graves rayed out like the spokes of a wheel--and old Thomas, with a
cane, which so surely only appeared on Sundays that a bad little boy
once said: “God made the Sabbath day and old Brockwell’s cane!”--with
this cane he immediately bored a little hole at the foot of one grave
and remarked: “I buried my _first_ wife there”--and Emily brought
her jaws to with a snap, and bowed her head slightly, as though
acknowledging an introduction. Then she chewed again, and old Thomas
yanked out the cane with some effort, as though Mrs. Brockwell No. 1
was holding on to it. Then he bored another little hole at the foot
of another grave with the cane and announced: “I buried my eldest son
here”--another stoppage of the jaws and another bow--and so the old
“borer” went on, till each member of the family had been presented to
the new-comer in turn, and then he gave the final touch of brightness
to this very original bridal outing by carefully measuring with the
cane the space, to see if there was enough left for two more spokes to
his family “wheel of death.”
Mrs. Brockwell was wont to declare she would remember that day as
long as she lived. Not because her sensibilities were wounded, but
because she had not been constructed for rapid action, and she declared
she would never have lived through the homeward walk but for the
sustaining power of an extra piece of gum, which she luckily had in her
pocket--for this was the golden age of the world when women still had
pockets.
Old Thomas Brockwell narrowly--very narrowly--escaped being a religious
monomaniac. Unquestionably sincere, his religion was yet a thing so
warped and bitter as to fill most people with shrinking dread. He
studied only the Old Testament, rarely reading the New. In his ears
the rolling thunders of Sinai drowned the gentle “Voice” preaching from
the “Mount.” He believed in a personal Devil--he believed in a material
Hell.
I have never known anyone who got as much satisfaction out of the
_whole_ of his religion as he got out of Hell alone. He talked of it,
thought of it, and, in regretful tones, told many of his friends that
they were going _there_. All its accessories were dear to him. The
“brimstone,” the “burning lake” and that “undying worm,” which seemed,
in his imagination, something between a boaconstrictor and a Chinese
dragon, while the “bottomless pit” not only gave him two words to
roll sweetly under his tongue, but provided an ideal place to shake
frightened little boys over at Sunday-school--for he labored faithfully
Sunday after Sunday to frighten sinful youth into the church or the
idiot asylum.
His God was a bitterly revengeful God! The Bible told him to fear Him
and to obey His commandments. The base of his religion was “an eye
for an eye--a tooth for a tooth!” He knew no “turning of the other
cheek”--no “forgiveness of enemies,” and many a time, in his efforts
to show his disapproval of the loving, gentle, yet strong teaching of
the New Testament, he blasphemed unconsciously. Few things made him so
angry as to suggest “a Hell of remorse”--of “tortured conscience”--of
“mental agony”--while a hint at “atonement”--a final winning of
forgiveness--was a rag so red as to set him madly charging through the
harshest and most cruelly just punishments meted out in the Bible--and
the worse one promised for the future--_Hell_! “And _their_ future is
_now_!” he would shout, with glaring eyes! “_Now_, do you understand?
All these disobedient servants of the Lord are in fiery torments _now!_
and _will_ be forever! Ah! it’s a big place--a _mighty_ big place!--far
and far away bigger than Heaven! It has to be, there’s so many more to
go there!”
Night and morning he read a portion of the Bible, and prayed loud and
long--and right there he came in conflict with his Emily. There was
just one point they differed on--they did not quarrel, because Emily
was too slow in speech. There’s no comfort to be had out of a quarrel,
unless it’s quick--_very_ quick; and if Emily had had her choice she
would a good deal rather have died than try to be quick.
The point of difference between this otherwise peaceful pair was
whether the chewing of gum was un-Christianlike and disrespectful when
indulged in during family service. The first time he had caught her in
the heinous act he had roared out: “Woman, have you no decency? Would
you chaw the ten commandments up into a hunk of gum?”
Emily had mildly stated that she chewed “to keep herself awake,” and
after many struggles it had come to a compromise--she was only to chew
while he read; _not_ while he prayed.
Emily explained matters to me one day in this way: “You see, Mr.
Brockwell, he gets riled up because I chew gum while he’s reading
gospel, but it’s really his own fault; if he’d only read one chapter,
like an ordinary Christian man! My father, now, was a deacon, and he
never read mor’n one chapter at a time at family service; but Mr.
Brockwell, when he gets a smiting people hip and thigh, and a raining
down plagues and things; why, there’s no stop to him; he goes right
along over ever so many chapters--and I don’t take to the stoning
and the killing--and so I go off to sleep, unless I chew gum right
hard. Why, never once since we’ve been married has Mr. Brockwell been
satisfied with the ‘Fall of Jericho’ for one reading. On he goes,
and tackles that city of ‘Ai,’ and I always feel sorry when that
line comes about the ‘men and _women_ that were slaughtered bein’
twelve thousand.’ But, land sakes! it’s all sweeter than honey to Mr.
Brockwell--’specially the hanging of the king, and piling stones on
his body for the beginning of an altar--nasty, bad-smelling idea I
call it. _But_ when Mr. Brockwell begins with them ‘seven trumpets
of rams’ horns’ I begin to chew hard, for I know there’s a lot to be
gone over before praying begins. If he’d read oftener about Hannah and
little Samuel I’d keep awake. Ain’t that a nice little Samuel on the
mantel--his left foot’s broken, but kneeling like that you’d never know
it, unless you turn him around.” That being the sort of tangent Mrs.
Emily was apt to go off on during a conversation.
The old man might have lived without working at that time, but he held
idleness as sinful, so he, without any feeling of shame, acted as
night watchman in a large building down town. One winter there were
many burglaries, and his employer grew a bit uneasy, knowing his was
a tempting establishment and remembering that Thomas Brockwell was an
elderly man. So he asked his watchman if he would not like to have
some one to help him during the rest of the winter. And Brockwell was
hot with anger and answered that he could take care of his employer’s
property, but he didn’t want to protect some young nincompoop besides.
“I am able to take care of any burglars that come my way. A man of the
Lord can always lick a law-breaker,” and looking at the really splendid
old body of his watchman, the gentleman had laughingly declared he
“believed old Brockwell would be up to two or three younger men!” and
let him go his obstinate, lonely way, and like many another word spoken
in jest, these words proved true.
One bitter night, after reading with great enjoyment of the prompt
action of the bears in the taking off of those ribald little boys
who had made unpleasant remarks about the scarcity of hair among the
prophets (surprising how alike the boys of to-day are with the boys of
the scriptural epoch), and had prayed till Emily had fallen asleep,
with her face squelched in the seat of the chair she knelt by, and had
awakened and acknowledged her fault. “For,” as she said to me, “after
he had fallen over my legs without waking me, he might have thought I
was lying if I had said I was just thinking.”
And I had quite agreed with her and complimented her on her truthful
nature--and he had taken his tin pail of coffee in his mittened hand
and his package of sandwiches in his pocket and gone forth to his
night’s watch. He had been a sailor in his early manhood, and, in
addition to the tattooed anchor and star on the backs of his hands, he
still retained a few words from his sailor’s vocabulary which he used
now and then with bewildering effect upon the landsmen. Mrs. Brockwell
found that habit particularly trying. She was one of those women who
always get drabbled when they walk. Long street dresses were worn in
her day, and had she possessed six hands instead of two, she would have
failed still to keep her dress out of the wet or the mud. On Sundays
when she was crowded into her best gown and was clutching her skirt in
the most useless places, trying to pick her way across a muddy street,
old Thomas was wont to exclaim from the rear: “Take a reef in the
la’board side of your petticoat, Emily!” and Emily would hoist high
the right side instead, and the left would go trailing through the
mud, while the old man pounded the walk with his Sunday cane, crying:
“La’board--la’board--la’board, not sta’board. Now just look at your
sails! Oh, woman, the ignorance of you at forty-six, not to know your
la’board from your sta’board side!” And meek Emily never suggested
that left and right were the generally accepted terms for use on shore.
And as old Thomas walked through the biting cold, he congratulated
himself on the honesty his wife had shown in admitting she had fallen
asleep during prayers, and said to himself that it was the end of _her_
day’s work and he supposed she was tired--and--“great guns, how cold
it was!” And so he maundered on and reached his store and entered and
made his rounds, and finally at about two o’clock he took his coffee
from the heater and began to drink it, when he paused--to listen. Then
he put the coffee gently down and stole softly to the office--and saw
two men at the safe, and with a cry, “Avast there!” he was upon them,
striving to grasp them both! The smaller one was like an eel and had
slipped from his clutch, but the larger one he held on to, and after
a short struggle, he got his head “in chancery.” He had just put in a
couple of good blows--when he heard an ominous click behind him--at the
same instant the man he was pounding fiercely growled: “No, no, don’t
use the ‘barker’--you fool, you’ll ‘jug’ us all yet! Choke the devil
off, so I can do something--choke him, I say!”
With beautiful obedience and the spring of a wild-cat, No. 2 was on
Brockwell’s back, and doing his best to carry out orders. But it was
that neck--that had given rise to the name _Bull_ Brockwell; and the
small ruffian tried in vain to get his clever thief’s fingers in a
choking grasp about the massive throat; but his weight was disturbing
and distressing, and old Brockwell loosed No. 1 for a moment, while he
reached up and tore the incubus from his shoulders. In the effort he
wheeled half round and found himself facing a third man in the doorway.
He had just time to note that the man had a bull’s-eye lantern in one
hand, some weapon in the other, and wore a half-mask on his face--when
he received a crushing blow upon the head. He felt the hot blood leap
forth in swift response to that savage gash. He staggered a bit,
too, but did not fall, to the amazement of the brawny scoundrel, who
exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned!” Those words were like a veritable
“slogan” to old Brockwell. “Aye, aye,” he cried, “right you are, my
hearty! Damned you will be, sure, and the burning lake of brimstone
you’ll get for this night’s work!” and then they were upon him. He
threw No. 3 out of the doorway and took that place himself, thus
keeping all of them before him, and like an old bear “baited” by a pack
of snapping, snarling dogs, he was slowly driven back until he found
himself in the room again where stood his coffee. While he placed many
blows where they would do the most good, still a great many more had
fallen short. He felt his wind was going, and the streaming blood from
his head impaired his sight, and just at that moment of threatened
weakness the little thief struck him in the face, not with his fist
but with his open hand--slapped him, in fact. With a roar of rage,
old Brockwell caught up the pail and dashed the hot coffee full into
his assailant’s face, then shouting, “You little whelp, you cur, you
worm!” with a mighty blow he drove the tin pail hard and tight on to
the thief’s head, half cutting off his ears with its rim, and as the
other men made at him, by a happy fluke, he caught each man by the back
of the neck and with every ounce of power to be had from his great arms
and shoulders, he drove their two heads together in a smashing blow,
and dropped their bodies as a well-bred terrier drops the rats he has
shaken the life from. Then he turned for the little foe, just in time
to catch upon his arm the blow that had been meant for his heart, and,
by the hot smarting of his skin, he knew he had been cut by the little
ruffian, whom he hammered into submission easily. Then Bull Brockwell
sounded his whistle at the door for the police, and when they came
he laid his hand on one of the officers’ shoulder and faintly asked:
“Why--don’t--you--hold still--officer? You keep--going up--and down--,”
and then old Thomas went down, and for a time knew neither prayer, nor
burglar, nor even burning brimstone, but only darkness.
When his senses came back to him he gave an exhibition of what might be
called pig-headed honesty. There was a drug store and a doctor’s office
about two blocks away, and the policeman, on seeing the sorry condition
of the old man, urged him to go and have his hurts cared for. _They_
would see that all was safe during his absence, but he refused point
blank, saying: “If a man was a watchman, he watched! If he was a night
watchman he watched till the night was gone, or deserved the ‘cat.’
His employer paid him to stay in that building till daylight, and he’d
stay, and be tended to afterwards.”
Half angrily the policeman exclaimed: “You obstinate, old bull! Do you
want to bleed to death, then?” And the “bull,” with some embarrassment,
had acknowledged that he did not really desire death, but with a sigh
of satisfaction, he suddenly announced: “The Lord will settle all that.
All I’ve got to do--is my duty--and though I don’t feel just what you
might call--hearty--I--I--guess--I’ll hold out--till time’s up and--”
and his gray white lips trembled into silence.
The policeman, finding him immovable in his determination, sent for
help, and soon the battered “old Brockwell” was being washed and
strapped and bandaged and stitched, and had a few feet of plaster over
some strained muscles, and was generally “made over.” And then the
stunned burglars had recovered their scattered senses and received a
smiling and joyous welcome from the policemen, such as is only offered
when the lost is found--and indeed one of these gentlemen had been
lost--from the penitentiary--for several months. When the party of
three were rounded up, ready for an early morning stroll to the station
house, No. 1 had turned to Brockwell and growled: “See here, you old
slugger, next time I come up against you just hit me over the head
with a loaded cane, or the butt-end of a revolver or something _soft_
like that, will you? I don’t want to be ‘put out’ no more with another
‘mug’s’ head, now I tell you fair!”
“A--a--ah!” cried the little fellow, “he’s a fightin’ freak, he is! He
ought to be a doin’ time for jamming a tin pail over a man’s head and
half cutting off his ears!”
And so they went forth, cursing the night they had tackled “old Bull
Brockwell!”
And then he had returned home, “sans buttons et sans reproche,” and
finding a barrel of flour standing at the side door, had picked it up
and carried it into the house, apparently to convince himself that
he was not much hurt. Then, beginning to feel stiff and lame, he put
himself into Emily’s hands, and she promptly put him into his bed,
and scrambled through the “Fall of Jericho,” stuck her gum upon the
bed-post while she did it, then she had looked at his head and said,
“she’d no idea a man could sew so neatly!” and then old Brockwell got
hot and feverish, and his eye and cheek had blackened, and the doctor
said he must be kept quiet a few days, at which dictum Emily had
groaned aloud: “Kept quiet? Him? Good Lord!”
And, truly, had she been alone with him those days, her work would
have been cut out for her. The ideal “bull in a china shop” would have
proved an inoffensive and lymphatic creature compared to this pawing,
plunging, irritable old Bull Brockwell! Bad enough at any time, when
his eyes had swelled so he could no longer by the aid of his Bible put
women and children to “the edge of the sword,” nor erect altars, nor
even calculate the dollars’ worth of a “wedge of gold of fifty shekels
weight,” he proceeded to fret himself into a fever, and I was moved
partly by pity and partly, I am sorry to say, by a spirit of mischief,
to seat myself by his side, and with the air of one who carefully
selects a soothing and pleasant topic for sick-room conversation, I
brought forward the subject of eternal punishment, and for my reward
had his fixed attention in a moment.
For a time he expatiated on the strong points of that place of
torment, seeing no inconsistency in _paving_ with broken promises a
_bottomless_ pit, and as he began to run down, assuming the air of one
eager for information, I asked his opinion of that place of eternal
coldness--that frozen lake.
“Coldness--coldness?” he repeated, “Why, I don’t seem to remember!” and
then another thought came to him and he broke out: “Fine! Splendid!
I never felt such pain in my life as when I went near a fire with my
frosted hands. Cold _and_ fire! That’s good! Ah, it would have been
better to have respected them commandments--only ten of ’em too!”
Egged on by his evident satisfaction, I went on introducing to him
“circle” after “circle” of the great Italian’s Vision of Hell, and if
Mr. Thomas Brockwell ever knew a genuinely happy afternoon, _that_
was the one. And when I got a soft pencil and made black lines about
the inside of his shaving-mug to illustrate the idea of the “circle,”
he eagerly peered in with his nearly-closed, discolored eyes and
triumphantly cried: “And the old, burning-brimstone lake right at the
bottom--eh?”
All the punishments had met with his hearty approval save one. That
great, black, “windy horror,” through which unfortunate lovers beat
their blind way--seeking, eternally seeking their sinful mates--met
with instant condemnation. “If they had sinned--they had broken a very
important law--a law, mind you, that Moses had received direct from
Heaven. Just flying round in the dark was no punishment for such a sin!
They got worse than that when they were alive!” For, you see, the old
man was very material, and he failed to imagine the anguish of that
“eternal, loving, despairing search!”
All went well. Old Brockwell not only kept to his bed, but enjoyed
himself until night and time for family service arrived, and then the
“snag” appeared in my way that I should have seen from the first.
Suddenly suspicious, he placed his hand on the book and asked: “Just
in what part of ‘this’ did you find all that new ‘Hell’ you’ve been
telling me about, lass?”
I sat stupidly silent. I had a vision of myself being driven away
as unworthy to enter in with true believers, having jested upon the
great subject. I tried to force my lips to speak, to tell him I would
bring the book I had read it all in--but, truth to tell, I was too
frightened to speak, and his brow blackening with anger, Mattie, his
step-daughter, calmly asked: “Mother where was it in the old-world they
found those ‘sacred’ manuscripts the other day?” (Poor Emily wasn’t at
all sure there was an old-world.) “Mr. Brockwell, you’ll know--Egypt
wasn’t it? Those wise men are working over them, you know, to translate
them; they say they are parts of the old--”
“Egypt,” declared the battered Brockwell. “Egypt, and very interesting
they are too!”
“But,” I meekly started, “but”--then Mattie cleared her throat loudly,
and bending over me, muttered: “Don’t be a fool--leave well-enough
alone!” and I followed her advice and was silent. A month later, I told
them “good-bye,” my profession taking me far from them, and I could not
help admiring the upright, powerful figure of the old man, as he stood
at his gate--so perfectly proportioned that it was hard to believe
that he was inches over six feet in height. As I reached the walk I
looked back. Emily, large and buxom, stood in the door, a soft, red
shawl about her ample shoulders--her jaws working with a slow precision
that told me plainly she was “breaking in” a new piece of gum. Bull
Brockwell waved his hat to me, and, against the westering sun, he
loomed up black and big! And I said to myself: “In faith as in body--a
giant!”
Three years had passed before I saw him again, three vivid, crowded
years for me! Success had perched upon the lonely, little banner I
had carried into that strange campaign where each one fights according
to his own individual plan, and I was back in the old city, and
because of that success was in great haste to seek my lowly, old
friends out--for self respect, even a suspicious pride, renders it
very hard for the lowly to make the first advance toward one who has
risen ever so slightly. I had heard nothing of them during my absence,
and standing at the door waiting a good, long wait--for Emily, like
most large bodies, moved slowly--I said to myself: “I shall not see
the dear, old ‘Bull’ for a couple of hours yet, as he will surely be
sleeping now, but by six o’clock--” and then the door opened, and Mrs.
Emily was before me, quite unchanged--and had taken me into a big
comfortable embrace--and kissed me warmly and loudly, and expressed her
gratification so noisily that I wondered she was not afraid of waking
her husband--and then she led the way to the sitting-room, without one
word of warning or explanation--which was so like Emily--and crying
out, “My, Mr. Brockwell, but here _is_ some one you’ll be glad to
see,” she moved aside and left me in the doorway, where I stood quite
still, the smile of welcome drying stiffly on my lips, while with
pained astonishment I stared at--Mr. Brockwell (?)--oh, yes; that
thick thatch of hair was neither whiter nor thinner than before. There
was the splendid, old torso with all its depth of chest and breadth
of shoulder. But why was he in that dread wheel-chair? Why were his
great limbs covered with a quilt? and, worst of all, why that strange
expression in his face? Meeting that piteous, appealing glance, I felt
the tears begin to fall, for I realized that in spite of the presence
here of Mr. Brockwell--old Bull Brockwell was no more! The painful
silence was broken by the trembling voice of Emily: “Father, I clean
forgot to tell her--anything--and--and, I declare, she does take it
right hard--don’t she, now?” and she slipped out of the room, wiping
her own eyes furtively as she went!
As I crossed the room toward him, his chin sank upon his breast, and
shaking his old head slowly, he sadly murmured: “From him that _hath
not_, shall be taken away even that which he _hath_!”
I took his great hand between both of mine, and my lips were just
forming the words: “Surely this is but temporary?” when he raised his
eyes, and, looking into them, I saw that hope was dead and buried
there. I sank upon my knees beside him and said: “Tell me about it, Mr.
Brockwell.” He glanced towards his wife’s room, but I persisted gently:
“No--I want you to tell me,” for my true sympathy had bridged the years
between us, and we were like old friends.