be!” order. It was a devouring passion.
A strong word, “devouring,” but since Webster says it means, among
other things, “to consume ravenously, to prey upon, to swallow up, to
appropriate greedily,” it is the right word, for his mad ambition, even
in its beginning, appropriated greedily all his small savings, all his
spare time. It consumed his sense of duty toward his wife--he had no
sense of the ridiculous to consume. It preyed upon his heart as well
as his mind, and finally it swallowed up his very life.
Many of the old acting plays he knew by heart, had memorized literally
from cover to cover, while his knowledge of Shakespeare’s unacted plays
was greater than most actors’ knowledge of the acting ones. Quite
naturally he was given over to the habit of quoting, in season and out
of season, and it was an indulgence in this habit that brought the
stonecutter into touch with the actors of the city.
There was a saloon not far from the theatre, and MacIlhenny, being at
work near by, went in one noon for his mid-day beer. There was a party
of actors there eagerly discussing the morning news of the death of one
of their profession, a very well known and successful actor. Now, as
they all knew, one of this party had been the envious enemy of the dead
man, and now, instead of a respectful silence, they were astonished to
see him assuming deep grief. There was a great pulling of moustaches
and exchanging of glances, but no one replied, and the hypocrite
burst out again, first with fulsome praise, and then with exaggerated
expressions of sorrow. The last word was barely spoken, when a voice
with a burr in it gravely and most distinctly remarked: “The tears live
in an onion that should water this sorrow!”
There was an instant of surprised silence, in which every one
recognized the exquisite fitness of the quotation, and then a roar of
laughter--another and another! Many beers were thrust upon the Scotch
stonecutter, who knew his Shakespeare so well--and--and--oh! poor
MacIlhenny! Straightway he neglected his work; he loitered too long
at his nooning. He could not tear himself away from the actors, who
listened to his quotations and laughed at his antics, as children might
laugh at the capers of a monkey. But MacIlhenny left them with a wild
gleam in his poor, crossed eyes, with jumping, twitching muscles about
his thin lips, fairly drunk with excitement.
It was on one of these occasions that he saw his landlord ahead of him
in the public street--a rotund, little person who seemed to have had
one story left off when he was built. He knew it, too, and tried, with
piled up dignity and high silk hat, to make up the missing height. And
it was to this dignified, black-croated, slow-moving, old gentleman
that MacIlhenny roared: “Turn, hell-hound, turn! Turn, I say! I want to
hand you me month’s rent and save a trip to your house to-morrow!”
That was one of his out of season quotations, for the dignified old
party was no hell-hound, but MacIlhenny had just been discussing
Macbeth, and showing how poorly Mr. Booth understood that character,
admitting that the “laddie did his best, and meant well, still he
(MacIlhenny) was the one man living who had got _inside_ the part”!
Well along in the season, one of the actors was to take a benefit,
and as he was not much of a favorite with the public, he was greatly
worried about arranging an attractive “bill.” Perhaps I should say
that when one takes “a benefit” the fact is announced on the theatre’s
bills. The “beneficiary” has the privilege of selecting the play for
that special performance, and on that one night, he or she receives
one-half, or one-third of the gross receipts of the house, by which he
is benefited (perhaps), hence the term, “To take a benefit!”
A couple of weeks before, at the “leading” man’s benefit, there had
been several volunteers, among them the manager’s young daughter, who
sang for him, and in MacIlhenny’s presence, the worried actor was
mourning because there was no one to volunteer to assist him, when
up rose Sandy MacIlhenny and offered _his_ services. Those who were
farthest away writhed in quiet laughter, while those who were near
him suffered silently. In that silence the stonecutter read dread of
a rival, and he hastened to dispel all anxiety by saying, soothingly:
“Don’t misunderstand me, young man! You have nothing to fear! I do not
ask to play a ‘part’ in your play--since the public could then have
neither eye nor ear for any man but me--and I’d not extinguish anyone’s
light on his benefit--but I’ll do a recitation or a reading-like, for
you--so ‘Put money in thy purse, Cassio,’ and not injure your standing
as an actor!”
It was a trying moment. They liked the funny, old chap, and did not
wish to hurt his feelings--but good Heavens! the idea of turning him
loose before an audience! Again came the voice of MacIlhenny, with the
inevitable quotation: “Why whisper you--and answer not, my lords?”
A laugh followed, and the tormented actor asked: “Well, Sandy man, what
on earth do you propose to read or recite?”
“Why,” answered he, “since you will be doing a tragedy, and I have no
wish to outshine you in any way, I’ll just give them the ‘Trial Scene’
from ‘Pickwick.’”
Through the storm of merriment that followed one or two voices cried:
“Let him do it! Let him do it! It will be great!” And just then, at the
glass door of the saloon, a tall, gaunt woman appeared. She was one of
that body of black-bombazine women who are never ragged, but are always
rusty--who all appear of the same age, as they all seem to have passed
with reluctant feet their fiftieth birthday. She tapped with a black
cotton forefinger on the glass, and MacIlhenny went to her at once, and
spoke with her a few moments--and one exclaimed: “The Two Dromios!”
For indeed had it not been for her straight eyes, she might have been
Sandy’s twin. When he returned some one said: “Your wife, MacIlhenny?”
“Aye,” he said, “aye--and though I don’t claim she’s a beauty, yet
‘I’ll give no blemish to her honor--none!’” At which they howled with
delight, and when they were tired of pounding one another, the voice
arose again: “Let him go on--oh, let him go on!” and another added:
“Yes, let him go on, just to see how many he’ll kill before he gets off
again!”
And so it happened that Sandy MacIlhenny, stonecutter by the grace of
God, became, by the cruel whim of man, an actor, and was duly announced
on the “benefit-bills” to read the “Trial Scene” from “Pickwick.”
Alas, “those whom the Gods will destroy, they first make mad!” It is
an ancient promise, and so truly was it kept with this their chosen
victim, that on the dark and fatal night that was the beginning of the
end for him, poor MacIlhenny saw the radiant dawn of a superb success.
The night came, and a fairly good-sized audience was present. Sandy’s
reading was placed between the first and second plays, and a more
ludicrous figure never appeared before the public. By some mysterious
process he had forced his widely bowed-legs into a pair of very narrow,
straight-cut trousers. They were of an unsympathetic nature, and
as he wore low-cut shoes, they basely betrayed about two inches of
white, womany-looking stockings, thus giving a strong suggestion of
impropriety to his whole “make-up.”
His “wescut,” as he called it, he had brought, as he proudly declared,
from Scotland, and the actors, as with one voice, had cried: “It looks
the part, Sandy, it looks it!”
It was a short-waisted, low-necked vest of a plaid (of course) of red
and green and blue and yellow, and the greatest of these was red, and
it was velvet, and it had two crowded rows of shining, brass buttons.
With quite unnecessary candor, his shirt proclaimed, through dragging
wrinkle and straggling band, that it was of domestic manufacture; while
an ancient black satin stock nearly choked the life out of him. And his
hair--oh, Sandy, Sandy! His wife had curled it on a very small iron,
and had then drawn the comb through it, thus setting it a-flying in a
wild, red fuzz on whose edges the gaslight glittered, until he looked
like some absurd, old Saint with his halo falling off backward!
As this figure of fun appeared, there was a ripple of laughter, and
in a few minutes--in the expressive slang of to-day--the audience
were “on” to him. The laughter grew and grew--and then that strange
_strain_ of cruelty, that has come down to us from our ancient
barbaric forefathers, and is so much easier to arouse in a crowd than
in a single individual, was all alive. They thought they recognized
a victim, and they rose to the occasion. They _baited_ him; they
bombarded him with satirical applause; they demanded certain passages
over again; they addressed him as Mr. Buz-fuz, and they had just
reached the point of throwing things when the reading ended.
As MacIlhenny had no sense of the ridiculous, he could not distinguish
the difference between being laughed _at_ and being laughed _with_,
so it was all like fragrant incense to him, and he came off the stage,
his crossed eyes blazing at the bridge of his nose, on each cheek bone
a spot of scarlet and a burr on his tongue that made his first words of
triumph utterly incomprehensible to those about him. Two of us there
were who drew aside, and pitying him, spoke him fair and respectfully,
but the others, meaning no harm, carrying on a jest, congratulated him
extravagantly, and when he went out from the theatre that night the
promise of the gods had been fulfilled, for MacIlhenny was literally
mad!
He never did another stroke of work. His kit of tools became strangers
to him. He touched chisel and mallet but once more, and that was when
he pawned them that he might buy a play-book, and a little bread, with
which to quiet for a moment the two devils who tormented him, one
gnawing in his brain, the other at his stomach.
In going to and from the theatre I passed the tiny, three-roomed
cottage the MacIlhennys occupied, and morning and evening I could hear
his high, rasping voice declaiming, ranting, pouring forth pages of old
plays, while through the window I could see him brandishing a poker for
a sword, and wildly rumpling his little, red flounce of hair whenever
he pronounced a curse--whether he was Lear or Richelieu or Sir Giles,
it mattered not, he dragged all curses from the roots of his thin, red
hair.
Poor Mrs. Sandy had descended from her former state of bombazine,
and was daily seen in black cotton, going out to jobs of washing or
office-cleaning, so her neighbors told me. And once, when they missed
her comfortable blanket-shawl and noticed that she shivered through the
streets in an old Stella shawl, which was a creation of thin cashmere
meant for summer only, they rashly spoke the sympathy they felt, and
their condemnation of MacIlhenny’s course.
It was the first time and likewise it was every other time, including
the _last_ time they so presumed. She listened in stony silence, and
then with bitter pride and icy resentment in every look and word, she
demanded: “What else shall my man do? Is it for the like of him to be
pounding stone forever, and he the finest actor-man in all the world
to-day?”
Now Mrs. MacIlhenny was a Presbyterian of a blueness like unto indigo,
and of a narrowness inconceivable--who have never in her life entered
a theatre. Therefore it was but natural that one of the surprised
women should ask: “But how do you know that?” And she made answer--oh!
loving, loyal, old Scottish wife--with withering scorn and infinite
conviction: “Why, has the man na’ telled me so hissel’?” and so went
her hard way.
For many weeks MacIlhenny had made the manager’s life a burden to
him--asking, praying, demanding an engagement. “Why, man,” he would
say, “did you not see the public at my very feet--did you not hear
their acclamations, and you know right well that in the absence of
garlands and flowers they would have tossed to me anything their hands
came upon? What are you afraid of? The enmity of your wee bit stars!
I’ll see that you suffer no loss!”
Then steady disappointment told upon him. His temper began to
change--he grew sullen, suspicious, and began to tell strange tales
of being followed at night by certain actors--generally stars. No man
could call Sandy MacIlhenny a sponge or beat. When he reached the
point where he could not extend a general invitation to those present
to drink--he ceased to share in the general invitations of others.
And when he could no longer pay his own footing, he no longer entered
the saloon, but loitered outside to talk to the actors. Imagining
things were not well with him, the actor for whom MacIlhenny had read
asked him to accept some payment, but with ever-ready quotation, Sandy
refused, gravely repeating: “There’s none can truly say he gives--if he
receives!”
Then even the outside visits grew far apart, and through my passing
of his door I was the only one who knew anything of him, and I knew
so little, dear Heaven! so little! Only that he studied, rehearsed,
declaimed! I did not know how many, _many_ days passed without bringing
Mrs. Sandy any job of work, and their pride-sealed lips made no
complaint. The old Scotch couple were not unlike a pair of sharp, old
razors--perfectly harmless if left alone in their own case, but very
unsafe things for general handling--and so in the midst of plenty,
they suffered the pangs--the gnawing pangs--of hunger for weary days
and wearier nights, and no one knew!
One spring-like day, as I passed the cottage--the window being
raised--I heard MacIlhenny’s voice at some distance, and recognized the
lines of Woolsey in Henry VIII.: “Had I but served my God, with half
the zeal that I have served--have served--,” he stopped--so did I. Some
change in his voice held me! What was it? It was weak and husky, to
be sure; but there was something else, some force, some thrill, some
strange quality. Again the voice rose: “Had I but served my God with
half the zeal that I have served--have served--,” almost unconsciously
I gave the words, “My King,” and he, without even turning his face,
took it up, saying “Aye, aye! ‘My King--he would not in mine age have
left me naked to mine enemies!’” and he laughed. As I hurried on, in
all my nerves there was a creeping fear, for in his voice I had felt
the subtle difference between ranting and _raving_--had felt the man
was mad! And that very morning an actor mentioned him, saying he had
seen him in liquor. “Oh, no,” I answered, “MacIlhenny never drinks!”
“Well,” insisted the actor, “when a man staggers in his walk and talks
to himself on the public street, it looks as if he had been drinking
too much rye.” And another standing by, laughingly said: “Perhaps the
old chap has eaten too little, instead of drinking too much!”
Such cruel truths are sometimes said in jest. A few days later, having
only to appear in the farce, I was quite late in going to the theatre,
and as I neared the cottage, I saw lamplight streaming from its window,
and heard Sandy reciting, as usual. But there was some other noise.
His words, too, came in gusts and gasps, and I said to myself: “Why,
that sounds exactly like two men rehearsing a combat for Richard or
Macbeth!” The cottage was flush with the sidewalk and, as I came
opposite the window, I could not help looking in, and there I stood
and stared, for in the center of the room old Sandy and his wife were
struggling desperately for the possession of a hatchet which he held!
“Sandy!” she cried, “Sandy!” and all the time Macbeth’s lines poured
from his lips: “They have tied me to a stake!” Almost he wrenched
himself free from her: “I cannot fly, and bear-like, I must fight the
course!”
At that moment his wife tore the hatchet from his hand and flung it
across the room. He plunged forward to recover it, but in a twinkling
she had a grip upon his arms just above each elbow, and next moment she
had shoved him into the chair close to the window, and leaning over
him, in spite of his writhings, held him tight.
She must have felt my gaze, for suddenly she turned her white face
and saw me. Into her eyes there came both fear and furious anger, and
then, without loosing her hold for one moment on Sandy’s arms, she
thrust her face forward, and catching the shade between her teeth, she
fiercely dragged it down! And though the rebuff was sharp as a blow in
the face, yet for a moment more I stood staring, and saw on the white
shade a black shadow-woman bending over and holding fast a shadow-man,
and, as a kaleidoscope responds to a touch, at a single movement these
shadows blurred, parted, joined again, and this time, though she still
held him close, the shadow-woman was on her knees, and her head was on
the breast of the shadow-man!--and ashamed to have watched so long, I
hurried away and said to myself: “To-morrow I will go there, and sharp
words shall not drive me away, until I learn by what route help can
reach them!”
Next day I stood and rapped and rapped, but no one answered to my
rapping. The house was very quiet, the room seemed empty, but when I
carefully looked I saw a little smoke rising from the chimney. The
following day the shade was down--I saw no smoke--but I was obstinate,
and I went around to the back door and knocked there, and was instantly
met by a white-faced “fury!”
“So,” she cried, “you have come to spy for them! Well, take them the
news! Their work is done! They have no one now to fear--he’s gone!
He that was greater than them all! Come!” dragging me by main force
into the room and to the bed-room door: “See for yourself how he lies
there, dead of slow starvation!” One forced glance I gave at the long,
long, rigid outline on the bed, but even that forced glance caught,
mockingly peeping from under the dead man’s pillow, a yellow-covered
play-book.
Wrenching myself away from the sight, I turned, and putting my arms
about her trembling, old body, I held her close and said: “Oh, you poor
wife! you poor, poor wife!”
She stood within my circling arms quite still for an instant, then
suddenly her hard face broke into convulsive weeping. She thrust me
from her, gasping: “Don’t--don’t! I say!” and fled to him, while I
rushed from the house bearing my ill-news.
Everyone was shocked, and one was wounded, that Sandy had not asked
his help. He did not understand the sturdy pride of the old pair who
accepted nothing they had not earned and asked of the world but one
thing, and that was a decent privacy to suffer in.
Three of the actors went at once to the house, the one who had felt
hurt, a gentle and kindly soul, acting as spokesman. They offered help
to her and burial for Sandy, but they were met with such invective and
imprecation as fairly stunned them, and though, by their secret help,
they later on saved poor MacIlhenny from the Potter’s Field, they were
compelled to beat a retreat before his frenzied widow.
With bitter sarcasm she invited one to enter and “bring a brush and
see if he could find in that house one crumb of bread!” She told them
exactly “how many weeks a man could live upon a kit of tools pawned
one by one;” she reviled them as “thieves” for stealing her husband’s
“great thoughts and ideas of acting;” jeered at them for “cowards,”
that they had not “dared to stab him,” though they had “dogged his
steps with evil intent many a dark night;” hailed them as “hypocrites,”
because they hid their joy and, pretending grief, came here and offered
“decent burial”--and as they slowly withdrew, she stood upon her
doorstep and called after them: “Hypocrites! hypocrites! You starved
him to slow death--and he was broken-hearted!”
The word seemed to catch her own ear. She paused--slowly she repeated,
“broken-hearted!” Then suddenly she caught the clue--flung her gaunt
arms wide--she lifted her tortured eyes to the sky, and with a burst of
bitter triumph, cried: “But a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt
Thou not despise!”
And hearing that splendid declaration--that so thrills with
hope!--those who had all unintentionally worked her woe, bowed their
heads and breathed a quick--Amen!
John Hickey: Coachman
John Hickey: Coachman
“This is to certify that the bearer, John Hickey, five years in my
employ, is as honest a man as ever strode a horse.
“(Signed), MCDOWELL, General.”
The bearer, John Hickey, stood tall, straight and uncovered before
me, while I read the above recommendation. There were several others,
but I never looked at them. I knew something of “McDowell, General,”
in California, and I was persuaded that a man who served him for five
years possessed something more than “honesty” in the outfit of his
virtues.
But he had, in my opinion, received a still better recommendation at
the very moment of his coming into our lives, on that bright summer
morning. I had been sitting on the front porch with a dog on each
side of me--that being my usual allowance. Both these dogs--Maida and
Sancho--yearned with a great yearning to exterminate the whole race of
organ-grinders. They also had a profound dislike for that rather large
body of men and women who move back and forth on the earth’s surface
carrying bundles. Therein lay their only fault; otherwise, they were
good, honest, self-respecting dogs. And it must be admitted that this
peculiarity of theirs helped to keep things lively about the place and
our blood in quick circulation. Therefore, when John Hickey entered
the gates, carrying an unusually large valise, there was a roar and a
rush before I could form one word of command or entreaty. The blazing
eyes and white, uncovered fangs of the dogs told so plainly of their
fell intention of reducing him and his valise to a condition resembling
desiccated codfish, that anyone might have been frightened. But before
they reached him I heard a calm voice, and an unmistakable Irish one,
saying: “Well, well! What is it now? What is it?”
Lightning could not have stopped them quicker. Their heads lowered,
their tails sagged down in a shamed sort of a way. They stretched their
heads out and sniffed him a moment. Then, with a wild yelp of joy,
Sancho, with slavering jaws, bounded at his breast, striking staggering
blows by way of welcome, while Maida, the fierce, was standing erect
on hind legs at his side, kissing his protesting hands, and digging
with both great paws in his side. At last they subsided a little. He
stood, showing the traces of their rapturous welcome, while they sat
at his feet, and looking into his face, told him, with shining, loving
eyes and excited beating of their tails, that he was the very fellow
they had been searching forever since the seal of their puppyhood’s
blindness had fallen from their foolish, blue eyes.
During the lull the man produced his little packet of recommendations
and passed them to me. My husband, returning at that moment, engaged
him in a conversation consisting mainly of questions and answers,
and that gave me a chance to look at “the bearer, John Hickey.” The
only Irish thing about him was his voice. He was tall, square of
shoulder, flat of back, clear-skinned and ruddy, with good features,
keen, light-blue eyes, and brown hair, which he wore in an odd way,
parted down the back of his head, and brushed forward and upward toward
his ears, which gave him a peculiarly cocky and alert air. There was
something in the carriage of his head, the turning out of his feet,
the hang of his arms and the position of his hands, when he stood at
“attention,” that said, as plain as words could say, “Soldier, yes;
‘ex,’ if you like, but soldier all the same.” I thought that then; I
knew it by night.
I was just going to put a question to him when the sunlight played him
a trick and betrayed his poor, little secret to me. In vain, then, the
upright pose, the cocky air, and jaunty manner! It must have been some
hours since he had shaved--he wore no hair upon his face, and as he
stood there the sun shone full upon him, revealing on cheek, and chin,
and upper lip, the glittering frost of age, and he stood revealed, an
old man.