THE "BOOK OF ARGUMENTS" IS OPENED
The Honourable Hilary Vane returned that day from Fairview in no very
equable frame of mind. It is not for us to be present at the Councils on
the Palatine when the "Book of Arguments" is opened, and those fitting
the occasion are chosen and sent out to the faithful who own
printing-presses and free passes. The Honourable Hilary Vane bore away
from the residence of his emperor a great many memoranda in an envelope,
and he must have sighed as he drove through the leafy roads for Mr.
Hamilton Tooting, with his fertile mind and active body. A year ago, and
Mr. Tooting would have seized these memoranda of majesty, and covered
their margins with new suggestions: Mr. Tooting, on occasions, had even
made additions to the "Book of Arguments" itself--additions which had
been used in New York and other States with telling effect against Mr.
Crewes there. Mr. Tooting knew by heart the time of going to press of
every country newspaper which had passes (in exchange for advertising!).
It was two o'clock when the Honourable Hilary reached his office, and by
three all the edicts would have gone forth, and the grape-shot and
canister would have been on their way to demolish the arrogance of this
petty Lord of Leith..
"Tooting's a dangerous man, Vane. You oughtn't to have let him go," Mr.
Flint had said. "I don't care a snap of my finger for the other fellow."
How Mr. Tooting's ears would have burned, and how his blood would have
sung with pride to have heard himself called dangerous by the president
of the Northeastern!
He who, during all the valuable years of his services, had never had a
sign that that potentate was cognizant of his humble existence.
The Honourable Brush Bascom, as we know, was a clever man; and although
it had never been given him to improve on the "Book of Arguments," he had
ideas of his own. On reading Mr. Crewe's defiance that morning, he had,
with characteristic promptitude and a desire to be useful, taken the
first train out of Putnam for Ripton, to range himself by the side of the
Honourable Hilary in the hour of need. The Feudal System anticipates, and
Mr. Bascom did not wait for a telegram.
On the arrival of the chief counsel from Fairview other captains had put
in an appearance, but Mr. Bascom alone was summoned, by a nod, into the
private office. What passed between them seems too sacred to write about.
The Honourable Hilary would take one of the slips from the packet and
give it to Mr. Bascom.
"If that were recommended, editorially, to the Hull Mercury, it might
serve to clear away certain misconceptions in that section.
"Certain," Mr. Bascom would reply.
"It has been thought wise," the Honourable Hilary continued, "to send an
annual to the Groveton News. Roberts, his name is. Suppose you recommend
to Mr. Roberts that an editorial on this subject would be timely."
Slip number two. Mr. Bascom marks it 'Roberts.' Subject: "What would the
State do without the Railroad?"
"And Grenville, being a Prohibition centre, you might get this worked up
for the Advertiser there."
Mr. Bascom's agate eyes are full of light as he takes slip number three.
Subject: "Mr. Humphrey Crewe has the best-stocked wine cellar in the
State, and champagne every night for dinner." Slip number four, taken
direct from the second chapter of the "Book of Arguments": "Mr. Crewe is
a reformer because he has been disappointed in his inordinate ambitions,"
etc. Slip number five: "Mr. Crewe is a summer resident, with a house in
New York," etc., etc.
Slip number six, "Book of Arguments," paragraph, chapter: "Humphrey
Crewe, Defamer of our State." Assigned, among others, to the Ripton
Record.
"Paul Pardriff went up to Leith to-day," said Mr. Bascom.
"Go to see him," replied the Honourable Hilary. "I've been thinking for
some time that the advertising in the Ripton Record deserves an
additional annual."
Mr. Bascom, having been despatched on this business, and having
voluntarily assumed control of the Empire Bureau of Publication, the
chief counsel transacted other necessary legal business with State
Senator Billings and other gentlemen who were waiting. At three o'clock
word was sent in that Mr. Austen Vane was outside, and wished to speak
with his father as soon as the latter was at leisure. Whereupon the
Honourable Hilary shooed out the minor clients, leaned back in his chair,
and commanded that his son be admitted.
"Judge," said Austen, as he closed the door behind him, "I don't want to
bother you."
The Honourable Hilary regarded his son for a moment fixedly out of his
little eyes.
"Humph" he said.
Austen looked down at his father. The Honourable Hilary's expression was
not one which would have aroused, in the ordinary man who beheld him, a
feeling of sympathy or compassion: it was the impenetrable look with
which he had faced his opponents for many years. But Austen felt
compassion.
"Perhaps I'd better come in another time--when you are less busy," he
suggested.
"Who said I was busy?" inquired the Honourable Hilary.
Austen smiled a little sadly. One would have thought, by that smile, that
the son was the older and wiser of the two.
"I didn't mean to cast any reflection on your habitual industry, Judge,"
he said.
"Humph!" exclaimed Mr. Vane. "I've got more to do than sit in the window
and read poetry, if that's what you mean."
"You never learned how to enjoy life, did you, Judge?" he said. "I don't
believe you ever really had a good time. Own up."
"I've had sterner things to think about. I've had 'to earn my living
--and give you a good time."
"I appreciate it," said Austen.
"Humph! Sometimes I think you don't show it a great deal," the Honourable
Hilary answered.
"I show it as far as I can, Judge," said his son. "I can't help the way I
was made."
"I try to take account of that," said the Honourable Hilary.
Austen laughed.
"I'll drop in to-morrow morning," he said.
But the Honourable Hilary pointed to a chair on the other side of the
desk.
"Sit down. To-day's as good as to-morrow," he remarked, with sententious
significance, characteristically throwing the burden of explanation on
the visitor.
Austen found the opening unexpectedly difficult. He felt that this was a
crisis in their relations, and that it had come at an unfortunate hour.
"Judge," he said, trying to control the feeling that threatened to creep
into his voice, "we have jogged along for some years pretty peaceably,
and I hope you won't misunderstand what I'm going to say."
The Honourable Hilary grunted.
"It was at your request that I went into the law. I have learned to like
that profession. I have stuck to it as well as my wandering, Bohemian
nature will permit, and while I do not expect you necessarily to feel any
pride in such progress as I have made, I have hoped--that you might feel
an interest."
The Honourable Hilary grunted again.
"I suppose I am by nature a free-lance," Austen continued. "You were good
enough to acknowledge the force of my argument when I told you it would
be best for me to strike out for myself. And I suppose it was inevitable,
such being the case, and you the chief counsel for the Northeastern
Railroads, that I should at some time or another be called upon to bring
suits against your client. It would have been better, perhaps, if I had
not started to practise in this State. I did so from what I believe was a
desire common to both of us to--to live together."
The Honourable Hilary reached for his Honey Dew, but he did not speak.
"To live together," Austen repeated. "I want to say that, if I had gone
away, I believe I should always have regretted the fact." He paused, and
took from his pocket a slip of paper. "I made up my mind from the start
that I would always be frank with you. In spite of my desire to amass
riches, there are some suits against the Northeastern which I have
--somewhat quixotically--refused. Here is a section of the act which
permitted the consolidation of the Northeastern Railroads. You are no
doubt aware of its existence."
The Honourable Hilary took the slip of paper in his hand and stared at
it. "The rates for fares and freights existing at the time of the passage
of this act shall mot be increased on the roads leased or united under
it." What his sensations were when he read it no man might have read in
his face, but his hand trembled a little, and along silence ensued before
he gave it back to his son with the simple comment:--"Well?"
"I do not wish to be understood to ask your legal opinion, although you
probably know that lumber rates have been steadily raised, and if a suit
under that section were successful the Gaylord Lumber Company could
recover a very large sum of money from the Northeastern Railroads," said
Austen. "Having discovered the section, I believe it to be my duty to
call it to the attention of the Gaylords. What I wish to know is, whether
my taking the case would cause you any personal inconvenience or
distress? If so, I will refuse it."
"No," answered the Honourable Hilary, "it won't. Bring suit. Much use
it'll be. Do you expect they can recover under that section?"
"I think it is worth trying," said Austen.
"Why didn't somebody try it before?" asked the Honourable Hilary.
"See here, Judge, I wish you'd let me out of an argument about it. Suit
is going to be brought, whether I bring it or another man. If you would
prefer for any reason that I shouldn't bring it--I won't. I'd much rather
resign as counsel for the Gaylords--and I am prepared to do so."
"Bring suit," answered the Honourable Hilary, quickly, "bring suit by all
means. And now's your time. This seems to be a popular season for
attacking the property which is the foundation of the State's
prosperity." ("Book of Arguments," chapter 3.)
In spite of himself, Austen smiled again. Long habit had accustomed
Hilary Vane to put business considerations before family ties; and this
habit had been the secret of his particular success. And now, rather than
admit by the least sign the importance of his son's discovery of the
statute (which he had had in mind for many years, and to which he had
more than once, by the way, called Mr. Flint's attention), the Honourable
Hilary deliberately belittled the matter as part and parcel of the
political tactics against the Northeastern.
Sears caused by differences of opinion are soon healed; words count for
nothing, and it is the soul that attracts or repels. Mr. Vane was not
analytical, he had been through a harassing day, and he was unaware that
it was not Austen's opposition, but Austen's smile, which set the torch
to his anger. Once, shortly after his marriage, when he had come home in
wrath after a protracted quarrel with Mr. Tredway over the orthodoxy of
the new minister, in the middle of his indignant recital of Mr. Tredway's
unwarranted attitude, Sarah Austen had smiled. The smile had had in it,
to be sure, nothing of conscious superiority, but it had been utterly
inexplicable to Hilary Vane. He had known for the first time what it was
to feel murder in the heart, and if he had not rushed out of the room, he
was sure he would have strangled her. After all, the Hilary Vanes of this
world cannot reasonably be expected to perceive the humour in their
endeavours.
Now the son's smile seemed the reincarnation of the mother's. That smile
was in itself a refutation of motive on Austen's part which no words
could have made more emphatic; it had in it (unconsciously, too)
compassion for and understanding of the Honourable Hilary's mood and
limitations. Out of the corner of his mental vision--without grasping
it--the Honourable Hilary perceived this vaguely. It was the smile in
which a parent privately indulges when a child kicks his toy locomotive
because its mechanism is broken. It was the smile of one who, unforgetful
of the scheme of the firmament and the spinning planets, will not be
moved to anger by him who sees but the four sides of a pit.
Hilary Vane grew red around the eyes--a danger signal of the old days.
"Take the suit," he said. "If you don't, I'll make it known all over the
State that you started it. I'll tell Mr. Flint to-morrow. Take it, do you
hear me? You ask me if I have any pride in you. I answer, yes. I'd like
to see what you can do. I've done what I could for you, and now I wash my
hands of you. Go,--ruin yourself if you want to. You've always been
headed that way, and there's no use trying to stop you. You don't seem to
have any notion of decency or order, or any idea of the principle on
which this government was based. Attack property destroy it. So much the
better for you and your kind. Join the Humphrey Crewes--you belong with
'em. Give those of us who stand for order and decency as much trouble as
you can. Brand us as rascals trying to enrich ourselves with politics,
and proclaim yourselves saints nobly striving to get back the rights of
the people. If you don't bring that suit, I tell you I'll give you the
credit for it--and I mean what I say."
Austen got to his feet. His own expression, curiously enough, had not
changed to one of anger. His face had set, but his eyes held the look
that seemed still to express compassion, and what he felt was a sorrow
that went to the depths of his nature. What he had so long feared--what
he knew they had both feared--had come at last.
"Good-by, Judge," he said.
Hilary Vane stared at him dumbly. His anger had not cooled, his eyes
still flamed, but he suddenly found himself bereft of speech. Austen put
his hand on his father's shoulder, and looked down silently into his
face. But Hilary was stiff as in a rigour, expressionless save for the
defiant red in his eye.
"I don't think you meant all that, Judge, and I don't intend to hold it
against you."
Still Hilary stared, his lips in the tight line which was the emblem of
his character, his body rigid. He saw his son turn and walk to the door,
and turn again with his handle on the knob, and Hilary did not move. The
door closed, and still he sat there, motionless, expressionless.
Austen was hailed by those in the outer office, but he walked through
them as though the place were empty. Rumours sprang up behind him of
which he was unconscious; the long-expected quarrel had come; Austen had
joined the motley ranks of the rebels under Mr. Crewe. Only the office
boy, Jimmy Towle, interrupted the jokes that were flying by repeating,
with dogged vehemence, "I tell you it ain't so. Austen kicked Ham
downstairs. Ned Johnson saw him." Nor was it on account of this
particular deed that Austen was a hero in Jimmy's eyes.
Austen, finding himself in the square, looked at his watch. It was four
o'clock. He made his way under the maples to the house in Hanover Street,
halted for a moment contemplatively before the familiar classic pillars
of its porch, took a key from his pocket, and (unprecedented action!)
entered by the front door. Climbing to the attic, he found two
valises--one of which he had brought back from Pepper County--and took
them to his own room. They held, with a little crowding, most of his
possessions, including a photograph of Sarah Austen, which he left on the
bureau to the last. Once or twice he paused in his packing to gaze at the
face, striving to fathom the fleeting quality of her glance which the
photograph had so strangely caught. In that glance nature had stamped her
enigma--for Sarah Austen was a child of nature. Hers was the gentle look
of wild things--but it was more; it was the understanding of--the
unwritten law of creation, the law by which the flowers grow, and wither;
the law by which the animal springs upon its prey, and, unerring, seeks
its mate; the law of the song of the waters, and the song of the morning
stars; the law that permits evil and pain and dumb, incomprehensible
suffering; the law that floods at sunset the mountain lands with colour
and the soul with light; and the law that rends the branches in the blue
storm. Of what avail was anger against it, or the puny rage of man?
Hilary Vane, not recognizing it, had spent his force upon it, like a hawk
against a mountain wall, but Austen looked at his mother's face and
understood. In it was not the wisdom of creeds and cities, but the
unworldly wisdom which comprehends and condones.
His packing finished, with one last glance at the room Austen went
downstairs with his valises and laid them on the doorstep. Then he went
to the stable and harnessed Pepper, putting into the buggy his stable
blanket and halter and currycomb, and, driving around to the front of the
house, hitched the horse at the stone post, and packed the valises in the
back of the buggy. After that he walked slowly to the back of the house
and looked in at the kitchen window. Euphrasia, her thin arms bare to the
elbow, was bending over a wash-tub. He spoke her name, and as she lifted
her head a light came into her face which seemed to make her young again.
She dried her hands hastily on her apron as she drew towards him. He
sprang through the window, and patted her on the back--his usual
salutation. And as she raised her eyes to his (those ordinarily sharp
eyes of Euphrasia's), they shone with an admiration she had accorded to
no other human being since he had come into the world. Terms of
endearment she had, characteristically, never used, she threw her soul
into the sounding of his name.
"Off to the hills, Austen? I saw you a-harnessing of Pepper."
"Phrasie," he said, still patting her, "I'm going to the country for a
while."
"To the country?" she repeated.
"To stay on a farm for a sort of vacation."
Her face brightened.
"Goin' to take a real vacation, be you?"
He laughed.
"Oh, I don't have to work very hard, Phrasie. You know I get out a good
deal. I just thought--I just thought I'd like to--sleep in the country
--for a while."
"Well," answered Euphrasia, "I guess if you've took the notion, you've
got to go. It was that way with your mother before you. I've seen her
leave the house on a bright Sabbath half an hour before meetin' to be
gone the whole day, and Hilary and all the ministers in town couldn't
stop her."
"I'll drop in once in a while to see you, Phrasie. I'll be at Jabe
Jenney's."
"Jabe's is not more than three or four miles from Flint's place,"
Euphrasia remarked.
"I've thought of that," said Austen.
"You'd thought of it!"
Austen coloured.
"The distance is nothing," he said quickly, "with Pepper."
"And you'll come and see me?" asked Euphrasia.
"If you'll do something for me," he said.
"I always do what you want, Austen. You know I'm not able to refuse you."
He laid his hands on her shoulders.
"You'll promise?" he asked.
"I'll promise," said Euphrasia, solemnly.
He was silent for a moment, looking down at her.
"I want you to promise to stay here and take care of the Judge."
Fright crept into her eyes, but his own were smiling, reassuring.
"Take care of him!" she cried, the very mention of Hilary raising the
pitch of her voice. "I guess I'll have to. Haven't I took care of him
nigh on forty years, and small thanks and recompense I get for it except
when you're here. I've wore out my life takin' care of him" (more
gently). "What do you mean by makin' me promise such a thing, Austen?"
"Well," said Austen, slowly, "the Judge is worried now. Things are not
going as smoothly with him as usual."
"Money?" demanded Euphrasia. "He ain't lost money, has he?"
A light began to dance in Austen's eyes in spite of the weight within
him.
"Now, Phrasie," he said, lifting her chin a little, "you know you don't
care any more about money than I do."
"Lord help me," she exclaimed, "Lord help me if I didn't! And as long as
you don't care for it, and no sense can be knocked into your head about
it, I hope you'll marry somebody that does know the value of it. If
Hilary was to lose what he has now, before it comes rightly to you, he'd
ought to be put in jail."
Austen laughed, and shook his head.
"Phrasie, the Lord did you a grave injustice when he didn't make you a
man, but I suppose he'll give you a recompense hereafter. No, I believe I
am safe in saying that the Judge's securities are still secure. Not that
I really know--or care--" (shakes of the head from Euphrasia). "Poor old
Judge! Worse things than finance are troubling him now."
"Not a woman!" cried Euphrasia, horror-stricken at the very thought. "He
hasn't took it into his head after all these years--"
"No," said Austen, laughing, "no, no. It's not quite as bad as that, but
it's pretty bad."
"In Heaven's name, what is it?" she demanded. "Reformers," said Austen.
"Reformers?" she repeated. "What might they be?"
"Well," answered Austen, "you might call them a new kind of caterpillar
--only they feed on corporations instead of trees."
Euphrasia shook her head vigorously.
"Go 'long," she exclaimed. "When you talk like that I never can follow
you, Austen. If Hilary has any worries, I guess he brought 'em on
himself. I never knew him to fail."
"Ambitious and designing persons are making trouble for his railroad."
"Well, I never took much stock in that railroad," said Euphrasia, with
emphasis. "I never was on it but an engine gave out, and the cars was
jammed, and it wasn't less than an hour late. And then they're eternally
smashin' folks or runnin' 'em down. You served 'em right when you made
'em pay that Meader man six thousand dollars, and I told Hilary so." She
paused, and stared at Austen fixedly as a thought came into her head.
"You ain't leavin' him because of this trouble, are you, Austen?"
"Phrasie," he said, "I--I don't want to quarrel with him now. I think it
would be easy to quarrel with him."
"You mean him quarrel with you," returned Euphrasia. "I'd like to see
him! If he did, it wouldn't take me long to pack up and leave."
"That's just it. I don't want that to happen. And I've had a longing to
go out and pay a little visit to Jabe up in the hills, and drive his
colts for him. You see," he said, "I've got a kind of affection for the
Judge."
Euphrasia looked at him, and her lips trembled.
"He don't deserve it," she declared, "but I suppose he's your father."
"He can't get out of that," said Austen.
"I'd like to see him try it," said Euphrasia. "Come in soon, Austen," she
whispered, "come in soon."
She stood on the lawn and watched him as he drove away, and he waved
good-by to her over the hood of the buggy. When he was out of sight she
lifted her head, gave her eyes a vigorous brush with her checked apron,
and went back to her washing.
It was not until Euphrasia had supper on the table that Hilary Vane came
home, and she glanced at him sharply as he took his usual seat. It is a
curious fact that it is possible for two persons to live together for
more than a third of a century, and at the end of that time understand
each other little better than at the beginning. The sole bond between
Euphrasia and Hilary was that of Sarah Austen and her son. Euphrasia
never knew when Hilary was tired, or when he was cold, or hungry, or
cross, although she provided for all these emergencies. Her service to
him was unflagging, but he had never been under the slightest delusion
that it was not an inheritance from his wife. There must have been some
affection between Mr. Vane and his housekeeper, hidden away in the strong
boxes of both but up to the present this was only a theory--not quite as
probable as that about the inhabitants of Mars.
He ate his supper to-night with his usual appetite, which had always been
sparing; and he would have eaten the same amount if the Northeastern
Railroads had been going into the hands of a receiver the next day. Often
he did not exchange a word with Euphrasia between home-coming and
bed-going, and this was apparently to be one of these occasions. After
supper he went, as usual, to sit on the steps of his porch, and to cut
his piece of Honey Dew, which never varied a milligram. Nine o'clock
struck, and Euphrasia, who had shut up the back of the house, was on her
way to bed with her lamp in her hand, when she came face to face with him
in the narrow passageway.
"Where's Austen?" he asked.
Euphrasia halted. The lamp shook, but she raised it to the level of his
eyes.
"Don't you know?" she demanded.
"No," he said, with unparalleled humility.
She put down the lamp on the little table that stood beside her.
"He didn't tell you he was a-goin'?"
"No," said Hilary.
"Then how did you know he wasn't just buggy-ridin'?" she said.
Hilary Vane was mute.
"You've be'n to his room!" she exclaimed. "You've seen his things are
gone!"
He confessed it by his silence. Then, with amazing swiftness and vigour
for one of her age, Euphrasia seized him by the arms and shook him.
"What have you done to him?" she cried; "what have you done to him? You
sent him off. You've never understood him--you've never behaved like a
father to him. You ain't worthy to have him." She flung herself away and
stood facing Hilary at a little distance. What a fool I was! What a fool!
I might have known it, and I promised him."
"Promised him?" Hilary repeated. The shaking, the vehemence and anger, of
Euphrasia seemed to have had no effect whatever on the main trend of his
thoughts.
"Where has he gone?"
"You can find out for yourself," she retorted bitterly. "I wish on your
account it was to China. He came here this afternoon, as gentle as ever,
and packed up his things, and said he was goin' away because you was
worried. Worried!" she exclaimed scornfully. "His worry and his trouble
don't count--but yours. And he made me promise to stay with you. If it
wasn't for him," she cried, picking up the lamp, "I'd leave you this very
night."
She swept past him, and up the narrow stairway to her bedroom.