“The religious bodies, then,” said Mr. Clare, “which is a much less
convenient phrase, and strongly sepulchral in flavor. Don’t you think
they would be not only inconsistent, but blind to their own interests,
to be influenced by a consideration of that kind?”
“People generally is—the both of them.”
“In such cases as the present, yes. For—for whom does your Church hold
in trust, all the property she possesses?”
“For the poor,” said Father McClosky.
“And, in case of the nationalization of property, to whom would she
surrender it?”
“To heretics and infidels, me boy.”
“Ah! and with _that_ razor will she cut her own throat. The present
state of things, Bryan, _cannot last_: that, remember, is the strongest
point in my argument; a revolution must come. It depends on
the—religious bodies—what sort of a revolution it shall be. And,
whereas, in the case of their opposing or even hanging back, they might
find themselves exceedingly uncomfortable under the new _régime_, don’t
you see that if Christianity were regarded as the friend and ally of
Socialism (I don’t say the nursing mother, which is, however, true),
there would be no difficulty at all in treating ecclesiastical property
as belonging to the nation, but used, rent-free, for public purposes,
like stores, art-galleries, museums, etc.?”
“I see; and if the Church could see, it would be all very well; but that
day will never dawn, Ernest.”
“I confess that I have more hope of Protestantism,” said Mr. Clare; “and
yet the Roman Church as a whole is in herself a magnificent Commune. She
understands human nature better than any Protestant body; and her
missionaries and religious orders have always steadily upheld the true
worth of manual labor.”
“Aha! I expected that! Some one said of you the other day, ye spalpeen,
that ye dignified your trade.”
“Did you say that I hoped my trade might dignify me? It is quite true,
Bryan; there’s nothing like working with one’s hands to keep the body in
health and the soul at peace. I wish every clergyman and brain-worker in
the country had some handicraft to work at for an hour or two every day;
though not in the present condition of the labor market,” he hastened to
add, with a smile.
“Well, as between labor and capital, I’m afraid most of the clergy would
choose capital,” said Father McClosky with a grin.
The rector of St. Andrew’s also had his private protest to make.
“I’ve read that book of Bellamy’s, my dear Clare,” he said, “and, while
I admit that his Utopia would be an ideal state of affairs, I see two
reasons why it can never be realized. In the first place, if earth were
so delightful a place, man—the average man—would never long for heaven.
Of course, religious people might; but I mean, as I say, the average
man.”
“‘And so shall we ever be with the Lord!’” quoted Ernest Clare. “That is
the true sweetness of heaven, rector, and no earthly happiness can
lessen it. As for your average man,—well, in the first place the average
of those days will be considerably higher than the present, you know;
and in the second I fancy we shall all need to rise far above any
average that is ever likely to prevail, before we get to heaven at all.”
“That is very true,” said the rector. “But don’t you think that a
Commune would tend to reduce all alike to a uniform dead level of the
commonplace?”
“Does military discipline, when it is strict and thoroughgoing, ever
produce a dead level of commonplace?” asked Mr. Clare. “It is true that
the soldier on duty must be a mere machine; but he is an intelligent,
self-acting machine. He obeys, but it is not blind obedience; for he
knows at least the general aim, though not, perhaps, the particular
object sought to be gained, and has his own opinion as to the means
employed. At Balaklava, you remember,—
“‘the soldier knew
Some one had blundered.’
Indeed, I do not believe military discipline is at all possible, except
with highly developed individualities, which is one reason that a
Communal form of government has never been possible until now. Then,
too, the constant effort of the soldier is to distinguish himself by
rising above the common level.”
“To distinguish _himself_, to surpass _others_! Are they good motives,
Clare?”
“To surpass others in diligence and devotion to the common weal?” said
Mr. Clare. “It is a motive that is never found unmixed, rector, either
with love of one’s self or love of one’s fellows; in the last case I
should not call it a bad motive.”
“But in the first?” said the rector.
“Well, ambition in a good cause is better than ambition in a bad one, of
which we have so much nowadays. I should call it a motive which would be
likely to purify itself as it went along, or else come to signal grief,
as in the case of Judas.”
“Ah! you take _that_ view of Judas’s character!” cried the rector,
whereupon the discussion glided into another channel.
But on the August evening when we again meet Mr. Clare, his thoughts are
busy with a state of things far from ideal. The “little game” which Mr.
Dare had been “up to” two years ago, and in which Mr. Randolph had
succeeded in “taking a hand,” had been partially operative in producing
what is called a glut in the market, of certain articles considered by
modern civilization necessaries of life. This glut did by no means
signify that every one in the world had as much as he or she could use
of such necessaries; but only that, an artificial scarcity of certain
other actual necessities having been produced, with a consequent rise in
price, much coin of the commonwealth had been diverted into the pockets
of the capitalists who had produced the “corner,” while the commonalty
had just so much less; and, if they purchased one article, were forced
to go without another. Thus came what is known as “over-production,” a
euphemism which one might suppose owed its origin to the capitalists
themselves, if these polished, genial personages were capable of so
veiling from themselves and the world the misery of which they are the
cause. After all, those who perish from want and suffering in these days
do not greatly outnumber the victims that have been offered to many a
hero’s love of conquest; yet how many conquerors have been almost or
actually deified by adoring soldiery! And as these heroes seldom fail
with kind words, crosses of the Legion of Honor, cigars, and such like,
to reward the devotion of their followers, so the modern money-king
seldom refuses a subscription to aid those who have suffered in his
cause. There is a superb magnificence about this new and civilized game
of war, this winning and losing millions by a stroke of the pen, which
renders it overwhelmingly worth the candle, at least in the opinion of
the players; and while its barbaric splendor fascinates the intellect
and deadens certain of the moral qualities, it also leaves others ample
room to flourish and develop, thus producing a deformed but not ignoble
character. But moral deformity is not only far removed from the stature
of the perfect man in Christ, but inevitably tends to perpetuate itself,
to the permanent and growing deterioration of the race; and those who
arraign God Almighty because of the sufferings of the poor must consider
that only by these very sufferings can this frustration of the very
object of man’s creation be prevented, and the eyes of rich and poor
alike be opened to the enormity of the crime committed.
Upon the August evening to which we return again, the unusual clearness
of the air, which, from a Micklegard point of view, was decidedly a
melancholy beauty, seemed at first sight to have no sort of connection
whatever with Mr. Randolph’s trip to Paris and “Dare’s little game.” Yet
one result of the financial crisis referred to had been that many of the
factories in Micklegard, including Randolph’s Mill, had found themselves
overstocked with goods, and, after intervals of “shutting down” for a
month at a time, had decided themselves unable, consistently with the
fall of prices caused by “over-production,” to run their mills on the
old terms. But, capital having caused the crisis, it was quite right and
logical—from a military point of view, and according to a certain Latin
proverb—that the losses should be borne by Labor; and Randolph’s Mill
set the example of offering the “hands” (which unfortunately had mouths
also appertaining unto them) lower wages.
Why should we go further into detail? Are not the terrible, sickening,
godless minutiæ of a “strike” known to every one? There were knots of
desperate-looking men always talking, talking at the corners of the
streets; or, worse, leaning against the walls, with folded arms,
lowering brows, and darkly gleaming eyes. Those who were fortunate
enough worked at cleaning the streets, as porters, or at any odd job
that fell in their way; sometimes a whole family were dependent upon the
earnings of some daughter out at service, or son employed as cash or
errand boy in a store.
“Oh! they get help from the unions,” said a wealthy mill-owner one day
to Ernest Clare; “some of them live better than they ever did in their
lives.”
“They don’t look it,” replied Mr. Clare quietly.
“No, because they are such discontented dogs; they absolutely enjoy
lounging on the street corner, and looking sulky. It helps the effect.”
“An unemployed dog,” replied Mr. Clare, “when he is also discontented,
is very apt to be a dangerous dog. I hope the mill-owners may not find
to their cost that it would have been cheaper in the end to run their
mills on Gospel principles.”
At which view of the case the mill-owner was amused to an extreme.
“There comes Tina Kellar, Tina Schaefer that was,” said Louis, as he and
Mr. Clare came to the turn which led to North Micklegard.
“How slowly and wearily she walks,” returned his companion. “I suppose
her husband is still away?”
“Yes, but she had a letter from him yesterday. He says the West is the
place after all. He has taken up a land claim out there, and, as soon as
he gets his house built and things cleared up a little, will leave his
partner in possession, and come home after his wife and family.”
“I hope they may do well,” said Mr. Clare thoughtfully, “but Tina seems
scarcely strong enough for that wild life. How old is her baby?”
“About six months, I think. No, she is not strong, but the life can
scarcely be harder than her present one. Since her husband left, she has
been going out washing or house-cleaning whenever she can get a job. You
know that they are living in our old house, and my father actually shook
his fist at her last rent-day.”
“She was ready, then?”
“Ready with every cent; but he told her to keep it towards an outfit and
travelling expenses. I don’t know what they live on, I’m sure; for they
never get regular meals at ‘Prices’ now; only bread and sometimes a dish
of potatoes. Dora, the eldest girl, who was named after my mother, keeps
house and takes care of the little ones. Tina is so proud she won’t take
help, except that she lets me pay for the baby’s milk. They have named
her Louise, after me,” said Louis proudly.
“Yes, I heard you were to be godfather,” replied Mr. Clare, smiling
cheerfully as the subject of this conversation approached.
“Good-evening, Frau Christina; when am I to have the pleasure of
christening that young lady of yours? or is your father to do it?”
“Ah! I haven’t heart or time to think of christenings, Mr. Clare,”
replied Tina in a low, weary voice; “it’s all a mistake for poor folks
to have children, and they might as well die unchristened as not.”
“But they aren’t going to die, I hope,” said the clergyman cheerfully;
“Louis says you are all going West to grow up with the country. Come, I
won’t keep you standing when you are tired out with your day’s work; but
you’ll let me give a little treat to the children, I’m sure,” as he
pressed something into her hand.
“It’s very good of you, Mr. Clare, but we ain’t beggars,” said Tina
proudly, even while her hand closed involuntarily over the gift.
“We are all beggars in the sight of God,” said Mr. Clare, “and you know
Who took little children into His arms and blessed them. I am quite sure
He would like _yours_ to have a treat. Good-night; God bless you.”
“Stop a bit, Mr. Clare; I want to tell Louis where I’ve been working
to-day. Do you know, Louis, that Pinkie Randolph has come home?”
“I knew she was expected, but not quite so soon,” said Louis steadily,
though his cheek glowed.
“Well, she’s home, and I’ve got the job of cleaning house for her. Much
she knows about it! though she wouldn’t have it done till she was at
home to ‘superintend,’ as she called it. I will say, though, that she’s
a kind-hearted girl; told me this morning I looked tired, and gave the
cook orders to make me a cup of tea for my dinner. She’s at Dr.
Richards’s now, I guess.”
“I’m glad she thought of you,” said Louis gently.
“I ain’t got much cause to complain,” said Tina resignedly. She had not
thanked Mr. Clare, but neither of them remembered it as she moved away
with her slow, weary step, looking, with her careworn face and thin,
bent form, twenty years older than her real age.
“You don’t care to turn back, do you?” asked Mr. Clare as they walked
on.
“I promised to come, and I have no reason to avoid—any one,” said Louis
with a gentle dignity not unbecoming. He looked much older than
twenty-one, for his youth had ripened rapidly; years of thought and care
for others had developed his judgment and strengthened his character,
and intercourse with such a man as Ernest Clare had opened new worlds to
his intellect and conscience. Now, as his companion glanced down at him,
he wondered whether in her travels the fair Rosalie had met with
anything truer, purer, or nobler than the young man’s fair face, with
the open brow set in golden-brown waves, the steadfast blue eyes, and
firm, sweet lips, under the heavy mustache. It was not a sad face,
though just now it wore a certain quiet wistfulness; but there was a
chiselling about the lips, a resolute gravity upon the white brow, that
are not often seen upon the sunny side of thirty.
He was tall and well made, without equalling Mr. Clare’s height and
magnificent proportions; yet there was nothing even apparently
unsuitable about their companionship; and, spite of the difference in
age, Louis knew himself to be in all Micklegard his leader’s chosen
friend; more companionable than Fritz, more sympathetic than even Father
McClosky.
Virginia Dare, with Frank Randolph in close attendance, was sitting at
the parlor window, and recognized them as they approached.
“_Grand Dieu!_” she exclaimed, for she was now much given to French
ejaculations,—“_Grand Dieu! voilà_, our friend the shoemaker and that
handsome carpenter-clergyman. What a figure the man has! Just look at
his shoulders and arms! _mais c’est une taille de prince!_”
“Don’t be silly, Virgie,” advised Pinkie rather sardonically; “it’s no
good getting up an enthusiasm for that man; he’s a star decidedly out of
your sphere.”
“He’s a cad,” remarked Frank, who was fond of using Anglican words,
without considering their applicability to American civilization. “No
fellow that wasn’t would make such a beastly fool of himself;” but
further comment was cut short by the entrance of the persons criticised.
It was with a strange mingling of emotions that Pinkie saw her boy lover
enter the room, and received a greeting kindly but grave, as from one
immeasurably her superior. Not that Louis had any such idea; it was,
indeed, in search of Pinkie that his eyes had involuntarily wandered,
and the touch of her soft little hand gave him a strange thrill; but
there was no shade of difference in his greeting to her and to Miss
Dare; it was only Mrs. Richards, by whom he sat down, and on whose hand
he gently laid his own, who detected any tremor in voice or manner; and
Alice looked into his face and sighed heavily.
The conversation soon turned upon financial matters, and Mr. Randolph
took occasion to ask, half maliciously, how “Prices” was weathering the
present business storm.
“Oh! we shall pull through, I think,” said Mr. Clare easily. “You see,
there is very little conflict of interests among us, so our ship is
readily handled; and we are able to shorten sail, and even, in
extremity, cast the cargo overboard. But we haven’t come to that yet,”
he added.
“Ah? I rejoice to hear it. And without metaphor”—
“Without metaphor, our shareholders, rich and poor, decided to forego
their regular rate of interest on their investments, to enable us to
reduce our prices for food, clothes, and lodging; accepting, at the
year’s end, any dividend the company may be in funds to declare.”
“Most praiseworthy,” said Henry Randolph with a sneer.
“By no means! it is only taking out of one pocket and putting into
another,” replied Mr. Clare.
“I see from this morning’s paper that a large Socialistic meeting took
place last night, where several speeches of a decidedly insurrectionary
character were made. I suppose both of you were present?” pursued the
millionnaire.
“Neither of us,” replied Mr. Clare.
“But one of the speakers was called Metzerott. Your father, perhaps?” to
Louis.
“It was my father,” replied the young man, in a voice of such pain that
Pinkie glanced at him involuntarily; but, at the quick, ardent look of
gratitude that flashed into his eyes, she glowed vividly, bent her head
for a moment over her work, then, raising it haughtily, sent him another
glance of icy disdain.
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Randolph, who had seen nothing of this
by-play; “but of course such principles as all of you profess can lead
only in one direction. And you’ll get into trouble down there at
‘Prices,’ I warn you as a friend. We are a law-abiding people here in
America”—
“And therefore aim to improve the laws,” said Mr. Clare so quietly that
his remark did not seem an interruption.
“Eh! improve? you’ll never improve away the distinction between rich and
poor, or the laws that protect property.”
“God forbid—_the last_,” said Mr. Clare. “What we aim at is to make
property—outside of what we now call personalties—really stable and
secure, by making the Nation, and not any private individual, its
owner.”
“Tut, tut, what nonsense! I beg your pardon, Mr. Clare; but, really, to
hear a man of your intellect, in this age of the world”—
“And exactly because it _is_ this age of the world,” said the clergyman,
laughing. “Why, Mr. Randolph, a man of _your_ intellect ought to
recognize the spirit of the times. Would you have us go back to
mediævalism, every man his own sovereign,—barring an act or so of empty
homage,—as well as his own postman, policeman, scavenger, and
lamplighter?”
“We are civilized rather beyond _that_ point, sir; besides, it has
nothing to do with the subject in hand.”
“Nevertheless, the day will come when ‘every man his own bread-winner
and property-holder’ will be equally a relic of barbarism,” said Mr.
Clare coolly.
“Not in my time, sir, or yours.”
“Why, a certain English magazine I was reading, the other day, was
disposed to assign it to the date of the Greek Kalends; but I don’t feel
so sure about that,” said Ernest Clare. “Though it might be correct
enough for England providing America had never been discovered. John
Bull is a conservative animal; he has been beaten and pulled alternately
by the horns and tail until he has learned to say ‘A;’ and is now fully
persuaded that ‘A’ is the only correct thing to say; and that any one
who says ‘B’ is revolutionary, immoral, and un-English. But Brother
Jonathan, once he has learned to say ‘A,’ is more than half prepared to
say ‘B,’ and will be positively eager about the remainder of the
alphabet; so ‘the coming of the Coqcigrues’ may be nearer than we
dream,” he ended, smiling.
“May I go in to see Freddy?” asked Louis, turning to Alice.
“He will be glad to see you,” she said. “His father is with him now. No,
Louis, I fear he is no better. If he would like to see Mr. Clare, you
had better leave him. It flusters him to have more than one or two
persons in the room.”
It was evident that Freddy and the Ark of the Covenant would soon part
for this world, though he lay still, propped with pillows, upon its
friendly bosom, white and shadowy, only the great brown eyes full of
life and gladness. Freddy had had a long attack of lung-fever, from
which, though the disease had been broken, he had no strength to rally.
For a time he had seemed better, then he began to fade, slowly and
painlessly, like a flower; but also with conscious gladness, impossible
to a flower. He welcomed his friend with a smile and feeble outstretched
hand; but not till Dr. Richards had left them came the whisper, “Have
you seen her, Louis? Isn’t she pretty?”
“Prettier than ever,” said Louis. “Shall I sing to you, old fellow? or
will you see Mr. Clare?”
“I want _you_,” said Freddy. “I want to tell you that I am glad to have
seen her again before I die, and doubly glad to die now that I have seen
her.”
“Do you—oh, no! Freddy!—you don’t love her _too_?”
“I think I should if I wasn’t going to die,” said Freddy, smiling. “Sing
now, old fellow. Sing the ‘Land o’ the Leal.’”
So Louis sang—though it was a difficult task—song after song, in his
sweet tenor voice, until those in the outer room hushed their talk to
listen, and Freddy fell fast asleep with the tender notes echoing still
in his ear. For it is never “woe” to those who are vanquished by the
Cross.
CHAPTER V.
AN EXPERIMENT.
During the next fortnight, Louis and Pinkie met almost every day; for
Freddy was sinking fast, and both were assiduous in their attendance
upon him. It would seem almost impossible that under such circumstances
some of the old childish familiarity should not have revived; but Miss
Randolph had profited excellently by her Parisian sojourn. She was
perfectly able to be to one of her babyhood’s playmates all sisterly
tenderness, at the same moment that to the other she was only icy
politeness; for she had thoroughly learned that the whole duty of woman
is to make a rich marriage.
Louis did not molest her. He met her coldness with grave, kind courtesy,
and treated her so exactly as one whom he had had the pleasure of
knowing only a short time, that Pinkie’s girlish heart was hot within
her, and she burned to teach him with whom he had to deal. But at
present this was impossible, since they never met without witnesses.
For some months, Dr. Richards’s physical condition had been such that
there seemed small prospect of his ever again practising his profession,
for, though he was able with difficulty to move about the rooms of one
floor, he could not walk up or down stairs.
Accordingly he had rented his offices to Edgar Harrison, a calm,
determined-looking young man just starting in life as an M.D., who, in
addition to the vigorous practice of his profession, displayed quite an
astral faculty for being always on hand to intercept Miss Randolph’s
comings and goings. Pinkie, of course, turned up her nose at him as a
struggling physician; yet, as it would not have done to be unkind to the
poor fellow, gave him plenty of smiles, accepted his modest tributes of
flowers, and half promised to take a drive with him some day, when
Freddy should be better.
It was not long before Freddy was quite well. They were all around him
at the last, his mother supporting him in her arms, white as he, but
terribly composed; Dr. Richards, in a great chair drawn close beside the
bed, held one transparent hand as though he could thus retain the pure
spirit that was soon to flutter forth—whither? to annihilation? The
father’s clasp was the clutch of despair.
Louis was close upon the other side of the narrow couch, now and again
wiping the cold dews from his friend’s forehead. They thought him past
speaking; but his eyes were open, watching eagerly, gladly,—what? Louis
knew; Louis, who had tried in his babyhood to heal the sick, and in
youth had followed the white Form down the wreck-laden river. And it may
be that the brightening spirit felt the unspoken sympathy, for slowly
the brown eyes and the blue met in a long, loving, comprehending look.
It seemed to recall him once more to earth, for the wonderful gaze
turned next upon Pinkie, who knelt sobbing at her uncle’s feet.
“Don’t—cry—Pinkie,” he said, gaspingly.
“Freddy!”
It was the cry of a strong man in doubt and agony. Freddy looked in his
father’s face with a smile.
“HE will take care of me, father,” he said.
The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust the last remains of his feeble
powers; for he lay for some moments with closed eyes; then suddenly they
flashed open again, he turned his head slightly upon his mother’s bosom.
“Kiss me, mamma,” he said; and with that kiss upon his lips Freddy fell
asleep like a tired child.
It was not, as might have been expected, the mother who seemed to feel
most deeply the blow of Freddy’s death. It was true that Alice had no
time to grieve, she who was now the only bread-winner. Besides, she had
a strong reason for controlling her sorrow, in anxiety for her husband,
who sat day after day in the great chair in which he had seen his child
die, motionless, tearless, silent—as silent as the grave wherein that
child was lying.
What were his thoughts, even the wife who loved him so well did not dare
to speculate; but that they were such as, if dwelt upon, would unhinge
both thought and reason, she felt very little doubt.
“Can _you_ say anything to comfort him?” she asked of Ernest Clare. “I
cannot; his sorrow is too terrible; and I, who have just escaped the
hopelessness of it, do not dare to meddle.”
He shook his head sorrowfully. “I will try,” he answered; “that is, if
he will see me.”
Dr. Richards made no difficulty about this. “Let him come,” he said;
“he’s not as bad as some of his cloth.”
And, in truth, Mr. Clare made no effort to convince the bereaved father
that his grief was the punishment of sin; he did not offer to pray with
him, neither did he quote a single text; but, after a cordial
hand-clasp, sat down quietly beside him, and began the conversation in a
low voice, but a matter-of-course tone.
“I am very sorry I was prevented from being with Freddy at the last.”
“It was not your fault,” replied the doctor in a hard, cold voice. “The
end came suddenly and unexpectedly, and there was no time to send for
you. You had been most kind and attentive; and I am glad to have an
opportunity to thank you. I suppose Freddy had all the consolations of
religion, whatever they may be worth.”
“They are worth much to me and to him,” said Mr. Clare gently.
The doctor waved his hand impatiently. “I am not up to an argument
to-day, Clare,” he said.
“No, I suppose not. You must miss our dear boy at every moment!”
“He was my last patient,” said the doctor with a ghastly attempt at a
smile. “I was physician and nurse too, you know, and now my occupation’s
gone! I say, Clare, what fools those fellows are who speak of a man’s
immortality consisting in his children who live after him, or in some
work of his that is remembered. Here am I, getting on towards sixty, who
have done nothing, and have no children to carry on my name. It’s a poor
old show for my ‘joining the choir invisible,’—eh, Clare?”
“I don’t believe you care very much for that,” said Mr. Clare.
“No, you are right; not when the pinch comes,” said the doctor gloomily.
Mr. Clare was silent; he saw that the man’s heart was full to
overflowing, and that, if let alone, he would pour it out in his own
way. In a moment or two, the cool sarcastic tones began again as if they
were arguing the case of any one else in the world but the speaker.
“I suppose you don’t believe in euthanasia, Clare?”
“As practised upon one’s self, or on some one else?”
“Either, or both.”
“Then, no. In the first case, it is cowardice; in the second, murder.
But I should think you could believe in it logically enough.”
“Logic is a delusion, my friend. Logically, I might have spared my poor
boy a lifetime of suffering: but, selfishly, I kept him alive months
longer than any one else could have done!”
“And you are proud and glad to have done so!”
“Of course! selfishly. And now, look at me! what good shall I ever be in
the world again? Why could I not drop a little hydrocyanic acid on my
tongue, and join the majority?”
“Fred,” said Alice,—she had been working beside him all the while, but
had not joined in the conversation; and now her voice was very
tremulous;—“Fred, do you remember your own words to me, when I,
believing as you do, declared that I would never outlive, for long, you
and our dear boy? Do you remember?”
“Indeed, I don’t, my dear. Some nonsense, I suppose.”
“You told me to live for others, Fred, and in so doing I should find the
secret of life.”
“Ah! I hadn’t the rheumatism then,” said the doctor dryly, “nor had I
lost my only son,” he added, with a tremor in his voice of which he
seemed to feel ashamed, for he went on quickly, “Besides, you miss the
point of my arguments, my dear, which is that, in my condition, it is
impossible for me to live for others except as a burden upon them.”
“It is impossible for any one to live for others,” said Ernest Clare
quietly; “the only possible thing is to live for One other, Who is Jesus
Christ.”
“Ah! my wife can follow you there; I cannot,” said the doctor. “It would
be a different world if one like Jesus Christ had made and governed it.”
“The mystery of pain, sorrow, and sin,” said Mr. Clare, “I do not wonder
that it baffles you; yet one who is a father ought to recognize the
chastisements of _his_ Father, I think.”
“Come, now, Clare, would any father inflict such pain as I”—his voice
broke irretrievably.
“If it were to bring you to the joy of knowing Him? to purify you and
fit you for endless happiness with Him? I think a Father _would_,” said
Mr. Clare.
“The mystery of pain, the secret of life!” said the doctor thoughtfully,
having by this time regained his composure. “Well, Alice, if you have
solved the one and found the other, I can only congratulate you. It was
the task we set ourselves to work out together; do _you_ remember?”
“And He sent pain and grief to help us,” said Alice.
A great light came upon Ernest Clare’s face; he sat quite still for a
moment, then rose and knelt beside the doctor’s chair.
“Our Father!” said the rich full voice; then it paused and was utterly
silent. Dr. Richards covered his eyes with his hand, and in that silence
there rose before him all the meaning of the words that had been spoken.
“Our Father!” He had wished to understand why a merciful God allowed
pain to exist, and God had sent pain to teach him. Was not that, indeed,
_fatherly_?
Mr. Clare rose from his knees, and left the room without another word,
leaving the doctor still sitting with his hand over his eyes.
Religion is a science, and, like all science, empirical. Dr. Richards
had made his first theological experiment; and, though the needle had
moved ever so slightly upon the dial of the galvanometer, the existence
of the current must ever more remain for him an established fact.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FRAGRANCE OF TEA-ROSES.
It was a source of self and mutual congratulation to Frau Anna Rolf and
Karl Metzerott, that Louis’ grief for Freddy’s death seemed to draw him
nearer to Annie. When he was not at Dr. Richards’s, after work hours, he
was quite sure to be taking long walks with her; and it really seemed as
if their darling scheme were on the eve of accomplishment.
“As for that little chit of Randolph’s, he’s quite forgotten her,” said
Karl Metzerott; “I haven’t heard her name out of his mouth since she
came home;” which, Karl’s own nature might have warned him, is not
invariably a token of forgetfulness.
“It goes to my heart to see the boy looking so sad and worn,” said Frau
Anna; “but my Aenchen will comfort him; and I could not wish her a
better husband.”
The shoemaker smiled proudly. “There’s no fault to be found with Louis,”
he said, “except that he lets this man Clare lead him about by the nose;
and the same may be said of your Fritz, Frau Anna.”
“Fritz will fight when the time comes,” replied the other, her thin face
and wild, dark eyes glowing with repressed enthusiasm. “He is all for
peace now, but when the signal is given he will remember that he has a
wife and child to defend, and a father’s death to avenge.”
“He has _more_,” murmured George below his breath. No one heard him, and
if his heavy features looked a shade more sullen, nobody was
sufficiently at leisure to observe it; indeed, as we know, George had
never been troubled with overmuch observation. Of a reserved, sullen
temperament, too sluggish for mischief, but immovably obstinate if
crossed or contradicted, and subject to occasional fits of almost
delirious rage, his education had consisted almost solely of that
judicious letting alone, a little of which is considered so
advantageous. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was the established rule for
treating him; yet, even half understood as he was, it should have seemed
a dangerous experiment thus to train and drill him into the thought of
revenge.
In spite of his apparent slowness of thought, he had in some matters the
quick scent of a bloodhound, and knew far more about the story of his
brother’s marriage than any one imagined. A question or two to Denny the
porter, a half-glimpse of a box of trinkets which Fritz was putting up
to return to the donor, a look upon Gretchen’s face when Frank
Randolph’s name was casually mentioned,—these were enough, perhaps more
than enough, for George; for it is quite certain his suspicions were
not, at least, _less_ than the truth.
Not a hint of all this crossed his lips. Fritz had married her, and
taken the burden of her escapade upon his own shoulders; in which last
respect, if he were willing to take her at all after all that had
happened, George considered him quite right. In his quiet, sullen way,
George would have died for Fritz, whose good-nature had warded off many
a collision with the other’s sullen temper; while his bright, ready wit
had shielded and protected his younger brother from many an attack, and
backed him up in many a quarrel. Therefore, George had mentally
inscribed upon the cryptogram which, like Madame Lafarge, he was always
knitting, the name of Francis Randolph, accompanied with signs denoting
vengeance upon him, his house, and his posterity, to the fourth
generation and beyond. But for the present he bided his time; Gretchen’s
name must not be made a subject of gossip.
At the very moment of the conversation above recorded, Louis and Annie
were wandering along the river-bank in very lover-like fashion, it must
be admitted; for she was leaning on his arm, and looking into his face
with soft, attentive eyes; while he was talking earnestly, opening the
very depths of his heart, talking as he could only talk to Annie Rolf.
“I don’t think I deceive myself about her, Aenchen,” he said; “I seem to
see all her faults, and yet love her the better for them.”
“I cannot quite understand that, Louis,” said the girl, smiling; “for
me, I could not love without respect; I _must_ look up and see, at any
rate, few faults, and none that I could despise.”
“Then you should love one like Mr. Clare,” said Louis; “I don’t know any
one else who would suit you.”
Annie smiled and shook her head, but did not reply further, and Louis
went on,—
“What I love in her, I suppose, is my ideal,—what she might be, or, as
Mr. Clare would say, what she will be when all that is evil is purged
away from her nature. O Annie! how _lovely_ she will be then!”
“Yes, indeed,” said Annie heartily; though, if her true opinion had been
given, it would have been that, when vanity and sauciness should be
purged out of Miss Rosalie Randolph, there would be not enough of her
left to swear by.
“I often think,” pursued Louis, whose natural turn for speculative
philosophy had been decidedly fostered by intercourse with Ernest
Clare,—“I often think, Aenchen, when people talk about being
disappointed and deceived in their friends, that it is not really so.
One may be deceived _by_ a person one loves, not _in_ him. For what
gives and attracts love is the real self, independent of all accidents;
and, sin being not a part of that self, it follows that when we meet in
that happy world the false friend of earth, we shall recognize the self
we really loved, and feel that the deceit was in our bad opinion of him,
not in our good one.”
“That is very beautiful,” murmured Annie. And while he was smiling at
her in all the pleasure of sympathy and comprehension, and she gazing
into his face with eyes that half betrayed her wonder what Louis’ real
self _could_ be, since his present and apparent self was so bright and
beautiful,—at this moment there passed them alight, open buggy, wherein
sat Edgar Harrison and a small figure in black, whose brown eyes took in
the full significance of the sight presented to them.
“Your friend, the handsome young shoemaker, and his sweetheart,” said
Edgar Harrison. “I suppose they are awfully happy; don’t you?”
“Really, I don’t know; I can’t pretend to understand the feelings of
that sort of people,” said Miss Randolph haughtily.
Edgar watched her with quiet amusement. He was not at all afraid of
Louis as a rival, though admitting that in a higher station of life he
might have been dangerous. “Well, they look pretty happy,” he said.
Pinkie shrugged her shoulders, a gesture she had learned in Paris,
without reply; but her first act, upon reaching her own room, was to
throw aside her crape-trimmed hat, and study her own pretty face
reflected in the glass, as attentively as if it had been the Rosetta
stone or a Babylonian cylinder. Then the red lips curved into a
triumphant smile.
“I’ll settle him,” said Pinkie, with a toss of her head.
The next afternoon was what she herself called “hideously warm;” and
therefore her prettiest white dress, a marvel of lace and embroidery,
was evidently just the thing to wear. There was not a touch of black
about it; and the creamy softness brought out every tint of the rich
brunette coloring, and softened the vivacious girlish beauty into
something infinitely charming. She fastened a knot of fragrant
tea-rosebuds in her belt, and then, taking her wide-brimmed Leghorn hat
in her hand, announced to the housekeeper her intention of walking round
to take tea with her aunt, Mrs. Richards.
“It is too hot for dinner, and so you may tell papa and Frank when they
come home,” said Pinkie audaciously; “but you might order a freezer of
cream to be sent around to Dr. Richards’s; harlequin, mind, chocolate,
vanilla, strawberry, and orange ice. Don’t forget.”
“From Prices’?” asked the housekeeper. “Your papa won’t like your being
away at dinner, Miss Pinkie.”
“Then he can do the other thing,” returned the girl carelessly.
“‘Prices’? no, certainly not. Our own confectioner.”
“Because I thought,” returned the housekeeper, “as it is late in the
afternoon, and every one busy, if you wouldn’t mind, as you have to pass
our confectioner’s door”—
“I _mean_ to pass his door,” said the girl. “Do you suppose I’m going
in? Nasty hot place, smelling of cake and bread!”
“Very well, miss. I’ll send John to the drug store to telephone. And oh!
Miss Pinkie, that poor woman who has been cleaning the house—Tina
Kellar, you know—would like to have more work to do, and there are some
of the small rooms that need papering”—
“But she’s not a paper-hanger.”
“She’s as good as one, miss; for she papered her own house from top to
bottom, and it’s as pretty a job as ever I see. Besides, she wouldn’t
charge near as much as a regular paper-hanger.”
“Humbug!” said Pinkie. “Give her what you’d give a man, if she does the
work at all.”
“Well, you’re a kind-hearted young lady,” said the housekeeper, “and
I’ll do it gladly, miss; though the poor creature is hardly strong
enough to do such hard work.”
“Then, don’t give it to her,” said Pinkie; “I don’t believe in
oppressing people.”
“But she must work, you know, miss, to support her children.”
“Then, what are you talking about? Give her the work if she wants it,
and pay her well. If she’s not strong enough, she can let it alone. I
hope you see she has good meals whenever she is here!”
“Law, yes, miss; only she’s got so little appetite. She don’t eat enough
for a baby. I believe all that keeps her up, anyhow, is determination.
She looks like she could just lie down and die any minute.”
“Well, make her some beef-tea,” said Pinkie; “that will do her good. It
is wrong for people to work beyond their strength, wrong and foolish
too. I don’t see why they do it.”
“No, I suppose you don’t, when all the wish you’ve got is that you had
something to wish for,” murmured the housekeeper, looking after her;
while Pinkie, as she tripped along, thought complacently, “People talk
about the difficulty of dealing with the laboring classes; but I don’t
see any trouble in it at all, if you only know how!”
Arrived at her aunt’s, she found the doctor confined to his room by an
access of rheumatism, and quite unable to see any one; so Pinkie, in
spite of her Parisian toilette, bustled around to help the boy from
“Prices” lay the cloth in the parlor, where meals were now usually
taken, and made herself so sweet and charming during the _tête-à-tête_
tea with her aunt that Alice’s sad face brightened perceptibly.
“You’re a good little thing, Pinkie,” she said tenderly. “I wish I had
you always.”
“I’ll come and stay with you whenever you like,” said Pinkie, laying her
cheek against her aunt’s shoulder; “but now run away to Uncle Fred,
dearest; I know he wants you. I’ll just sit here and wait till some one
comes for me.”
“I’m afraid—that is, I think Louis will be in by and by,” said Alice.
“Let me know when he comes. Unfortunately, Edgar is out of town
to-night, or I would call him to talk to you.”
“The solemn Edgar! I’m glad he is,” replied Pinkie.
Louis was late that night. In reality, he was detained by an extra job
at which he worked out of hours, but Pinkie had had ample time to
picture to herself another river-side ramble, and to feel genuinely
forsaken and miserable, before he entered softly and unannounced.
The white figure in the arm-chair by the window, dimly visible by the
moonlight, he supposed to be Mrs. Richards, and approached gently; but,
as he bent to give her his usual kiss of greeting, he sprang back,
startled. Pinkie, in tears and alone, arrayed in a vesture, as it
seemed, of hoar-frost and moonbeams, with fragrant rosebuds in her
bosom, and soft white fingers that clung to his confidingly, as she
said,—
“It’s nobody but me. Did you expect to find Aunt Alice? She is with
Uncle Fred. He is so much worse, and I have been so sad and lonely.”
“She _had been_.” Louis’ fair cheek flushed deeply; he drew a hard
breath between his set teeth. The radiance of the full September moon
was all about her, the fragrance of the pale rosebuds filled the air;
and it was no haughty money-princess who spoke, but his own Pinkie,
whose lips he had kissed, and who had thrown herself, weeping, into his
arms. Louis felt that he had need of all his manhood, if he would not be
doubly scorned when this changing mood should have passed away.
And yet—
“I suppose you were thinking of Freddy,” he said very gently, but
coldly; “it is natural you should feel sad.”
“I was thinking of myself,” said Pinkie honestly enough. “Oh, Louis,
just think how lonely I am all day, in that great house, with only the
servants to talk to! I wish I were Aunt Alice’s daughter! I should like
to be poor and work for her.”
“No, no, that you certainly would not,” replied Louis, smiling in spite
of himself.
“But I should,” she persisted. “Why not? she is the only creature on
earth that cares a straw for me; why should I not work for her?”
“What are you trying to make me say?” asked Louis, very pale, but still
smiling; “something that you can laugh at me for afterwards? That is not
worthy of you, Pinkie.”
“I don’t see what right you have to call me that!” cried the girl,
springing to her feet in sudden anger at the calm superiority of his
tone.
“You seemed, some way, to give me the right,” said the young man simply;
“but I beg your pardon; I will be more careful. And now I have something
to say to you, Miss Randolph. Ever since you returned, your manner to me
has been as if I were some presumptuous upstart whom you were obliged to
keep in his place. And I want to tell you that I know my place quite
well; I am a shoemaker and an employé of ‘Prices’; so you may spare
yourself any further trouble in the matter.”
“But you were _that_ when I went away,” murmured Pinkie, lifting her
eyes to his for just a moment.
He took one step towards her, then checked himself. “That was before you
had learned _your_ place,” he said.
Pinkie’s eyes filled with tears; for as yet her love for Louis was the
most real part of her character, and when she yielded to it for a
moment, as at present, it made her, for the time being, as real as
itself.
“My place!” she said, looking at him with the bright drops gemming her
lashes; “_my_ place? Oh, Louis, what place have I in the world? I am
only a trouble to my father: he thinks himself bound to give me what he
calls social advantages, but it’s an awful nuisance to him; he was much
more comfortable when I was at school. Frank certainly doesn’t want me
or care for me very much. Freddy”—her voice was choked with sobs.
“Yes,” said Louis hoarsely, “Freddy loved you, Pinkie.”
“But he is dead,” cried the girl passionately, “and now you, Louis—you,
whom I thought my—my friend, _you_ turn against me!”
She crossed her arms upon the back of the tall chair against which she
had been leaning, and, bowing her head upon them, sobbed unrestrainedly.
Louis came close to her, so close that his breath stirred her hair as he
bent over her, but he did not touch her.
“After all,” he said, “I believe your best chance for becoming the woman
God meant you to be, would be for me to take you in my arms now, this
moment, and carry you off where no one could ever find you again.”
Pinkie listened with beating heart and thrilling from head to foot,
while, amid her tears, a dainty smile stole out to play unseen about her
rosy lips. Of course she had not the very slightest intention of
allowing him to do anything of the sort, but it was delicious to hear
him talk so.
“For I believe you love me, _mein Röslein roth_,” continued the voice
above her bent head. “I believe you love me; yet I know that you will
never marry me. You are not noble enough, yet, to understand the
nobility of labor.”
“I certainly don’t understand the nobility of shoemaking,” cried Pinkie,
roused to defend herself; “though, of course, it’s a very necessary
trade, and one that some people must always follow; but why should _you_
be one of them, Louis?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked
beseechingly into his face. “It makes one’s hands black, and the leather
smells so horribly,” she urged.
Louis turned away abruptly; he had not foreseen this turn of affairs.
“And you could be _any_ thing, you know,” continued the temptress. “A
doctor, for instance; _that’s_ a noble profession, if you like, Louis;
and even if you didn’t get very rich it wouldn’t matter, because,”—she
blushed and hung her head.
Louis regarded her steadfastly, though his face was bloodless, and his
eyes as sad as death.
“What would be the good?” he said gently. “If you will not marry the
shoemaker, dear, you could never bring yourself to marry the shoemaker’s
son.”
“I—I—don’t know,” said the girl softly.
He laid one hand—it was very cold—gently on hers. “I do,” he said. “I
know you, darling, better than you know yourself; even if you were
willing,—as you will not be, once this mood has passed—I would not
condemn you to a life you are not strong enough to live. Why, the woman
who cleans your house, Pinkie, is my friend, the sister-in-law of the
man who works beside me, in my father’s shop. Could you welcome her to
your house, or visit her in hers? or, rather, _would_ you do it?”
“I’ll tell you who would, and could, too,” said Pinkie, with sparkling
eyes. “That Rolf girl you were walking with yesterday.”
Louis made no reply. He looked inquiringly at the pretty, angry face,
and waited for further information, which was not long in coming.
“I heard you were engaged to her,” said Pinkie, “and I think it is a
very good thing; both in the same station of life, and all that; no
wonder you won’t give up ‘Prices’ while she’s there.”
“There is only one woman in the world for me, Rosalie,” said Louis
sternly. “Don’t pretend to think anything else.” He was worn with
resisting temptation, and stunned by this sudden veering about of the
wind, and his patience was almost gone. But for his thorough knowledge
that a marriage between them was an utter impossibility, he would have
caught her in his arms, and kissed her into a knowledge of her own mind,
he told himself; but no, her kisses were the unclaimed property of some
good man, _he hoped_, or tried to hope; and Louis would rob no one.
Pinkie looked in his face for a moment, then began again to sob
broken-heartedly. He tried to leave her, he even walked as far as the
door; then, turning, came swiftly back to her side.
“Darling,” he said, “will you marry me now? as I am? I will make things
as easy for you as I can, trust me for that; you need not live at
‘Prices;’ I could take care of you even now, and, once these hard times
are over, we could be very comfortable. Will you marry me _now_,
Pinkie?”
Over the girl’s heart swept a swift revulsion of feeling, a sudden
recoil from the bare ugliness of the life which Louis called
comfortable. She had not been prepared for this when she set herself “to
lure this tassel gentle back again;” this shoemaker who treated her so
consistently as his inferior. For a moment, Pinkie felt that she quite
hated him.
“Will you, darling?” he said again, and Pinkie raised her head, looked
him full in the eyes, and answered,—
“Marry a shoemaker! No, certainly not.”
He turned away, he walked steadily to the door and down the stairs; she
ran to the window, and watched him down the moonlit street, but he never
looked back: and when the last echo of his footsteps had died away, the
poor, lonely, spoiled child flung herself face downwards on the floor,
and cried in good earnest.
CHAPTER VII.
“THESE, THROUGH THEIR FAITH, RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE.”
More than a week had passed, and it was early October. The bare
hill-tops stood mournfully against the golden sunset; but in the valleys
the woods were bright with maple, oak, and chestnut, and the fields
gorgeous with sumach and goldenrod, while the oldest, most crumbling
fence boasted such garlands of blackberry and elder as a queen might
have envied. Apples in myriads hung from the trees, or were stored away
in barrels that could only be numbered by thousands; barn and storehouse
over all the land were bursting with the plenteous yield of the generous
harvest; and Christina Kellar walked home from her work heartsick and
weary.
Weary!
Dear reader, have you ever known real weariness? Not the fatigue after a
pleasure party or ball, to recover from which you lie abed or lounge on
a sofa, and are coddled by tender hands; but weariness which, as it
promises to have no end, seems also to have had no beginning; weariness
which lies down with you at night and drags you backward as you rise in
the morning; the faint, deadly, terrible weariness of one whose needs
and whose work go on, on, on, in a treadmill round, while her strength,
day by day, is failing, failing, failing!
God help all those who are weary with such weariness as this.
Christina Kellar was scarcely conscious of the pavement on which she
trod. Her head was dizzy, her whole frame a dull steady ache, and the
solid ground was like air beneath her feet, while the long, long street,
where lamp after lamp twinkled redly to meet her, stretched out to
interminable distances, which she did not dare to calculate. Only she
permitted herself a faint throb of something like pleasure whenever a
street corner was passed; otherwise it took all her strength to make one
step after another. Her husband had now been away nearly six months, and
what had Tina accomplished beyond the bare keeping together of body and
soul! The rent which Karl Metzerott had refused to take had all gone to
pay for medicine for little Paul, who had been sickly from his birth; as
for outfit or travelling expenses, she had saved nothing towards them;
and now she had only the money actually in her pocket to depend on; for
Miss Randolph had no more work for her, nor did she know of another job
she was at all likely to get.
Dully feeling—scarcely thinking these things and others; and mercifully
unable quite to realize that winter drew near, with a plentiful lack of
fuel and warm clothing—she reached her own door, behind which there
seemed, even to her tired brain, some unusual stir and bustle; while the
one poor window was brilliant with firelight to a ruinous extent, that
made her heart throb achingly. She must indeed scold Dora for such
wastefulness! The evening was barely cool enough for fire to be a
luxury; and even when it should become a necessity, their prospect of
having it was scanty enough.
At this moment the door was thrown open, and Dora herself appeared on
the doorstep. Dora, in her best Sunday frock, which was shabby enough,
to be sure; her hair freshly plaited, and her small round face shining
with soap and water.
“Here she is!” cried Dora, dancing frantically up and down on the low
doorstep, “_hier kommt das Mütterchen!_”
And then came a sudden rush of great legs and small legs; legs in
petticoats, kilts, and cut-over trousers; little Paul scrambling after,
last of all, while the baby, left alone upon the front-room floor,
contributed a wail instead of her personal presence, but all the legs
distanced by one pair in gray pantaloons rudely patched upon the knees,
the arms belonging whereunto straightway lifted poor weary Tina off her
feet, while bearded lips covered her face with kisses.
“My Tina!” cried Paul Kellar wildly; “I have come home for thee and the
little ones, with money, too, plenty of it, to carry you all away into
the golden West, where there is work for all and money for all, Tina.”
It was like a dream to the poor tired soul, the bright smiles and
festive appearance of the children, whom Dora had washed and combed into
agonized tidiness; the warmth of the cheerful fire, and the plentiful
meal which handy little Otto had ordered with such pride from “Prices.”
She sat as one half asleep, in a great cushioned chair, and heard how
her Paul, while his partner kept possession of their “claim,” had been
herder for a neighboring ranchman, and so had earned money enough to
bring his family out. It was strange to feel that all responsibility had
been lifted from her shoulders; that she need not struggle so sorely
against this deadly weariness, but could safely afford herself a day or
two of utter rest. And even the labor of packing and sending off her
household goods, and the long journey that must follow seemed bagatelles
to Tina. Had not Paul come home? Paul, with his strong arms and loving
heart! Paul, who might be passionate now and then,—he took that after
his mother,—but who had never let her tire herself with work that he was
able to do.
But she could not swallow a morsel of the nice supper they had ready;
she was too tired to eat; only she drank a cup of tea, and then leaned
back in her great chair, with the baby at her breast, watching them in
weary happiness.
“But you can never nurse that great girl, unless you eat,” said Paul, in
distressed perplexity; “you should feed her, Christina.”
“Dora feeds her when I am away,” she said, smiling happily, “but I like
to give her her supper when I come home. The touch of her soft lips
seems to rest me, Paul.”
“Only in reality it does nothing of the kind,” said Paul, with severe
common sense; “it is but another drain upon your strength. She thrives,
however; a fine baby, to be sure!”
“And she crawls,” said the proud mother; “she crawls already, about the
floor; in another month or so she will walk. We have good children,
Paul.”
“Because they crawl at eight months,” laughed the man. “You do not know
what you are saying, my Tina, you are so tired. Let us go to bed, and
to-morrow”—
“Oh, to-morrow!” said little Dora importantly, “mother must lie abed and
rest. I can take care of the children.”
Her mother kissed her, but made no reply, and the little house was soon
wrapped in silence and darkness.
Paul Kellar, healthy, strong, and just pleasantly tired, lost very
little time in falling asleep; but, his training upon the western plains
having taught him to sleep lightly, he was awakened towards morning by a
little sharp, impatient baby cry. He raised himself on his elbow and
looked around. A pale gray light stole in through the one window; his
wife lay with her face turned from him, the baby upon her arm, nestling
close to her breast. How long a time had passed since she lifted the
child from the empty cradle beside them, he could not know; but there
was a strange stillness about the pale figure with the long brown hair
that struck to his heart with a terror for which he could not account.
He leaned over and looked closer at the sunken eyelids, the half-open
mouth. He touched her hand; it was very cold.
At the same moment, little Louise, withdrawing her lips from the cold
bosom, looked into his face with frightened eyes and a piteous wail of
baby hunger.
With a loud cry, Paul Kellar sprang to his feet.
“Christina!” he cried. “_Ach! mein Gott!_ Christina, awake, awake!”
But Christina could not answer.
What happened afterwards he could never clearly recollect. That the
children came huddling and sobbing down the steep, narrow staircase;
that some one fetched Edgar Harrison, and another the Herr Pastor; that
kind hands were about that silent form, and tears dropped on the cold,
white features, he scarcely noted. Back and forth, back and forth,
treading hard and recklessly through the small house, calling to her to
awake and speak to him, trying now one remedy, then calling restlessly,
impatiently, for another.
“It is of no use,” said Edgar Harrison gently; “she has been dead some
hours.”
“But it is impossible,” cried the half-mad husband; “she was well last
night, only a little tired.”
The young physician shook his head. He was new to such scenes, and there
were tears in his eyes. “It is that,” he said. “Fatigue kills as many as
cholera, I think; overfatigue and, perhaps, insufficient nourishment.”
At this moment there was a cry from those who stood nearer the bed; a
sobbing of women, and the pitiful cry of a child. In the haste and
confusion, and efforts at recovery, the little Louise had been laid at
the foot of the bed on which her mother lay dead; and now, in the pause,
she had crawled, unobserved, once more to that mother’s side, and,
laying her lips to that cold bosom—ah! well may you weep, baby Louise!
the mother-heart is still, the mother’s breast is cold and empty, the
mother love has gone away from you to heaven.
“Is there a God?” cried the pastor, wildly tossing his thin arms upward,
“that he lets the sun rise upon such scenes as this!”
“There is a God,” said Ernest Clare, “who spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up to death, that we might live forevermore. Courage,
friend, the day of freedom is at hand; you would not grudge your
daughter the glory of helping Him to redeem the world; of filling up
that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ?”
“It is for Henry Randolph’s daughter that mine has died,” said the
pastor, but with less violence; “upon the floors and walls of that
palace, to which he has no right, which he has robbed from others, she
spent her precious life.”
“Henry Randolph!” it was like the cry of a wild beast, as Paul Kellar
sprang to his feet with clinched hands and red and glaring eyes.
“Henry Randolph! the bloated millionnaire who cuts down his workmen’s
wages! the gambler with the daily bread of thousands, starving them by
hundreds that he may add another cipher to his bank-account! Is _he_ the
murderer of my wife?”
“Not wittingly, oh, not wittingly!” Ernest Clare knew better than to
urge any plea of “employment” and “wages” at such a moment as this. “Not
wittingly, Paul, does he injure any man. Therefore, Father,” he added,
looking upward, “forgive both him and those like unto him. Forgive them,
Father, for they know not what they do!”
But Paul Kellar had rushed away into the early and peaceful morning;
while the pastor, falling upon his knees beside his dead child, cried
out,—
“She was my first-born! I called her Christina that she might be like
unto Christ; and behold, like Him, she has died,—died for the sins of
the world.”
Tina Kellar’s piteous death was, to the labor-world of Micklegard, the
breath which, fanning the clouds of their discontent a hair’s-breadth
nearer, completed the power of the gathering storm. A martyr! That was
their name for her; but a martyr whose death they were bound to avenge?
that, to students of Scripture, seemed less fit and natural.
Karl Metzerott was foremost in proclaiming the duty of revenge. In his
youth a silent man, and given to much thinking, the years had brought
with them a power of rude but vivid eloquence, beneath which his hearers
were swayed as the tree-branches bend before the wind.
It was a glorious victory for Karl Metzerott, this triumph of the
doctrine of violence; for, though a few faithful ones still clung to
Ernest Clare, with the majority his influence was a thing of the past;
and Karl rejoiced over his enemy with a mighty joy, careless or
unknowing that what these men followed was not “the Emperor,” as they
had called him, but the anger and lust for blood and vengeance of their
own hearts.
Such an assemblage of lowering brows and sullen, brooding eyes as
followed Tina Kellar to the grave had never been seen in Micklegard; the
men had nothing to do and nowhere to go; they might as well go to the
funeral, they said; and two by two, on foot and silently, they walked
after the coffin, through the streets where once Frank Randolph had
lured away the dead woman’s sister (though only _two_ of them thought of
that), and up the hill to the quiet cemetery where Ernest Clare had
taught Ritter Fritz the duties of true knighthood.
There was silence still, while the body was committed to the ground;
silence through the dull falling of the first clods and the steady
filling-up of the grave; then Paul Kellar cried with a strained, loud,
hoarse voice,—
“Men! brothers! I call upon you for vengeance on the murderers of my
wife!”
A hoarse murmur of assent, more terrible than words, swept over that
sombre crowd; but once again the arms of the pastor were thrown upward,
blackly outlined against the brilliant, clear October sky.
“Not for my daughter!” he cried, “no vengeance for her who bears the
name of Christ! ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!’”
The crowd dispersed, silently and sullenly; they were not quite ready
yet. There was to be a meeting that night, not, however, at Männerchor
Hall; _that_ was a victory which even the Emperor had not been able to
achieve. This, and the knowledge that Louis, his only son, Louis, to
whom he had been both father and mother, that Louis clung to his rival
and condemned his father’s course, filled Karl Metzerott’s tongue with
fire. His rugged features glowed, his strong frame trembled, as he
pictured the rich man’s home, where the cost of one single picture would
have been wealth—nay, length of days, to the bowed figure, old beyond
her years, whose life slowly ebbed from her, as she toiled through the
gorgeous rooms and up and down the wide, richly carpeted stairs.
“We will have revenge, my brothers,” he said; “not now, the time is not
yet. We must be stronger first, then we will call Henry Randolph to
account, then”—
“Then?” cried a wild, shrill voice, as Paul Kellar leaped upon the
platform; “then? I say now! What are they doing now in that gorgeous
palace? Repenting of the murder they have done? I tell you they are
feasting! Feasting while my wife lies yonder on the hillside, while my
children are motherless and my home a desert. The son of the murderer is
to marry the daughter of another, of Dare, the great grain-operator, who
managed that clever corner in wheat which starved thousands! And they
are feasting and making merry!”—His words were lost in a hoarse and
terrible roar.
“Burn down the mill! Let us teach him what poverty means!”
Then Karl Metzerott, carried away from all power of reason or
self-control by the spirit to which he had so long yielded, sprang upon
his feet for the last time.
“The mill!” he cried with angry scorn. “Do you think his millions are
there? Were you to burn ten mills he would scarcely feel the loss. The
house, the house, I say! Burn down his house, with him in it, and teach
him what _hell_ means.”
In silence more deadly than the wildest outcry, the crowd swept down the
steps and out into the night, a fit night for such plans as theirs; for
the rain fell, not heavily, but in a soft, cold, treacherous drizzle.
The sky had hidden her face from them, and there was not a star to be
seen. And as they passed along their power grew: homeless waifs crept
from the door-ways and market-stalls where they had sheltered, and
joined them at the hint of fire; thieves and coiners left their secret
labors; burglars stepped into rank, tools in hand; all the scum and
slime of the great city left the holes and corners where it had
festered, to aid in the work of flame and blood.
The meeting had been held with closed and guarded doors; but, as it
ended, one man, light and active as a monkey, slipped through a window,
lit upon the wide, projecting cornice of the one below, thence sprang
swiftly and caught a rainpipe, by the aid of which he slid to the ground
and ran rapidly up an alley into the principal street of Micklegard.
Here he paused a moment, as if in doubt, then sprang upon a figure
approaching him from the direction of up-town.
“Louis! was ever such luck as meeting you!”
“What is it, Fritz? not”—
Fritz nodded. “That’s what’s the matter,” he said. “Going to burn
Randolph and his house together, and teach him what—well!” said Fritz
considerately, “never mind that. Now, you see, there are two streets
they can take to get there, and a fellow can’t tell which they’ll
choose. I’ve got the pull on ‘em so far, though; and if you’ll take the
road of the pins, I’ll take that of the needles, as the wolf said to
Rothkäppchen; and then one or the other will do the business. See?”
Louis nodded, and sped away; but Fritz was surprised to see him turn off
at right angles to his proper course. He did not stop to reason about
it, however. “Louis is all right; there’s nothing mean about him,” said
Fritz, “and I guess he knows what he means by it, if I don’t.”
The truth was that Louis had seen Edgar Harrison’s buggy standing before
a door in this side street, and was quite prepared to run away with it
if necessary; but the doctor was just stepping in as he reached it.
“Mr. Randolph’s, doctor,” said Louis, stepping after him; “and as fast
as you can. I’ll explain as we go.”
Edgar Harrison lost no time in obeying.
Meanwhile, all had not been peace and serenity in the magnificent
mansion whither they were bound. The dinner, which to Karl Metzerott and
his kind appeared like riotous feasting, was, in the opinion of those
immediately concerned, a very quiet affair indeed; for anything like
gayety so soon after the death of so near a relative as Freddy Richards
would have been dreadfully shocking to the feelings, and obviously
improper. But a mere family dinner, in honor of the betrothal of Frank
Randolph and the fair Virginia, was quite another thing; and though, of
course, all black was too sombre for one so bright and young as Pinkie,
nothing could be deeper mourning than her dress of white crape, caught
here and there with bunches of lilies of the valley.
Certainly nothing could have been prettier or more “wildly becoming.”
The pretty, plump throat shone whitely between the folds of lace at the
V-shaped neck of the corsage; the round arms were hidden below the elbow
only by a fall of the same priceless lace, faint and misty as frost-work
on the window-pane. The eyes were bright, the red lips curved into
frequent smiles; but Pinkie’s lilies were the work of art, not nature.
She would not wear natural flowers now; she hated them, she said; and of
all flowers she hated most deeply the pale and fragrant tea-rosebuds.
She presided, for the first time, on an occasion of any moment, with a
very pretty, childlike dignity, to the intense admiration of Virginia’s
rich bachelor uncle, who was, as Pinkie knew very well, the matrimonial
fish specially designed by kind friends for her daintily barbed hook;
but whom she had not the remotest intention of doing more than tease and
play with. In all, including a cousin or two on her mother’s side, and
various representatives of the house of Dare, the party numbered not
more than a dozen; so it was, however costly and brilliant the
surroundings, decidedly a very quiet affair.
Coffee was on the table, and Henry Randolph held up one of the tiny cups
in which it was served, to show the daintiness of the figures inlaid
upon it in mother-of-pearl and gold, and studded here and there with
infinitesimal jewels.
“Genuine Japanese,” he said, “and belonging to a period of art, past at
least two hundred years. I bought them from a seafaring friend, and he
picked them up—I fancy, they were given to him—somewhere on the
islands.”
“Perhaps he stole them,” observed Pinkie.
“Ah, well! we won’t be uncharitable,” said her father indulgently; “at
all events, _I_ paid for them, and roundly too; the fellow knew my fancy
for this sort of thing, and took advantage of it.”
“Very immoral of him to take advantage of a man’s necessities,” said the
elder Dare quietly.
“Well, you know, sailors are a rough lot; one can’t expect very fine
feelings from them. At all events, there isn’t such a set of cups in the
world. They have never been used before, and I don’t know when I shall
care to use them again.”
“Except on a similar auspicious occasion,” whispered the bachelor uncle
in Pinkie’s pretty ear.
She made some audaciously saucy reply without half hearing him; for her
eyes were riveted upon her father, who was at the moment reading a
telegram which had just been handed him by a servant.
Pinkie saw that he grew white to the lips; then, recovering himself with
an effort, “It’s all right,” he said; “no answer,” and tossed off his
cup of coffee.
“This tiresome business!” sighed Mrs. Dare; “it never lets one alone,
day or night, Mr. Randolph. I’m sure I expect it will kill Mr. Dare some
day; I often tell him he’ll have nervous prostration if he don’t take
care.”
“You need not fear, my dear madam,” returned her host grimly; “Mr. Dare
has no nerves to be prostrated. He is entirely safe!”
“Though it might be better for some of us,” he added some moments later,
“if Dare had been smothered in his cradle.”
This remark was made in the library, whither Mr. Randolph had retired
for a few moments, and whither he had found means to summon his son
Frank.
“That’s pretty rough on my prospective father-in-law, governor,” said
the young man gayly; “where would the fair Virginia have been in that
case, eh?”
“You’ve got to look sharp if you want to marry Virginia Dare,” said his
father. “I did think a marriage between you two would—but I suppose he
thinks it hasn’t come to that yet. Read this telegram from Fletcher,
will you? There’s a couple of millions gone out of my pocket and yours.”
“And you think Mr. Dare”—
“I don’t think, I know he’s at the bottom of it. He’s got nerves of iron
and a forehead of brass, that fellow! And that’s not the worst of it,
Frank. This thing giving way lets me in for a number of others; it means
simple ruin if it isn’t put a stop to.”
Frank whistled thoughtfully.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“If these—people weren’t in the house, I’d be off on the next train; but
it would never do to show my hand like that. There’s the midnight
express, though; I shall make that, I think; and, in the mean time, I
want you to wire Fletcher for me. Take it yourself to the office; and
listen that it is sent correctly; for it must be in cipher, and the
mistake of a letter would be fatal. I’ll make excuses for you in the
parlor; what shall I say?”
Frank thought for a moment. “Rumors of a riot downtown,” he said then,
“and I’ve gone to look into it. He may swallow _that_.”
“It may be,” replied his father, “that he and all of us will be obliged
to swallow it. But there is no time to be lost.”
Frank only stopped to change his evening coat for less conspicuous
raiment, then hurried through the garden to a side gate that opened on
what was called River Street, on which a telegraph office was situated
at no great distance. Hurrying along this at the top of his speed, he
suddenly ran full into the arms of a man who was running rapidly in the
other direction.
“Oh! it’s you, is it?” said Fritz Rolf, who, as the stronger and less
taken by surprise, was the first to recover himself; “and just what I
might have expected! Running away like a coward, and leaving your father
and sister in danger. A pretty fellow you are!”
“I don’t know what you mean by danger,” replied Frank impatiently; “but
I’ve no time to quarrel just now.”
“Some folks have time to quarrel with you, though,” said Fritz,
restraining him by a grasp of the arm as he would have sped onwards. “Do
you know that the mob are out to-night, and mean mischief to you and
your family? I am on my way to warn the house now.”
Frank hesitated. “I must go on,” he said, “it is a matter almost of life
and death to send this telegram. Keep on like a good fellow, and give
them warning to clear out by the back way, and I’ll come back as soon as
I can.”
“It’s almost too late now,” said Fritz, as the tramp of many feet was
heard approaching; “by George, I believe they’ve divided, so as to take
the house in front and rear. And they won’t have much mercy on you, if
they know who you are,” he added, glancing at the figure before him.
Frank Randolph was physically brave; but a tremor shook him for just a
moment, as he glanced right and left for some way of escape. To retreat
was, of course, still possible, but Frank had no idea of running away.
The task he had undertaken should be performed, and the way to its
performance lay before him. The street on which he stood sloped down to
the river; there were no cross-streets or blind alleys through which he
could make his way.
“‘Twice thirty thousand foes before,
No telegraph office behind,’”
he said coolly. “The only thing I see is to swim for it.”
Fritz grinned in unwilling admiration. “It’s your only chance if the
current don’t get away with you,” he said. “But, I say, you know who I
am, and that any other man but me would hold your head under water, till
the devil was washed out of you?”
“Any other man, and you included, might have some trouble about that,”
replied Frank, as he took off his coat, kicked off his shoes, and
fastened the precious telegram inside his hat. “However, you ought not
to bear malice for an affair in which I had decidedly the worst of it,”
he added. “Come, you’re a fine fellow, and I am heartily sorry I ever
interfered with you. Will you shake hands on it?”
It must be confessed that Fritz hesitated before he could clasp the hand
held out to him.
“It wasn’t _me_ that you tried to ruin,” he said sullenly. “After all,
it would be a good deed to drown you.”
“It’s a better deed to make me ashamed of myself,” said Frank, shaking
heartily the reluctant hand, “and perhaps I may drown myself and no
thanks to you. Good-by.”
“You ain’t a coward, at all events,” said Fritz, as the white shoulders
disappeared beneath the dark stream, “but you’ve got to be a regular old
swimmer from Swimtown to get through to-night.”
The tramp of feet was very close at hand now; even through the darkness
he could discern an advancing line, which absorbed and deepened the
blackness of the starless night, and this line swayed hither, thither,
as if in wild mirth, while overhead scattered torches flamed redly in
the misty air, and wreaths of black and suffocating smoke eddied here
and there before settling in foul and noxious rain upon faces which
needed little to add to their hideous, repulsive horror. Then a woman’s
voice began some wild and obscene melody, which was caught up, with
curses and laughter, by hundreds; and Fritz turned and fled through the
quiet night before him towards the doomed household.
Meanwhile, Henry Randolph had returned to his guests, just as Louis
Metzerott entered the room from the hall. Mr. Randolph was a brave man;
courage had come to him, with his sturdy muscles and handsome face, from
a long succession of ancestors.
“A riot, is it?” he said; “poor devils, don’t they know who will be the
real sufferers?” and then he told his lie as neatly as if the hour which
might be his last were not even then ringing out from every clock in the
city.
“I heard a rumor of this before we left the table,” he said, “and have
sent Frank to inquire into the truth of it. I hope he won’t get into
trouble.”
The fair Virginia gave a little scream.
“Hadn’t we better have the carriage brought round, mamma?” she cried.
“You don’t think they will attack our house, do you, Mr. Metzerott? Oh!
dear me, why should they? I’m sure we never did anything to them!”
“I think the police will be here before they could have time,” said
Louis. “We telephoned the news of the riot as we came along. Indeed, for
all of you to make your way to Mr. Dare’s will be much the best plan. I
will stay here to meet them; perhaps, when they find no one whom they
are angry with, they will not do any harm; or even if a few pictures and
things were injured”—
“I shall stay to defend my property,” said Henry Randolph, for it would
never do, he thought, to miss that midnight train, and Dare’s house was
three miles out of the city, “but if you will take my daughter with you,
Mrs. Dare”—
“I shall stay with my father,” said Pinkie.
“You will not talk nonsense, but do as you are told,” said Mr. Randolph
sharply. Pinkie’s red lips closed firmly, but she made no reply.
The carriages—there were three of them—rattled around to the door in a
shorter time than they had ever been got ready since they left the
builders’ hands; the last to start, Mr. Dare’s, was to have taken
Pinkie, but that young lady was nowhere to be found, nor did she reply
to any calling of her name.
“Oh! she must be in one of the other carriages,” cried Mrs. Dare,
sobbing with terror; “Virgie, my dear, did you not see her drive off
with your uncle in the phaeton?”
“I dare say she did; some one was with him; but don’t ask me, mamma, for
I’m too frightened to see anything.”
There was no time to be lost, for the red glow of torches, the noise of
singing, and the sound of that terrible tramp, were coming nearer with
every second. The coachman slammed the door, and the carriage dashed
away too swiftly to fear pursuit by men on foot.
Doors and windows had already been securely fastened, and now, that by
which his guests had departed having been secured also, Mr. Randolph
turned to re-enter the parlor.
“Now, all we have to do,” he said cheerfully to Louis and Edgar
Harrison, who had stayed, hoping by his personal influence to do some
good, “all we have to do is to—Pinkie!”
For down the great staircase, her eyes and cheeks bright with
excitement, came Pinkie. She shivered with cold, and had wrapped a great
scarlet opera cloak over the whiteness of her crape. One hand held the
ermine collar closely around her throat, the other clung for support to
the brazen balustrade; but her smile was as saucy as ever as she said,—
“It’s just like a man to want to keep all the fun for himself. I’m not
to be fooled that way, daddy, I assure you.”
“You are a recklessly disobedient child, Rosalie, and I am severely
displeased with you,” said her father sternly; “but,” as a roar as of
wild beasts showed that the house was surrounded, “we must make the best
of it now. It is _too late_.”
There was utter silence among the little group, for a moment; then a
repetition of that savage roar, another, and another, shook the night
air.
“I should like to know what they are doing?” said Henry Randolph
restlessly. Pinkie, with her face on his shoulder, trembled in every
limb. “I hope you are enjoying the fun, my dear,” he added, looking down
at her.
The roar changed to his own name.
“Randolph! Randolph! come out, come out!”
“You’ll never think of such a thing, Mr. Randolph,” cried Edgar
Harrison. “Let me go instead. I may be able to influence them!”
“_Influence_ a mob?” said Henry Randolph, smiling as he placed his
daughter in a chair and hastily kissed her brow. “The only hope is to
keep them amused until the police can come up. If they only have the
sense at headquarters to mount them, it won’t be very long.”
“Long enough to tear you in pieces, as they are more than ready to do,”
said Louis.
“Maybe so; but—well, my young friend, I don’t pretend to be a saint, or
an idealist, either,—I believe that’s the new term,—but I never yet have
sent any one into danger when I could go myself. Take care of my little
girl, both of you. Now, John,” to the servant, “be ready to fasten that
door behind me. Look sharp now.”
“Hold on, John,” said Louis quietly. “I shall go with Mr. Randolph. They
won’t hurt me, and I may be able to help him.”
Henry Randolph regarded him sharply. “I fancy you are safe enough,” he
said; “both of us know very well who is the ring-leader in this thing.
No, I sha’n’t mention his name, now or afterwards, for your sake.”
The young man bent his head silently, he could not answer; then he
turned for one last, wistful look at his darling, his pink Rose, as he
had loved to call her.
For the first time since their parting in the warm September dusk, their
eyes met.
“Louis!” her white arms went out to him with the cry, and with one step
he was upon his knees beside her, and they were holding each other so
closely, it seemed that death itself would have been powerless to part
them.
Another roar, another cry of “Randolph! Randolph!” and Louis rose to his
feet.
“I must go, darling,” he said; then, with his wistful eyes upon her
father, “You will forgive me, sir. I could not help it; I have loved her
all my life.”
Still holding her lover’s hand, Pinkie stood up. “Papa,” she said, “I’m
going to marry Louis. I don’t care if he _is_ a shoemaker! I’d marry him
if he was a rag-picker.”
“Your own education having especially fitted you for the pursuit of
rags,” said Mr. Randolph. “But I’ve no time to discuss such folly now.
Louis Metzerott, are you coming?”
“I am coming,” said Louis. “Don’t be frightened, darling; there is no
danger for me, and I will take care of your father.”
“It is very bright here,” he said to Mr. Randolph, as they passed into
the hall. “I think I would not let them see more of the house than could
be helped. Some of them scarcely know what it is to have a roof over
their heads; others are starving”—
“Ah! I see,” said Henry Randolph; “turn down the gas, John.”
In the new darkness, the lovers kissed each other again, then Louis
placed the girl’s hand in Edgar Harrison’s.
“Take care of her, doctor,” he said.
Then the bolts rattled; the key turned; the heavy door swung back on its
hinges just far enough to permit them to pass through; then, with a bang
and jar, it closed behind them.
Outside, in the red glare and dense smoke of the torches, the mob stood
waiting. Most of them knew Henry Randolph by sight, yet such was the
darkness that only the sound of his voice made them certain of their
prey. As for the slighter, more youthful figure that stood beside him,
whose fair hair had shone for an instant in the dim gaslight from the
hall, not a man there doubted that Frank Randolph had chosen to share
his father’s danger; and _one_ man felt that his hour of revenge had
come. No one could ever guess, on such a night, and from such a throng,
the source of a stray bullet; and he was certain of his aim. He had
prepared himself for this moment; the weapon in his bosom was as
familiar to his hand as the tools of his lawful trade. Fritz would be
avenged, and Gretchen’s fair fame be all untouched.
“Well, men,” said Henry Randolph, “I think I heard my name called; may I
ask what I can do for you?”
“Blank your impudence!” returned a rough voice; “you’ll soon find out
what we want.”
“Where’s my wife?” cried a thin, shrill voice, “where is Tina Kellar,
you”—
“Tina Kellar! I found my daughter shedding tears the other day at the
news of her death! Do you blame me if the poor woman was overworked?
What was I to do? She was too proud to take anything _but_ work, else, I
assure you, she should have had money enough and to spare; but she was
well paid and well treated!”
“Well paid?” it was Karl Metzerott who replied, “and what right had you
to the money you doled out to her? How did you get it? Robber! thief!
swindler! we will hang you at your own door, and burn the house down
over your head.”
Henry Randolph made one step in the direction of the speaker. “Do you
think I do not know your voice?” he cried; “but for your son’s sake I
forbear to call your name. Come on, cowards, thousands of you against
one, and he unarmed. Come on, if you dare!”
The crowd swayed back and forth with angry murmurs, but did not advance.
Henry Randolph turned quickly to his companion.
“Your turn,” he said in a low voice; “I scarcely think they have
recognized you yet.”
Louis came forward out of the dense shadows that had hitherto protected
him, to the front of the pillared veranda. The red light of a torch
shone full upon his young, slender figure; never was there a fairer mark
for a traitor!
He raised his hand to remove his hat, that his face might be clearly
seen; but even as he did so,—a flash—a sharp, deadly ring—
Henry Randolph caught the falling figure in his arms,—shot through the
heart.
“Fools! murderers! beast!” he cried in a voice nor man nor woman who
heard it ever forgot, “you have killed the only true man among you! You
have shot Louis Metzerott.”
Then, with a horrible cry, Karl Metzerott leaped upon the veranda,
tearing his son’s body from the arms that sustained it, and hurling the
sustainer back against a heavy marble vase, which swayed upon its
pedestal, then fell sidewise upon Henry Randolph’s prostrate form. But,
save that terrible cry, no sound came from the father’s lips as he
pressed his hand upon the red stream that welled from his son’s bosom.
And over all the throng there fell the silence of awe and horror, until
it was broken by a single voice, the voice of the Herr Pastor.
“‘Vengeance is mine; _I will repay_,’ saith the Lord.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“THAT, APART FROM US, THEY SHOULD NOT BE MADE PERFECT.”
There was no effort made to exact revenge for Louis Metzerott’s young
life. Long before the police arrived (those at headquarters _not_ having
had the sense to mount them), his body, still held fast in his father’s
arms, had been removed to his home; and there laid upon the bed from
which only that morning—
Karl Metzerott allowed no hands but his own to touch the body of his
son; and, when the blood had been washed from the cold form, it was the
father alone who dressed it in the well-kept “Sunday suit,” and brushed
back the fair hair from the white temples. Then he sat down beside the
bed, dumbly despairing. His clothes, of a rough brown cloth, were stiff
with patches of dark red, his hands were stained of the same fatal
color, his rugged face was set, his eyes dull and glassy.
“Do I need to be told that I cannot keep him long?” he asked bitterly;
“then let me keep him while I can; and leave me, all of you, let me be
alone with my dead.”
For a night, a day, and then another night, without food or sleep,
motionless, silent, brooding over thoughts too terrible for words, he
sat there.
Forever, forever parted, never, nevermore to meet again. The gentle,
strong, loving heart still forever, the blue eyes nevermore to read the
secret of another’s sorrow, the busy hands folded uselessly on the
wounded breast. Ah! that wound had not been useless; it had dispersed
the mob more quickly than a hundred cannon.
Once and again, as the light flickered over the still features, he
started forward, full of the wild thought that they had moved;—only to
fall back the next moment into the blackness of a bitterer despair.
Dead, dead, body and soul, forever, forever, dead, dead!
In the dawn of the second morning there was a hand upon the lock, and
the voice of Ernest Clare begged for admittance. With the sense that, of
all men, this man he not merely dreaded but feared to see, the
shoemaker’s spirit rose up bravely to defy this fear. He unbarred the
door and stood aside for the guest to enter. He was prepared for grief,
it was natural that any one should love his boy; and preaching he was
ready to defy; but he had not anticipated the look of sorrowful triumph,
as in a dear-bought victory, wherewith the clergyman bent to kiss the
pale cold forehead.
“It is the death he would have chosen,” he said, turning to the father
with almost a smile.
Karl Metzerott’s rugged features worked convulsively a moment, then the
words burst from his lips as though they rent his heart in the
speaking,—
“I chose it for him! I killed him!”
Ernest Clare turned his eyes aside from beholding the man’s agony; it
was all he could do.
“I hate you,” continued the rough voice, harsh with grief; “yet, if I
had followed your counsel, my boy would be now alive. The vengeance
which I would have brought upon the guilty has lighted on the head of
the innocent; yet you would have me believe in a God, who rules and
judges the earth!”
“Tell me this,” said Ernest Clare, “while a man or woman lives who
remembers Louis Metzerott, will there ever be another riot in
Micklegard?”
“Another!” cried the father, “another! _Allmächtiger Gott!_ ANOTHER!”
“You have called upon His name!” said Ernest Clare, “and you have felt
His justice! How dare you deny that He _is_.”
Oh! the white, crushed, helpless, hopeless face that the shoemaker
turned upon him.
“Have you no mercy?” he whispered.
And then Ernest Clare came swiftly towards him, and laid his strong
hands upon the man’s shoulders.
“My brother,” he said, and his voice shook with its weight of
tenderness, “my brother, God is very merciful; even His vengeance is
mercy. He will give you back your son, the boy whom your sin has slain.
In his youth you taught him to follow Christ; in his young manhood he
followed Him even unto death. Follow Him yourself, and you will find
your boy again. There is no death to those who love the Lord.”
“No death?” the tone was incredulous, yet it thrilled with a faint hope.
“But even if—if all you say were true, it cannot—could not, help this
longing, this terrible longing, to hear his voice again—only one word—to
see him smile—oh, if he would but stir an eyelid or a finger,” cried
Metzerott desperately, “it could not be so hard to bear—afterwards.”
Ernest Clare’s eyes were full of tears. “Do I not know!” he said, “I who
have buried father and mother, and kissed the dead lips of the woman I
love. Yet even then, when the desire of mine eyes was taken away at a
blow,—even then—I felt that in Christ Jesus is neither death nor
separation. And now, though I long sore for their smiles, and my heart
will hunger for the sound of their dear voices, they are far nearer to
me than when they lived on earth; and when I meet them again it will be
in the closeness of a union whereof this world hardly dares to dream.”
For still a moment the strong, rugged nature held out; but, though blind
to the beauty of the sun-ray, and cold to its genial warmth, it yielded
to its death-dealing power.
Suddenly turning, he fell upon his knees by the side of his son, with
his face upon the wounded bosom.
“Jesus Christ!” he cried, “Jesus Christ!” and broke into bitter sobbing;
but when that fit was past he was as gentle as a little child.
George Rolf was never more seen in Micklegard; but after many years Paul
Kellar, then a prosperous Western farmer and long since married
again,—Paul Kellar wrote of a strange, solitary miner, who had long been
one of the mysteries of that wild region, and who, when he had bravely
died in defending his “pile” from a gang of horsethieves, was recognized
by Paul himself as George Rolf. From these things many suspected whose
hand fired the fatal pistol; but why will always remain a mystery.
“Prices” still flourishes; and Miss Sally, though in a ripe old age, has
never laid down the reins of the kitchen department. It is believed that
she is training Dora Kellar, who returned to Micklegard upon her
father’s second marriage, to succeed her.
Henry Randolph would, no doubt, have been able to retrieve his losses
but for the illness which followed his almost fatal accident; but, as
none but himself had the key to his affairs, he found himself, when he
recovered, shorn of his beams, and reduced to what he called and felt to
be poverty, though to others it would have been at least a competency.
He never again had “nerve” enough for Wall Street; but went abroad as
soon as he was able to travel, and there he still lives—or at least
exists. He is always present at any sale of art antiques, and is
considered an authority, though he rarely buys; and it is reported that
he also frequents such gaming-tables as are still allowed to cumber the
earth, where he watches the play with a sort of awful fascination,
though without the courage to risk more than a small sum on either red
or black.
Pinkie nursed her father devotedly during his illness, but begged
piteously not to be taken away from Aunt Alice when Mr. Randolph went
abroad. The granting of this petition, Mrs. Richards was afterwards
inclined to regret; for in the quiet of the desolate household the poor,
lonely child fell into a sort of melancholy, from which she was only
roused by a genuine and sensible attachment to Edgar Harrison, whom she
soon afterwards married. The two families still form one household, and
Pinkie’s children are at once the torment and the happiness of Dr.
Richards and his wife, who scarcely realize that the names of
grandfather and grandmother are mere brevet titles. The doctor’s
experiments in theology have not been abandoned; but he is not likely in
this life to get farther than that hope which, we are told, “maketh not
ashamed;” hope, the twin sister of love.
Edgar makes a very good husband. Indeed, when Pinkie with tears tells
the children stories of “Uncle Louis,” as they are taught to call him,
and shows them the fair young face,—Freddy’s handiwork,—that hangs,
garlanded with ivy, over her mantel-shelf,—Edgar sometimes tells himself
that to Pinkie has been granted both the real and the ideal; the saint
to reverence and adore, and the husband “for workadays” with whom she is
far happier than she would ever have been with Louis; and, though Pinkie
is much improved, it is quite possible that Edgar is right.
Frank’s marriage was not broken off by his father’s fall; for, though
Mr. Dare made a demonstration or so in that direction, the fair and
high-nosed Virginia showed such an unbroken front that the enemy was
forced to retreat. She makes Frank an excellent wife, and they do, as
people say, “a great deal of good with their money.”
Karl Metzerott and Ernest Clare work and wait for the day of the Lord,
hand in hand. The shoemaker has grown very gentle, and is much beloved
by children, to whom he tells stories by the hour of Louis and the
Christ-child, until the small minds become at times confused, as to
which one it was who ’vided the tin soldiers, and invited the Prices to
share his dinner of soup. But, as to the filling of the shoes at
Christmas, that Karl considers a vain superstition. The fathers and
mothers do it, he says, and ought to have the credit of it. He is not
yet able to see that, under the old legend, the truth, in its fairest
form, lies sweetly hidden; but one day, perhaps, he will see even this.
Among all the children he has two favorites, the boy who was saved from
the waves of the river, and Pinkie’s eldest son, who is called Louis,
and who gazes into his face with blue, serious eyes, as he sits
cross-legged upon the floor before the shoemaker’s bench. Well, well,
Karl has no picture over his mantel-shelf wherewith to compare those
eyes. He does not need one, he says.
Mr. Dare is still rich and prosperous.
Annie Rolf has never married.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
5. Enclosed blackletter font in =equal signs=.