure sign that she did not agree with
me, but did not care to discuss the matter. It is her most effective
method of refuting me.
When we arrived we found the little church packed to suffocation and men
on the outside leaning in at the windows. Among them I recognized the
tall form of my old Drummer. As we joined the group, John Marvel's
voice, clear and strong, came floating out through the open windows.
He was giving out a hymn.
"One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o'er and o'er:
I am nearer home to-day
Than I ever have been before."
The whole congregation joined in, those without the church as well as
those who were within.
As I heard the deep bass of the old Drummer, rolling in a low, solemn
undertone, a sudden shifting of the scene came to me. I was in a great
auditorium filled with light, and packed with humanity rising tier on
tier and stretching far back till lost in the maze of distances. A grand
orchestra, banked before me, with swaying arms and earnest faces, played
a wonderful harmony which rolled about me like the sea and whelmed me
with its volume till I was almost swept away by the tide, then suddenly
down under its sweep I found the low deep roll of the bass drum. No one
appeared to mark it or paid any heed to him. Nor did the big Drummer pay
any heed to the audience. All he minded was the harmony and his drum.
But I knew that, unmarked and unheeded, it set athrob the pulsing air
and stirred the billows through which all that divine music reached and
held the soul.
As we walked home that night after pressing our way into the throng of
poor people to wring John Marvel's hand, I said to my wife after a
struggle with myself to say it:
"I think I was wrong about John, and you were right. He did right. He is
well named the Assistant."
My wife said simply: "I feel that I owe him more than I can say." She
slipped her hand in my arm, and a warm feeling for all mankind surged
about my heart.
* * * * *
BOOKS BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE
ROBERT E. LEE: The Southerner
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THE OLD DOMINION: Her Making and Her Manners
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THE OLD SOUTH
Essays Social and Political
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THE NEGRO: The Southerner's Problem
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SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD VIRGINIA BEFORE THE WAR
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author describes so graphically."--_Charleston News and Courier._
THE COAST OF BOHEMIA
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RED ROCK
A Chronicle of Reconstruction
Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst
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THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK
With 8 colored illustrations by H. C. Christy
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IN OLE VIRGINIA
Marse Chan, and Other Stories
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THE BURIAL OF THE GUNS
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GORDON KEITH
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BRED IN THE BONE
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UNDER THE CRUST
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ON NEWFOUND RIVER: A Story
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_in the Boston Herald_.
PASTIME STORIES
With Illustrations by A. B. Frost
"Some of these short character sketches equal in artistic moderation and
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STORIES AND SPECIAL EDITIONS
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=TOMMY TROT'S VISIT TO SANTA CLAUS.= Illustrated in colors.
=A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS.= Illustrated in colors.
=SANTA CLAUS'S PARTNER.= With illustrations in colors.
=IN OLE VIRGINIA.= With illustrations by FROST, PYLE, SMEDLEY, and others.
=IN OLE VIRGINIA.= [_Cameo Edition._] With an etching by W. L. SHEPPARD.
=MARSE CHAN.= A Tale of Old Virginia. Illustrated.
=MEH LADY.= A Story of the War. Illustrated.
=POLLY.= A Christmas Recollection. Illustrated.
=UNC' EDINBURG.= A Plantation Echo. Illustrated.
"=BEFO' THE WAR.=" Echoes of Negro Dialect. By A. C. GORDON and THOMAS
NELSON PAGE.
=AMONG THE CAMPS=, or Young People's Stories of the War. Illustrated.
=TWO LITTLE CONFEDERATES.= Illustrated.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK
End of Project Gutenberg's John Marvel, Assistant, by Thomas Nelson Page