_W----, 187-._
My wanderings are almost over. Exposure and misery have
nearly finished their work. I feel my strength ebbing from
day to day, and I know that I must soon die, and die, it may
be, with the purpose which has sustained me all these years
unattained. Knowing this, I have determined to write in this
book the story of my life, hoping that when I am
dead--"found dead," it may be, like a tramp or
vagabond--some pitying eye may fall upon these words and
give me decent burial, for something in me rebels at being
thrown like a dog into an outcast's grave. Here is the story
as I have repeated it over and over to myself hundreds of
times during the weary years that have passed:
I was accounted a quiet, good-natured fellow in the little
town in England where I was born and lived before I came to
this country. I was slow of speech, but I had received a
fair education, and had a turn for reading, and for
scribbling down my thoughts. I was a printer by trade, like
my father before me. He died when I was a lad of sixteen,
leaving me to care for the mother, and for Barbara. She was
the daughter of our nearest neighbor, and from the time she
could walk we were always together. When she was still very
young her parents died, and their children were scattered,
and Barbara came to us. I was the only child left of many,
and my mother gladly welcomed her as a daughter. We lived
together for years as brother and sister, but I was not long
in finding out that my love for Barbara passed that of any
brother, and when she was fifteen we became engaged.
From that day I had but one ambition in life--to put myself
into circumstances where I could make her my wife, for I had
vowed in my heart not to do so until I could offer her
something more than the hard lot of a common mechanic's
wife. It seemed to me she was born for something better. She
was a real English beauty, with chestnut hair falling far
below her waist, and a skin like milk and roses. A gay,
bright creature she was, fond of music and dancing and
company; fond of me too, as I believe still, though I _was_
slow and silent and awkward; trusting in me, leaning upon
me, and confiding in me every thought of her innocent
heart.
I did not care for gay scenes myself, but I often went with
Barbara to such entertainments as the place afforded, and
enjoyed seeing her happy, and admired, and courted.
When Barbara was about eighteen years old a young man came
to our place. I will not write his name here--there is no
need. He was London-born and bred, and, though a printer
like myself, far cleverer, and full of ambitious schemes of
which I never dreamed. He was a handsome, dashing fellow,
with finer ways than we were used to. He could do a little
of everything, and very well too. He sang, and played the
guitar, and danced like a Frenchman, and in no time had won
his way with every one. The women folks, of course, were
carried away with him.
The first time he saw Barbara was at a dance where I had
taken her. He pointed her out to me, and asked her name. I
may have betrayed something of my love and pride as I
answered, for he gave me a quick, curious look, and a moment
later asked for an introduction to her. After that they
danced together a good deal, and every one was saying what a
handsome couple they made.
Soon after this the mother became ailing and fretted at
being left alone of evenings, so I often stayed with her
while Barbara danced at some neighbor's house or public
assembly with the new-comer.
I never had a thought of jealousy, not even when the fellows
in the shop began chaffing me for letting my sweetheart run
about with another man, for I trusted Barbara, and was not
he my friend? Unlike as we were, had he not singled me out
from all the others, and made me his confidant and companion
on all occasions?
Even after I had left the shop, having at last secured the
position as book-keeper at the ---- Mills which I had for
years been working for, he kept up the former intimacy, and
often I found him waiting for me when I returned late from
my work, and I liked nothing so well as to sit and smoke,
and listen to him and Barbara, their singing, and laughter,
and foolish talk.
It went on so for a good while. I was beginning to lay by
money, and the time for our marriage was not far off. But a
strike broke out just then among the spinners. I had known
it was coming, and done what I could to prevent it, knowing
what the result would be, but it was all in vain. Their
wrongs were too real and of too long standing. The crisis
came; the mills were closed; for a few days the strikers
believed they would win the day.
At the end of a week the mills opened with a new set of
operatives hired from a neighboring town. Riots and
bloodshed followed. Those were troublous times. I could not
keep my hand from giving aid to the suffering wives and
children of men I had lived among all my life. I took no
thought for consequences. One day I received my discharge.
I was dazed by the cruel blow; I went about like a man
walking in his sleep.
One night as I walked the streets, some one I met told me
that my friend, the man I am writing of, was ill. I went at
once to his room, which was in the building over the
printing office where he had now gotten to be foreman. I
found him restless and feverish, and at his request I stayed
with him until the small hours of the night. Then I went
home. No one saw me going in or out of his room, but I met
two or three stragglers on my way home. I had been half an
hour in bed when an alarm of fire was sounded, and I rose
and joined the crowd in the streets. The ---- Mills were
burning, and in a short time were burned to the ground. The
same day I was arrested on a charge of having set the fire.
I laughed at the charge. My friend, who was now delirious
with fever, would soon put me right. My trial was deferred
until he was able to appear. When the day came at last, he
stood up, white and haggard, in that crowded court-room, and
swore he had not seen me at all on the night I had spent
with him--the night of the fire. There were other things
against me: my known friendship for the leaders of the
strike, my discharge, my absence from home at the time the
fire must have been started, and other small but damning
evidence. I was convicted, and sentenced to transportation.
I saw my old mother fall as if dead! I saw Barbara's white
face bending over her; plainer than all, I saw that man who
had been my friend, and the look he gave the woman who was
to have been my wife! Something leaped into life within me
then--something which has never died. If I could have
reached him then and there!
I do not suppose twenty people in the town believed me
guilty. I do not believe the jury which convicted me, nor
the judge who sentenced me, believed me guilty; but
everything was against me, except my past life, and that had
no weight with the law. My sentence was commuted to a term
of years in the penitentiary. I will not write of my
prison-life. Three months after it began I received a letter
from Barbara, telling me of my mother's death, bidding me
keep up courage, and pray, but saying nothing of herself, or
of _him_.
At the end of five years came freedom. The real criminals
had been discovered, and I was discharged. The man who went
out of that prison door was not the man who had entered it.
The law, conscious of the fact that no human power can make
amends to an innocent man for a punishment unjustly
inflicted, takes no notice of it. It is dumb before a wrong
so monstrous. I went back to my native town. Every hand was
stretched out to me. My old employers at the mill would have
put me in my old place, but I refused. I inquired for
Barbara and for him. They had married after my mother's
death and gone, it was said, to America. I took measures to
prove this; then I went to work at my old trade. I worked
day and night, and lived on next to nothing. At the end of
a year I had what I wanted. A fortnight later I was in New
York.
My plan was to work my way over the country--to work and
watch. I felt sure that the man I was looking for would work
at his trade, too, and I believed in time I should get on
his track. I stayed several months in New York, and found
plenty to do. The only fault found with me was my love of
change. "You know what is said of 'rolling stones,' Jordan,"
my employers would say, as I was about to leave. "It isn't
moss-gathering I am after," I would answer.
I took no man into my confidence, but I lost no chance of
getting acquainted with men of our craft. I frequented
places where they congregated, set them to talking, asking
them as to Englishmen they had known, etc.
"You are looking for some one, Jordan," was said more than
once.
"Maybe I am," I would answer.
Once a man who had been looking on and listening, said, with
a laugh, "I'm devilish glad it ain't me you're looking for,
Jordan!" And I knew well enough what he meant.
I have wandered south and west, I have thought many a time I
was on the right trail, but it has come to naught so far.
About a year ago I fell ill, and was a long time in a
hospital. When I was discharged I was a mere wreck.
Something was the matter with my heart, they said. I have
not been able to work long at a time since. Such work as I
get is given me out of compassion.
At thirty-five I have the face and gait of a feeble man of
sixty. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I am like a
stranger in my own eyes, yet feeble as is my body, the
_motive_ for which I live is strong within me.
By every glimpse into a warm, cosey fireside where the happy
husband and wife and children gather, I renew my vow to find
the man who wrecked my life, to meet him face to face, to
unmask his villainy, to let him see Barbara, his wife, turn
from him in horror and loathing, to have his craven life at
last! This desire, continually thwarted, never extinguished,
upholds me. It is meat, and drink, and clothing to my
famished, shivering body. I must be the chosen instrument of
God's vengeance, or I should have died of sheer despair
before now. Die? No, not yet. I must press on. Who knows but
I may be even now near the goal?
_March, 187-._
I am stranded here in a little western town where a false
trail has led me. I am growing weaker. A slow fever is
burning out my life. The last three months have been
terrible. I have had but little work, and I have
suffered--oh my God, how I have suffered--from cold and
hunger.
My appearance is such that I am taken for a tramp. I have
barely escaped arrest several times as a suspicious
character. It is hard for me to see little children run away
at my approach, and women turn pale and tremble as they open
the door to me. So far I have only asked for work, though I
have often slept supperless in sheds and barns. I have found
a little work at my old trade. When it is done I shall push
on. What with this fever in my blood, and the deadly longing
in my heart, I have no rest.
_December, 187-._
I have found a new trail--the clearest I have come across.
Chance threw into my hand a newspaper in which the name of
him I am seeking is mentioned, _honorably_ mentioned, in
connection with the politics of a certain State. It may not
be he. Another man may bear the same name, but new life has
entered my veins since I saw it. Last night I dreamed I had
my hand on his throat.
_December, 187-._
I have found him! From this hill-top where I am sitting I
see the town where he lives in comfort and honor--the very
house that shelters him. The smoke of his fire comes up to
me. It is a bitter cold day, and I have eaten nothing, but I
feel neither cold nor hunger. From the day when I started on
this last sure trail everything has been against me. I have
been sick; I have found no work; I have begged my bread; I
have been hunted for the crimes of others; I have borne
abuse, scorn, insult. The very lowest depth of misery and
humiliation has been reached. But that is all nothing: my
purpose is to be accomplished. The end is near.
I reached this spot to-day at noon, and sat down here to
rest a bit before going down into the town to make assurance
sure. Soon after, a party of children came up the hill with
their sleds. When they saw me they ran, except one little
lass of seven or eight. She stood still and looked at me, as
if too scared to move. I know I am terrible to look at--I
have seen my face in pools of water as I drank--but I would
not fright the child, and I tried to make my voice gentle as
I said:
"Don't be scared, little one; I won't hurt you."
Just then the sun came out of a cloud and struck across her
face and hair. I cried out, I could not help it. It was
Barbara's face and hair, but the eyes were _his_.
"Stop!" I said, as the child started off. "What is your
name?"
"Barbara," she answered, and then: "If you are hungry," she
said, "mamma will give you something to eat. We live down
yonder in the brown cottage."