THE PURSUING SHADOW.
Allan Dorris and his wife had been up in the hills watching the sunset,
and at dusk were returning leisurely home. They were very fond of the
unfrequented locality where he had first declared his passion, and when
the weather was fine they frequently visited it to imagine themselves
lovers again, which was easy enough, for as man and wife they got along
amazingly well. And now, when they were returning at nightfall, a shadow
crept after them; from bush to rock, and from tree to shrub, crawling
and stealing along like a beast watching its prey.
Pretty Annie Dorris, prettier than ever before, was expressing a fear in
her winning way that their happiness was too great to last, and that
something dreadful would happen to them. But she had no suspicion of the
lurking, creeping shadow which had hurried forward, and now stood almost
within arm's length, as her husband replied,--
"I have been so discontented all my life, and am so contented now, that
I believe the Fates will guard me from it in pity. It is not much that I
ask; a country girl to be my wife, and love me--nothing more. And it
will always be my endeavor to be so useful to the country girl that she
will be happy, too, so that the simple boon of peace is not too much to
ask when it will make two people entirely happy. I cheerfully give up my
place in the strife for greatness and riches in which men seem to be
always engaged, and will be content with the good health and plenty
which my simple life here will bring me. As for a living, I can make
that easy enough; I am making more even now than we can possibly spend.
I hope your fears are not substantial."
The country girl had her arm through her husband's, and she looked up
into his face with such a troubled expression that he stopped in the
road.
"It may be that I am fearful only because I love you so much," she said.
"It almost kills me when I think that any harm might happen to you."
"I am glad to hear you say that," he replied, "but you are always saying
something which pleases me. You look handsome to-night; you look
prettier now than before you were married, and I think more of you. You
don't fade out, and I love you for that; you are as fresh and as girlish
as you ever were before we were married. I think it an evidence of good
blood."
"Now you are pleasing me," his wife said laughingly. "I have feared very
often that you would not like me so well when you knew me better, and
that you would finally tire of me."
"But I don't," Dorris replied. "The more I know of you the better I like
you. It's not usual, but I am more in love after marriage than I was
before."
"I have mingled so little with women," the wife said seriously, "that I
sometimes fear that I am not like others of my sex in manners and dress
and inclination. Did you ever notice it?"
"I think I have," he said.
She turned upon him with mock fierceness, and pretended to be very
indignant.
"Because you are not like other women, who act by rule, and are nearly
all alike, is the reason I have no greater ambition than to be tied to
your apron-strings," he said. "I think your freshness and originality
are your greatest charms."
"Long before I ever thought of becoming a wife myself," she said,
seriously again, "I noticed that most men seemed to lack a knowledge of
women; that they regarded them as angels while they were girls, and were
disappointed because they turned out to be women as wives. I am not
unjust, but I have thought the women were partly responsible for this,
since many of them exhibit themselves like dolls, and pretend to be more
than they are. This is the reason why I am pleased that you are not
disappointed in me."
"As to your being an angel," he laughingly replied, "I know you are not
one, and I am glad of it. I have an idea that an angel would soon tire
of me, and fly away in disgust, to warn its companions that men were not
worth saving. There are some women so amiable that no matter to what
extent their affairs go wrong, they cannot muster up enough energetic
regret to cause them to supply a remedy. I am not so fond of amiability
as to desire it at that price. Whenever you find capacity you will find
temper, and I imagine that it would be dangerous to stir you up, for you
are as capable a woman as ever I knew. _Haven't_ you temper?"
"Plenty of it; too much," she answered.
They both laughed at this frank confession, and Dorris took occasion to
say that there was not a spark of it in his nature, though there was
temper written in every line of his countenance, and that he would have
been an ugly man when once fully aroused was certain.
They walked on again, and the shadow followed, as if anxious to hear
what they were saying.
"I can't account for it myself," Dorris continued, "but I enjoy your
company as much now as I did before we were married. It does me as much
good to talk love to you; I suppose it must be because you deserve it.
The fact that you are as careful to look well as you ever did may have
something to do with it, but it is certainly the case. I have heard men
abused a great deal for neglecting their wives after marriage, but it
never occurs to me to neglect you. I don't want to neglect you; I think
too much of you. If I should fail to be as considerate of you as you are
of me, I know that I would no longer receive the full measure of your
confidence and love, which is such a comfort to me, therefore it is my
first ambition to be just and honest with you in everything. The
ambition affords me a great deal of pleasure, too, for I am never so
well satisfied as when in your company. With you by my side, there is
nothing else that I crave in this world or the next."
"O Allan! Nothing in the next?"
They had seated themselves on a rough seat in a sort of park on the
hillside, and Dorris considered the matter.
"Well, if you go to heaven, I want to go. Of course you will go, for you
are good enough, therefore I intend to do the best I can, so that, when
we come to be judged, the Master will realize how much we love each
other, and conclude not to separate us. But I depend on you; He will let
me in to please you--not because I deserve it."
"I know you do not think as I do about it," she answered, "but it is
possible that you have not investigated as I have. I am not a foolish
girl, but a serious woman, and have studied and thought a great deal,
and I am certain there is something more than this life. I have never
mentioned the subject to you before, because I know that a great many
come to dislike religion because they hear so much of it from persons no
better than themselves, but everything teaches us that we shall live
again, and it worries me a great deal because you think lightly about a
matter which seems so dreadfully serious. My mother's faith convinces me
of it, though I cannot tell you why. I am not prepared, as she was, by a
long life of purity to receive the evidence; but promise me that you
will think about it, and not combat your own judgment."
"I have never thought about it much, and investigated but little," he
answered. "It has always been natural for me to think of the grave as
the end of everything, so far as I am concerned. But I have confidence
in your intelligence and judgment; if you have investigated, and
believe, that is enough for me; _I_ believe. Please do not worry about
it any more; I will try very hard to remain with you."
He said it lightly, yet there was enough seriousness in his manner to
convince her that his love for her was honest, even if his religion was
not.
"Religion is not natural with me: I feel no necessity for it or lack of
it," he said again. "But I have no objection to it; on the contrary, I
have always liked the idea, but I lack the necessary faith. It would be
pleasant for me to believe that, in the next country, a day's journey
removed, good gifts might be found; but if I could not believe it, I
could not be reasonably blamed for my refusal to attempt the journey. I
might even regret that the accounts were not true; but I would not
insist that they _were_ true against my honest convictions, because I
_hoped_ they were. I am religious enough in sentiment, but my brain is
an inexorable skeptic. Nothing is more pleasing to me than the promise
of your faith. What a blessed hope it is, that after death you will live
in a land of perpetual summer; and exist forever with your friends where
there is only peace and content! I am sure I can never see as much of
you as I want to in this life, and I cannot tell you how much I hope we
will be reunited beyond the grave, and live forever to love each other,
even as we do now. I am willing to make any sacrifice necessary to
ensure this future; it would be a pleasure for me to make greater
sacrifices than are required, according to common rumor, for they are
not at all exacting, except in the particular of faith; but that I lack,
to a most alarming extent, though I cannot help it. You cannot have
faith because it is your duty any more than you can love because it is
your duty. I only regret that I cannot be religious as naturally as I
love you, but I cannot, though I try because you want me to. I want to
believe that men do not grow old and become a burden to themselves and
those around them; but I know differently, and while I hope that there
will be a resurrection, I know that those who have gone away on the
journey which begins with death send back no messenger, and that nothing
is known of heaven except the declaration of pious people that they
believe in it. I love to hear the laughter of children, but it does not
convince me that all the world is in a laughing mood, and that there are
no tears. No one can find fault with your religion except that they
cannot believe in it. Everything in nature teaches us that we will
return to dust, and that we will be resurrected only as dust by the idle
winds. You don't mind that I speak freely?"
"No."
"I have tried all my life to convince myself that I possessed the spark
of immortality, but my stubborn brain resists the attempt. All my
reasoning convinces me that I live for the same reason that my horse
exists. I am superior to the faithful animal only in intelligence, for
in physical organization I am only an animal. When an animal dies, I see
its body dwindle away until there is nothing left; it becomes dust
again. I _hope_ that I may share a different fate, but I _believe_ that
I shall pass away in precisely the same manner. Understand me; I want to
be religious, but I cannot be. There are some people--I suppose there
are a great many, though I never knew but one personally--who ought to
live forever; they are too rare to die. You are one of them, but I fear
you will be lost to the world in the course of nature. You ought to be
preserved for the good you can accomplish by playing the organ. I never
believe in heaven so much as when I am in the back pews listening to
your music. There is more religion in the old organ when you are at the
keyboard than in all the people who listen to it put together; and I
sometimes think that those who write the music and the songs are
inspired, though when you know them, their personal characters do not
encourage that impression."
She put her hand to his mouth as if to stop him, but he pushed it away
with a laugh, and continued,--
"Let me finish, that you may know what I really am, and then I will
never mention the subject again. But don't think me worse than other men
for my unbelief; they nearly all think as I do, though only the bad ones
say so. All good men rejoice that there is a pleasing hope in religion,
and encourage it all they can, but only a few of them have your faith."
"All be well yet, Allan," the wife answered. "You have promised to try
and get rid of your unbelief, and I know that you will be honest in it.
The Master whom I serve next to you--I fear I am becoming very wicked
myself, for you are more to me than everything else--"
"There it is again," Dorris said, looking at her, half laughing. "That
expression wasn't studied, I know, but it pleases me greatly. You are
always at it, though you have a right to now."
"He is more considerate than any of us imagine, and if He knows you did
not believe, He will also know that you could not, and did not intend
any disrespect."
"There is something in that," he answered. "I loved you before I knew
you, though I did not believe you existed."
"But you _did_ find me. Is it not possible that you will find Him,
though you do not believe He exists?"
"That is worth thinking about. The next time I take a long ride into the
country I will think it over, if I can get you out of my mind long
enough. One thing, however, is certain; I want to follow you, wherever
that leads me. Let me add, too, that in what I have said I intend no
disrespect. It would be impudent in me, a single pebble in the sands
surrounding the shores of eternity, to speak ill of a faith which is
held by so many thousands of intelligent and worthy people. I speak
freely to you, as my wife, my confidant, that you may know what I am."
"But you are leading, Allan, and I am following," she said. "You are
kind enough to believe that my future is assured, but it is not unless
you are saved. You can save both of us by saving yourself. If we were at
the judgment now, and you should be cast out, I would follow you. I
might be of some use to you even there."
"That's horrible to think about," he replied, rising to his feet; "but
it pleases me. Anyway, little woman, we get along delightfully here; I
hope we will always be as well off as we are now. If the next world
affords me as much pleasure as this one has during the past three
months, I shall be more than satisfied. It is said that a man is very
happy when he is in love, and I am growing more in love with my wife
every day. I suppose it is because I never was in love before. I have
had extensive experience in everything else; I know a little of
everything else. This may be the reason why my honeymoon lasts so long."
"When I met you that afternoon, out in the hills," she answered, "you
were such an expert at love-making that I was at first afraid of you. If
ever man made a desperate, cunning love to a woman, you made it to me;
but I soon got over my timidity, and knew you were only desperately in
earnest, which made me love you until I went mad. I had nothing to give
you but myself, and that I gave so readily that I sometimes fear--when
you are away from me; I never think of it at any other time--that you
accuse me for it."
"It so happened," he answered, "that you did exactly what I wanted you
to do, though I am not surprised at it now, since discovering how
naturally you do a hundred things a day to please me. Accuse you?"
He laughed good-naturedly at the thought.
"Instead of that, it is the boast of my life that my sweetheart, my
vision which came true, had so much confidence in me that she placed
herself in my keeping without conditions or promises. You are the hope I
have had all my life; you are the heaven I have coveted; and don't
suppose that I find fault because the realization is better than the
dream. When you go to heaven, and find that it is a better place than
you imagined, you will not accuse the Master of a lack of propriety
because he is more forgiving of your faults than you expected; nor do I.
Dismiss that thought forever, to oblige me, and believe, instead, that
your single fault turned out to be my greatest blessing. If I made
desperate love to you up in the hills, it was natural, for I had no
previous experience. I cannot remember that I ever was a young man; I
was first a child, and then a man with grave responsibilities. But the
fancy I told you about--the Maid of Air--I always loved it until I found
you."
Putting her arm through his, they walked toward the town, and the shadow
emerged from a clump of bushes within a few feet of where they had been
sitting. The married lovers walked on, unconscious of the presence; and
occasionally the laugh of Mrs. Dorris came to the shadow on the wind,
which caused it to listen anxiously, and creep on after them again.
In turning out of the path that led up into the hills, and coming into
the road, Dorris and his wife met Tug and Silas, who were loitering
about, as usual; Tug in front, carrying the gun, and Silas lagging
behind.
"What now?" Dorris said good-naturedly, on coming up with them. "What
are you up to to-night?"
"On a Wednesday night," Tug replied, putting the stock of the gun on the
ground, and turning his head to one side to get a square sight at the
woman, "the woods are full of rabbits. We are out looking for them."
"Why on Wednesday night?"
Tug removed his gaze from Mrs. Dorris to Silas.
"When do we find our game?" he inquired.
"On Wednesday; at night," the little man answered meekly.
"I don't know how it is, myself," Tug continued, this time taking a shot
at Dorris; "but Wednesday it is. You are both looking mighty well."
They thanked him for his politeness, and added that they were feeling
well.
"They didn't think much of you when you came," he said, pointing a
finger at Dorris, which looked like a pistol, "but they have changed
their minds. Even Reverend Wilton says you will do; it's the first kind
word he ever said of anybody. It came out--Silas, how did it come out?"
"Like a tooth," Silas answered, who had been standing by with his hands
in his pockets.
"Like a _back_ tooth, you told me. Come now, didn't you say a back
tooth?"
Silas muttered something which was accepted as an acknowledgment, and
Tug went on,--
"Why didn't you say so, then? Why do you want to put it on me in the
presence of the lady? But Reverend Wilton never said anything bad about
you, or anybody else; he's too lazy for that. I only wonder that he
didn't drop over from exhaustion when he said you'd do. Well, I should
say you _would_ do; eh, pretty girl?"
Annie Dorris made no other answer than to cling closer to her husband,
and Tug regarded them with apparent pleasure.
"And there's Uncle Ponsonboy. Silas, what does Uncle Ponsonboy say?"
"He says that Mr. Dorris is a man of promise," Davy answered.
"Oh, _does_ he? Well, he's not the kind of a man of promise, Uncle
Ponsonboy is, who has been promising to distinguish himself for forty
years. Old Albert reminds me of a nephew of my wife's. I supported him
four years in idleness, but he was always boasting that he was able to
take care of himself, and that _he_ asked favors of nobody. He used to
fill up on my bread and meat, and lounge in front of my fire, and
declare that he never knew solid content until he began to make his own
living, although he did nothing except to write to his folks, and say
that they needn't worry about him,--_he_ was able to take care of
himself. But the old lady holds out against you."
Tug swallowed a laugh with a great effort, apparently locking it up with
a spring lock, for there was a click in his throat as he took aim at
Dorris again and continued, but not before his scalp had returned to its
place after crawling over on his forehead to look at the smile,--
"I am glad of that, though. The old lady and I never agree on anything.
I like the devil because she hates him. I shall be quite content in purg
if she fails to like it."
Allan Dorris looked puzzled for a moment.
"Oh, purgatory," he said, finishing the abbreviation, and turning to his
wife, who laughed at the idea, "we were talking about that just before
you came up."
"Neither of you need worry about _that_," Tug said. "_You_ are all
right. I am the devil's partner, and I know. But if you _should_ happen
down there by any mischance, I will give you the best accommodations the
place affords. If there is an ice-box there, you shall have a room in
it; but no ice-water for the old lady. I insist on that condition."
They were very much amused at his odd talk, and promised that his
instructions should be obeyed in case they became his guests.
"But why are you the devil's partner?" Dorris asked.
"He must have assistants, of course," Tug replied, "and I shall make
application to enter his service as soon as I arrive. I want to get even
with Uncle Ponsonboy."
Tug locked up a laugh again with a sharp click of the lock, and his
scalp hurried back to its place on learning that it was a false alarm.
"I want to get a note from him to this effect: 'Dear Tug: For the sake
of old acquaintance, send me a drop of water.' Whereupon I will take my
iron pen in hand, and reply: 'Uncle Ponsonboy: Drink your tears.' Then I
will instruct one of my devilish assistants to lock him up, and never
let him see the cheerful light of the fires again. As the door closes, I
will say to him, as I now say to you,--Good-night."
Tug and Silas walked toward the hills, and Dorris and his wife toward
the town, but the shadow no longer followed them; it had disappeared.
In case the shadow came back that night to prowl around The Locks, and
peer in at the windows, it found a determined-looking man on guard,
carrying a wicked-looking gun.
Had the eyes of the shadow followed the feet of the man, it would have
noted that they walked around the stone wall at regular intervals, and
that they stopped occasionally, as if listening; it would have seen them
strolling leisurely away at the first approach of dawn, carrying the gun
and Tug's burly body with them.