THE WRONG PEW.
August's own good sense told him that the advice of Jonas was not good.
But he had made many mistakes of late, and was just now inclined to take
anybody's judgment in place of his own. All that was proud and
gentlemanly in him rebelled at the thought of creeping into another
man's house in the night. Modesty is doubtless a virtue, but it is a
virtue responsible for many offenses. Had August not felt so distrustful
of his own wisdom, nothing could have persuaded him to make his love for
Julia Anderson seem criminal by an action so wanting in dignity. But
back of Jonas's judgment was that of Andrew, whose weakness was
Quixotism. He wanted to live and to have others live on the
concert-pitch of romantic action. There was something of chivalry in the
proposal of Jonas, a spice of adventure that made him approve it on
purely sentimental grounds.
The more August thought of it, and the nearer he was to its execution,
the more did he dislike it. But I have often noticed that people of a
rather quiet temperament, such as young Wehle's, show _vis inertiae_ in
both, ways--not very easily moved, they are not easily checked when once
in motion. August's velocity was not usually great, his momentum was
tremendous, and now that he had committed himself to the hands of Jonas
Harrison and set out upon this enterprise, he was determined, in his
quiet way, to go through to the end.
Of course he understood the house, and having left the family in
meeting, he had nothing to do but to scale one of the pillars of the
front-porch. In those Arcadian days upper windows were hardly ever
fastened, except when the house was deserted by all its inmates for
days. Half-way up the post he was seized with a violent trembling. His
position brought to him a confused memory of a text of Scripture: "He
that entereth not by the door ... but climbeth up some other way, the
same is a thief and a robber." Bred under Moravian influence, he
half-believed the text to be supernaturally suggested to him. For a
moment his purpose wavered, but the habit of going through with an
undertaking took the place of his will, and he went on blindly, as Baker
the Nile explorer did, "more like a donkey than like a man." Once on the
upper porch he hesitated again. To break into a man's house in this way
was unlawful. His conscience troubled him. In vain he reasoned that Mrs.
Anderson's despotism was morally wrong, and that this action was right
as an offset to it. He knew that it was not right.
I want to remark here that there are many situations in life in which a
conscience is dreadfully in the way. There are people who go straight
ahead to success--such as it is--with no embarrassments, no fire in the
rear from any scruples. Some of these days I mean to write an essay on
"The Inconvenience of having a Conscience," in which I shall proceed to
show that it costs more in the course of a year or two, than it would to
keep a stableful of fast horses. Many a man could afford to drive
Dexters and Flora Temples who would be ruined by a conscience. But I
must not write the essay here, for I am keeping August out in the night
air and his perplexity all this time.
August Wehle had the habit, I think I have said, of going through with
an enterprise. He had another habit, a very inconvenient habit
doubtless, but a very manly one, of listening for the voice of his
conscience. And I think that this habit would have even yet turned him
back, as he had his hand on the window-sash, had it not been that while
he stood there trying to find out just what was the decision of his
conscience, he heard the voices of the returning family. There was no
time to lose, there was no shelter on the porch, in a minute more they
would be in sight. He must go ahead now, for retreat was cut off. He
lifted the window and climbed into the room, lowering the sash gently
behind him. As no one ever came into this room but Jonas, he felt safe
enough. Jonas would plan a meeting after midnight in Cynthy Ann's room,
and in Cynthy Ann's presence.
In groping for a chair, August drew aside the curtain of the
gable-window, hoping to get some light. Had Jonas taken to cultivating
flowers in pots? Here was a "monthly" rose on the window-seat! Surely
this was the room. He had occupied it during his stay in the house. But
he did not know that Mrs. Anderson had changed the arrangement between
his leaving and the coming of Jonas. He noticed that the curtains were
not the same. He trembled from head to foot. He felt for the bureau, and
recognized by various little articles, a pincushion, a tuck-comb, and
the sun-bonnet hanging against the window-frame, that he was in Julia's
room. His first emotion was not alarm. It was awe, as pure and solemn as
the high-priest may have felt in the holy place. Everything pertaining
to Julia had a curious sacredness, and this room was a temple into which
it was sacrilege to intrude. But a more practical question took his
attention soon. The family had come in below, except Jonas and Cynthy
Ann--who had walked slowly, planning a meeting for August--and Mr.
Samuel Anderson, who stood at the front-gate with a neighbor. August
could hear his shrill voice discussing the seventh trumpet and the
thousand three hundred and thirty and five days. It would not do to be
discovered where he was. Beside the fright he would give to Julia, he
shuddered at the thought of compromising her in such a way. To go back
was to insure his exposure, for Samuel Anderson had not yet half-settled
the question of the trumpets. Indeed it seemed to August that the world
might come to an end before that conversation would. He heard Humphreys
enter his room. He was now persuaded that the room formerly occupied by
Julia must be Jonas's, and he determined to get to it if he could. He
felt like a villain already. He would have cheerfully gone to
State's-prison in preference to compromising Julia. At any rate, he
started out of Julia's room toward the one that was occupied by Jonas.
It was the only road open, and but for an unexpected encounter he would
have reached his hiding-place in safety, for the door was but fifteen
feet away.
In order to explain the events that follow, I must ask the reader to go
back to Julia, and to events that had occurred two hours before.
Hitherto she had walked to and from meeting and "singing" with
Humphreys, as a matter of courtesy. On the evening in question she had
absolutely refused to walk with him. Her mother found that threats were
as vain as coaxing. Even her threat of dying with heart-disease, then
and there, killed by her daughter's disobedience, could not move Julia,
who would not even speak with the "spider." Her mother took her into the
sitting-room alone, and talked with her.
"So this is the way you trifle with gentlemen, is it? Night before last
you engaged yourself to Mr. Humphreys, now you won't speak to him. To
think that my daughter should prove a heartless flirt!"
I am afraid that the unfilial thought came into Julia's mind that
nothing could have been more in the usual order of things than that the
daughter of a coquette should be a flirt.
"You'll kill me on the spot; you certainly will." Julia felt anxious,
for her mother showed signs of going into hysterics. But she put her
foot out and shook her head in a way that said that all her friends
might die and all the world might go to pieces before she would yield.
Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn hope. She determined to order that
forward. Leaving Julia alone, she went to her husband.
"Samuel, if you value my life go and speak to your daughter. She's got
your own stubbornness of will in her. She is just like you; she _will_
have her own way. I shall die." And Mrs. Abigail Anderson sank into a
chair with unmistakable symptoms of a hysterical attack.
I am aware that I have so far let the reader hear not one word of Samuel
Anderson's conversation. He has played a rather insignificant part in
the story. Nothing could be more _comme il faut_. Insignificance was his
characteristic. It was not so much that he was small. It is not so bad a
thing to be a little man. But to be little and insignificant also is
bad. There is only one thing worse, which is to be big and
insignificant. If one is little and insignificant, one may be
overlooked, insignificance and all. But if one is big and insignificant,
it is to be an obtrusive cipher, a great lubber, not easily kept out
of sight.
Appealed to by his wife, Samuel Anderson prepared to assert his
authority as the head of the family. He almost strutted into Julia's
presence. Julia had a real affection for her father, and nothing
mortified her more than to see him acting as a puppet, moved by her
mother, and yet vain enough to believe himself independent and supreme.
She would have yielded almost any other point to have saved herself the
mortification of seeing her father act the fool; but now she had
determined that she would die and let everybody else die rather than
walk with a man whose nature seemed to her corrupt, and whose touch was
pollution. I do not mean that she was able to make a distinct inventory
of her reasons for disliking him, or to analyze her feelings. She could
not have told just why she had so deep and utter a repugnance to walking
a quarter of a mile to the school-house in company with this man. She
followed that strong instinct of truth and purity which is the
surest guide.
"Julia, my daughter," said Samuel Anderson, "really you must yield to me
as head of the house, and treat this gentleman politely. I thought you
respected him, or loved him, and he told me that you had given consent
to marry him, and had told him to ask my consent."
In saying this, the "head of the house" was seesawing himself backward
and forward in his squeaky boots, speaking in a pompous manner, and with
an effort to swell an effeminate voice to a bass key, resulting in
something between a croak and a squeal. Julia sat down and cried in
mortification and disgust. Mr. Anderson understood this to be
acquiescence, and turned and went into the next room.
[Illustration: JULIA SAT DOWN IN MORTIFICATION.]
"Mr. Humphreys, my daughter will be glad to ask your pardon. She is over
her little pet; lovers always have pets. Even my wife and I have had our
disagreements in our time. Julia will be glad to see you in the
sitting-room."
Humphreys drew the draw-strings and set his face into its broadest and
most parallelogrammatic smile, bowed to Mr. Anderson, and stepped into
the hall. But when he reached the sitting-room door he wished he had
staid away. Julia had heard his tread, and was standing again with her
foot advanced. Her eyes were very black, and were drawn to a sharp
focus. She had some of her mother's fire, though happily none of her
mother's meanness. It is hard to say whether she spoke or hissed.
"Go away, you spider! I hate you! I told you I hated you, and you told
people I loved you and was engaged to you. Go away! You detestable
spider, you! I'll die right here, but I will not go with you."
But the smirking Humphreys moved toward her, speaking soothingly, and
assuring her that there was some mistake. Julia dashed past him into the
parlor and laid hold of her father's arm.
"Father, protect me from that--that--spider! I hate him!"
Mr. Anderson stood irresolute a moment and looked appealingly to his
wife for a signal. She solved the difficulty herself. On the whole she
had concluded not to die of heart-disease until she saw Julia married to
suit her taste, and having found a hill she could not go through, she
went round. Seizing Julia's arm with more of energy than affection, she
walked off with her, or rather walked her off, in a sulky silence, while
Mr. Anderson kept Humphreys company.
I thought best to keep August standing in the door of Julia's room all
this time while I explained these things to you, so that you might
understand what follows. In reality August did not stop at all, but
walked out into the hall and into difficulty.