HUMAN NATURE
At an early hour Haldane, true to his purpose, departed from the home of
his childhood in the guise of a laborer, as he had come. His mother
heard his step on the stairs, for she had passed a sleepless night,
agitated by painful emotions. She wished to call him back; she grieved
over his course as a "dark and mysterious providence," as a misfortune
which, like death, could not be escaped; but with the persistence of a
little mind, capable of taking but a single and narrow view, she was
absolutely sure she was right in her course, and that nothing but harsh
and bitter experience would bring her wayward son to his senses.
Nor did it seem that the harsh experience would be wanting, for the
morning was well advanced when he reached his place of work, and he
received a severe reprimand from the foreman for being so late. His
explanation, that he had received permission to be absent, was
incredulously received. It also seemed that gibes, taunts, and sneers
were flung at him with increasing venom by his ill-natured associates,
who were vexed that they had not been able to drive him away by their
persecutions.
But the object of their spite was dwelling in a world of which they knew
nothing, and in which they had no part, and, almost oblivious of their
existence, he performed his mechanical duty in almost undisturbed
serenity.
Mr. Growther welcomed him back most heartily and with an air of eager
expectation, and when Haldane briefly but graphically narrated his
experience, he hobbled up and down the room in a state of great
excitement.
"You've got it! you've got it! and the genuine article, too, as sure as
my name is Jeremiah Growther!" he exclaimed; "I'd give the whole airth,
and anything else to boot, that was asked, if I could only git religion.
But it's no use for me to think about it; I'm done, and cooled off, and
would break inter ten thousand pieces if I tried to change myself. I
couldn't feel what you feel any more than I could run and jump as you
kin. My moral j'ints is as stiff as hedge-stakes. If I tried to git up a
little of your feelin', it would be like tryin' to hurry along the
spring by buildin' a fire on the frozen ground. It would only make one
little spot soft and sloppy; the fire would soon go out: then it would
freeze right up agin. Now, with you it's spring all over; you feel
tender and meller-like, and everything good is ready to sprout. Well,
well! if I do have to go to old Nick at last, I'm powerful glad he's had
this set-back in your case."
Long and earnestly did Haldane try to reason his quaint friend out of
his despairing views of himself. At last the old man said testily:
"Now, look here; you're too new-fledged a saint to instruct a seasoned
and experienced old sinner like me. You don't know much about the Lord's
ways yet, and I know all about the devil's ways. Because you've got out
of his clutches (and I'm mighty glad you have) you needn't make light of
him, and take liberties with him as if he was nobody, 'specially when
Scripter calls him 'a roarin' lion.' If I was as young as you be, I'd
make a dead set to git away from him; but after tryin' more times than
you've lived years, I know it ain't no use. I tell you I can't feel as
you feel, any more than you can squeeze water out of them old andirons.
A-a-h!"
Haldane was silent, feeling that the old man's spiritual condition was
too knotty a problem for him to solve.
After a few moments Mr. Growther added, in a voice that he meant to be
very solemn and impressive:
"But I want you to enjoy your religious feelin's all the same. I will
listen to all the Scripter readin' and prayin' you're willin' to do,
without makin' any disturbance. Indeed, I think I will enjoy my wittles
more, now that an honest grace can be said over 'em. An' when you read
the Bible, you needn't read the cussin' parts, if yer don't want to.
I'll read 'em to myself hereafter. I'll give you all the leeway that an
old curmudgeon like myself kin; and I expect to take a sight o' comfort
in seein' you goin' on your way rejoicin'."
And he did seem to take as much interest in the young man's progress and
new spiritual experiences as if he alone were the one interested. His
efforts to control his irritability and profanity were both odd and
pathetic, and Haldane would sometimes hear him swearing softly to
himself, with strange contortions of his wrinkled face, when in former
times he would have vented his spite in the harshest tones.
Haldane wrote fully to Mrs. Arnot of his visit to his native city and
its happy results, and enlarged upon his changed feelings as the proof
that he was a changed man.
Her reply was prompt and was filled with the warmest congratulations and
expressions of the sincerest sympathy. It also contained these words:
"I fear that you are dwelling too largely upon your feelings and
experiences, and are giving to them a value they do not possess. Not
that I would undervalue them--they are gracious tokens of God's favor;
but they are not the grounds of your salvation and acceptance with God."
Haldane did not believe that they were--he had been too well taught for
that--but he regarded them as the evidences that he was accepted, that
he was a Christian; and he expected them to continue, and to bear him
forward, and through and over the peculiar trials of his lot, as on a
strong and shining tide.
Mrs. Arnot also stated that she was just on the eve of leaving home for
a time, and that on her return she would see him and explain more fully
her meaning.
In conclusion, she wrote: "I think you did what was right and best in
returning to Hillaton. At any rate, you have reached that age when you
must obey your own conscience, and can no longer place the
responsibility of your action upon others. But, remember, that you owe
to your mother the most delicate forbearance and consideration. You
should write to her regularly, and seek to prove that you are guided by
principle rather than impulse. Your mother has much reason to feel as
she does, and nothing can excuse you from the sacred duties you owe to
her."
Haldane did write as Mrs. Arnot suggested. In a few days he received the
following letter from his mother:
"We shall sail for Europe as soon as we can get ready for the journey.
Our lawyer is making all the necessary arrangements for us. I will leave
funds with him, and whenever you are ready in good faith to accept my
offer, leave Hillaton, and live so that this scandal can die out, you
can obtain from him the means of living decently and quietly. As it is,
I live in daily terror lest you again do something which will bring our
name into the Hillaton papers; and, of course, everything is copied by
the press of this city. Will the time ever come when you will consider
your mother's and sisters' feelings?"
For a time all went as well as could be expected in the trying
circumstances of Haldane's life. His prayers for strength and patience
were at first earnest, and their answers seemed assured--so assured,
indeed, that in times of haste and weariness prayer eventually came to
be hurried or neglected. Before he was aware of it, feeling began to ebb
away. He at last became troubled, and then alarmed, and made great
effort to regain his old, happy emotions and experiences; but, like an
outgoing tide, they ebbed steadily away.
His face indicated his disquiet and anxiety, for he felt like one who
was clinging to a rope that was slowly parting, strand by strand.
Keen-eyed Mr. Growther watched him closely, and was satisfied that
something was amiss. He was much concerned, and took not a little of the
blame upon himself.
"How can a man be a Christian, or anything else that's decent, when he
keeps such cussed company as I be?" he muttered. "I s'pose I kinder
pisen and wither up his good feelin's like a sulphuric acid fact'ry."
One evening he exclaimed to Haldane, "I say, young man, you had better
pull out o' here."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll give you a receipt in full and a good character, and then you look
for a healthier boardin'-place."
"Ah, I see! You wish to be rid of me?"
"No, you don't see, nuther. I wish you to be rid of me."
"Of course, if you wish me to go, I'll go at once," said Haldane, in a
despondent tone.
"And go off at half-cock into the bargain? I ain't one of the kind, you
know, that talks around Robin Hood's barn. I go straight in at the front
door and out at the back. It's my rough way of coming to the p'int at
once. I kin see that you're runnin' behind in speret'al matters, and I
believe that my cussedness is part to blame. You don't feel good as you
used to. It would never do to git down at the heel in these matters,
'cause the poorest timber in the market is yer old backsliders. I'd
rather be what I am than be a backslider. The right way is to take these
things in time, before you git agoin' down hill too fast. It isn't that
I want to git rid of you at all. I've kinder got used to you, and like
to have you 'round 'mazingly; but I don't s'pose it's possible for you
to feel right and live with me, and so you had better cut stick in time,
for you must keep a-feelin' good and pi'us-like, my boy, or it's all up
with you."
"Then you don't want me to go for the sake of your own comfort?"
"Not a bit of it. I only want you to git inter a place that isn't so
morally pisened as this, where I do so much cussin'; for I will and must
cuss as long as there's an atom left of me as big as a head of a pin.
A-a-h!"
"Then I prefer to take my chances with you to going anywhere else."
"Think twice."
"I have thought more than twice."
"Then yer blood be on yer own head," said Mr. Growther with tragic
solemnity, as if he were about to take Haldane's life. "My skirts is
clear after this warnin'."
"Indeed they are. You haven't done me a bit of harm."
"Where does the trouble come from then? Who is a-harmin' you?"
"Well, Mr. Growther," said Haldane, wearily, "I hardly know what is the
matter. I am losing zest and courage unaccountably. My old, happy and
hopeful feelings are about all gone, and in their place all sorts of
evil thoughts seem to be swarming into my mind. I have tried to keep all
this to myself, but I have become so wretched that I must speak. Mrs.
Arnot is away, or she might help me, as she ever does. I wish that I
felt differently; I pray that I may, but in spite of all I seem drifting
back to my old miserable self. Every day I fear that I shall have
trouble at the mill. When I felt so strong and happy I did not mind what
they said. One day I was asked by a workman, who is quite a decent
fellow, how I stood it all? and I replied that I stood it as any
well-meaning Christian man could. My implied assertion that I was a
Christian was taken up as a great joke, and now they call me the 'pi'us
jail-bird.' As long as I felt at heart that I was a Christian, I did not
care; but now their words gall me to the quick. I do not know what to
think. It seems to me that if any one ever met with a change I did. I'm
sure I wish to feel now as I did then; but I grow worse every day. I am
losing self-control and growing irritable. This evening, as I passed
liquor saloons on my way home, my old appetite for drink seemed as
strong as ever. What does it all mean?"
Mr. Growther's wrinkled visage worked curiously, and at last he said in
a tone and manner that betokened the deepest distress:
"I'm awfully afeerd you're a-backslidin'."
"I wish I had never been born," exclaimed the youth, passionately, "for
I am a curse to myself and all connected with me, I know I shall have
trouble with one man at the mill. I can see it coming, and then, of
course, I shall be discharged. I seem destined to defeat in this my last
attempt to be a man, and I shall never have the courage or hope to try
again. If I do break down utterly, I feel as if I will become a very
devil incarnate. O! how I wish that Mrs. Arnot was home."
"Now this beats me all out," said Mr. Growther, in great perplexity. "A
while ago you felt like a saint and acted like one, now you talk and act
as if Old Nick and all his imps had got a hold on ye. How do you explain
all this, for it beats me?"
"I don't and can't explain. But here are the facts, and what are you
going to do with them?"
"I ain't a-goin' to do nothin' with 'em except cuss 'em; and that's all
I kin do in any case. You've got beyond my depth."
The sorely tempted youth could obtain but little aid and comfort,
therefore, from his quaint old friend, and, equally perplexed and unable
to understand himself, he sought to obtain such rest as his disquieted
condition permitted.
As a result of wakefulness in the early part of the night, he slept late
the following morning, and hastened to his work with scarcely a mouthful
of breakfast. He was thus disqualified, physically as well as mentally,
for the ordeal of the day.
He was a few minutes behind time, and a sharp reprimand from the foreman
rasped his already jangling nerves. But he doggedly set his teeth and
resolved to see and hear nothing save that which pertained to his work.
He might have kept his resolve had there been nothing more to contend
with than the ordinary verbal persecution. But late in the afternoon,
when he had grown weary from the strain of the day, his special
tormentor, a burly Irishman, took occasion, in passing, to push him
rudely against a pert and slattern girl, who also was foremost in the
tacit league of petty annoyance. She acted as if the contact of
Haldane's person was a purposed insult, and resented it by a sharp slap
of his face.
Her stinging stroke was like a spark to a magazine; but paying no heed
to her, he sprang toward her laughing ally with fierce oaths upon his
lips, and by a single blow sent him reeling to the floor. The machinery
was stopped sharply, as far as possible, by the miscellaneous
workpeople, to whom a fight was a boon above price, and with shrill and
clamorous outcries they gathered round the young man where he stood,
panting, like a wounded animal at bay.
His powerful antagonist was speedily upon his feet, and at once made a
rush for the youth who had so unexpectedly turned upon him; and though
he received another heavy blow, his onset was so strong that he was able
to close with Haldane, and thus made the conflict a mere trial of brute
force.
As Haldane afterward recalled the scene, he was conscious that at the
time he felt only rage, and a mad desire to destroy his opponent.
In strength they were quite evenly matched, and after a moment's
struggle both fell heavily, and Haldane was able to disengage himself.
As the Irishman rose, and was about to renew the fight, he struck him so
tremendous a blow on the temple that the man went to the floor as if
pierced by a bullet, and lay there stunned and still.
When Haldane saw that his antagonist did not move, time was given him to
think; he experienced a terrible revulsion. He remembered his profanity
and brutal rage, he felt that he had broken down utterly. He was
overwhelmed by his moral defeat, and covering his face with his hands,
he groaned "Lost, lost!"
"By jocks," exclaimed a rude, half-grown fellow, "that clip would have
felled an ox."
"Do you think he's dead?" asked the slattern girl, now thoroughly
alarmed at the consequences of the blow she had given.
"Dead!" cried Haldane, catching the word, and, pushing all aside, he
knelt over his prostrate foe.
"Water, bring water, for God's sake!" he said eagerly, lifting up the
unconscious man.
It was brought and dashed in his face. A moment later, to Haldane's
infinite relief he revived, and after a bewildered stare at the crowd
around him, fixed his eyes on the youth who had dealt the blow, and then
a consciousness of all that had occurred seemed to return. He showed his
teeth in impotent rage for a moment, as some wild animal might have
done, and then rose unsteadily to his feet.
"Go back to your work, all on ye," thundered the foreman, who, now that
the sport was over, was bent on making a great show of his zeal; "as for
you two bull-dogs, you shall pay dearly for this; and let me say to you,
Mister Haldane, that the pious dodge won't answer any longer."
A moment later, with the exception of flushed faces and excited
whisperings, the large and crowded apartment wore its ordinary aspect,
and the machinery clanked on as monotonously as ever.
Almost as mechanically Haldane moved in the routine of his labor, but
the bitterness of despair was in his heart.
He forgot that he would probably be discharged that day; he forgot that
a dark and uncertain future was before him. He only remembered his rage
and profanity, and they seemed to him damning proofs that all he had
felt, hoped, and believed was delusion.