THE NIGHT AT THE TAVERN.
The travelers of the wrecked train spent the night at the nearest
village, whither all went on foot before darkness came on. Monsignor
took possession of Horace, also of the affections of the tavern-keeper,
and of the best things which belonged to that yokel and his hostelry. It
was prosperity in the midst of disaster that he and Endicott should have
a room on the first floor, and find themselves comfortable in ten
minutes after their arrival. By the time they had enjoyed a refreshing
meal, and discussed the accident to the roots, Horace Endicott felt that
his soul was at ease with the Monsignor, who at no time had displayed
any other feeling than might arise from a long acquaintance with the
young man. One would have pronounced the two men, as they settled down
into the comfort of their room, two collegians who had traveled much
together.
"It was an excellent thing that I brought the holy oils along,"
Monsignor said, as if Endicott had no other interest in life than this
particular form of excellence. To a polite inquiry he explained the
history, nature, and use of the mysterious oils.
"I can understand how a ceremony of that kind would soothe the last
hours of Tim Hurley," said the pagan Endicott, "but I am curious, if you
will pardon me, to know if the holy oils would have a similar effect on
Monsignor O'Donnell."
"The same old supposition," chuckled the priest, "that there is one law
for the crowd, the mob, the diggers, and another for the illuminati.
Now, let me tell you, Mr. Endicott, that with all his faith Tim Hurley
could not have welcomed priest and oils more than I shall when I need
them. The anguish of death is very bitter, which you are too young to
know, and it is a blessed thing to have a sovereign ready for that
anguish in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. The Holy Oils are the thing
which Macbeth desired when he demanded so bitterly of the physician.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?
That is my conviction. So if you are near when I am going to judgment,
come in and see how emphatically I shall demand the holy oils, even
before a priest be willing to bring them."
"It seems strange," Horace commented, "very strange. I cannot get at
your point of view at all."
Then he went on to ask questions rapidly, and Monsignor had to explain
the meaning of his title, a hundred things connected with his
priesthood, and to answer many objections to his explanations; until the
night had worn on to bedtime, and the crowd of guests began to depart
from the verandahs. It was all so interesting to Horace. In the priest
and his conversation he had caught a glimpse of a new world both strange
and fascinating. Curious too was the profound indifference of men like
himself--college men--to its existence. It did not seem possible that
the Roman idea could grow into proportions under the bilious eyes of the
omniscient Saxon, and not a soul be aware of its growth! However,
Monsignor was a pleasant man, a true college lad, an interesting talker,
with music in his voice, and a sincere eye. He was not a
controversialist, but a critic, and he did not seem to mind when Horace
went off into a dream of Sonia, and asked questions far from the
subject.
Long afterwards Endicott recalled a peculiarity of this night, which
escaped his notice at the time: his sensitiveness to every detail of
their surroundings, to the colors of the room, to the shades of meaning
in the words of the Monsignor, to his tricks of speech and tone, quite
unusual in Horace's habit. Sonia complained that he never could tell her
anything clear or significant of places he had seen. The room which had
been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and
low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and
mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The
walls had a certain terror in them, a kind of suspense, as when a jury
sits petrified while their foreman announces a verdict of death. A long
line of portraits in oil produced this impression. The faces of ancient
neighbors, of the Adams, the Endicotts, the Bradburys, severe Puritans,
for whom the name of priest meant a momentary stoppage of the heart,
looked coldly and precisely straight out from their frames on the
Monsignor. Horace fancied that they exchanged glances. What fun it would
have been to see the entire party move out from their frames, and put
the wearer of the Roman purple to shameful flight.
"I'll bet they don't let you sleep to-night," he said to the priest, who
laughed at the conceit.
A cricket came out on the window-sill, chirped at Horace's elbow, and
fled at the sound of near voices. Through the thick foliage of the
chestnut trees outside he could see stars at times that made him think
of Sonia's eyes. The wind shook the branches gently, and made little
moans and whispers in the corners, as if the ghosts of the portraits
were discussing the sacrilege of the Monsignor's presence. Horace
thought at the time his nerves were strung tight by the incidents of the
day, and his interest deeply stirred by the conversation of the priest;
since hitherto he had always thought of wind as a thing that blew
disagreeably except at sea, noisy insects as public nuisances to be
caught and slain, and family portraits the last praiseworthy attempt of
ancestors to disturb the sleep of their remote heirs. When he had
somewhat tired of asking his companion questions, it occurred to him
that the Monsignor had asked none in return, and might waive his right
to this privilege of good-fellowship. He mentioned the matter.
"Thank you," said Monsignor, "but I know all about you. See now if I
give you a good account of your life and descent."
He was promenading the room before the picture-jury frowning on him. He
looked at them a moment solemnly.
"Indeed I know what I would have to expect from you," he said to the
portraits, "if you were to sit upon my case to-night. Your descendant
here is more merciful."
They laughed together.
"Well," to Horace, "you asked me many questions, because you know
nothing about me or mine, although we have been on the soil this half
century. The statesmen of your blood disdain me. This scorn is in the
air of New England, and is part of your marrow. Here is an example of
it. Once on a vacation I spent a few weeks in the house of a Puritan
lady, who learned of my faith and blood only a week before my leaving.
She had been very kind, and when I bade her good-by I assured her that I
would remember her in my prayers. 'You needn't mind,' she replied, 'my
own prayers are much better than any you can say.' This temper explains
why you have to ask questions about me, and I have none to ask
concerning you."
Horace had to admit the contention.
"Life began for you near the river that turned the wheel of the old
sawmill. Ah, that river! It was the beginning of history, of time, of
life! It came from the beyond and it went over the rim of the wonderful
horizon, singing and laughing like a child. How often you dreamed of
following it to its end, where you were certain a glory, felt only in
your dreams, filled the land. The fishes only could do that, for they
had no feet to be tired by walking. Your first mystery was that wheel
which the water turned: a monstrous thing, a giant, ugly and deadly,
whose first movement sent you off in terror. How could it be that the
gentle, smiling, yielding water, which took any shape from a baby hand,
had power to speed that giant! The time came when you bathed in the
stream, mastered it, in spite of the terror which it gave you one day
when it swallowed the life of a comrade. Do you remember this?"
Monsignor held up his hand with two fingers stretched out beyond the
others, and gave a gentle war-whoop. Horace laughed.
"I suppose every boy in the country invited his chums to a swim that
way," he said.
"Just so. The sign language was universal. The old school on the village
green succeeded the river and the mill in your history. Miss Primby
taught it, dear old soul, gentler than a mother even, and you laughed at
her curls, and her funny ways, which hid from child's eyes a noble
heart. It was she who bound up your black eye after the battle with
Bouncer, the bully, whose face and reputation you wrecked in the same
hour for his oppression of the most helpless boy in school. That feat
made you the leader of the secret society which met at awful hours in
the deserted shanty just below the sawmill. What a creep went up and
down your spine as in the chill of the evening the boys came stealing
out of the undergrowth one by one, and greeted their chief with the
password, known by every parent in town. The stars looked down upon you
as they must have looked upon all the great conspirators of time since
the world began. You felt that the life of the government hung by a
thread, when such desperate characters took the risk of conspiring
against it. What a day was July the Fourth--what wretches were the
British--what a hero was General Washington! What land was like this
country of the West? Its form on the globe was a promontory while all
others lay very low on the plane."
"In that spirit you went to Harvard and ran full against some great
questions of life. The war was on, and your father was at the front.
Only your age, your father's orders, and your mother's need held you
back from the fight. You were your mother's son. It is written all over
you,--and me. And your father loved you doubly that you were his son and
owned her nature. He fell in battle, and she was slain by a crueller
foe, the grief that, seizing us, will not let us live even for those we
love. God rest the faithful dead, give peace to their souls, and
complete their love and their labors! My father and mother are living
yet--the sweetest of blessings at my time of life. You grieved as youth
grieves, but life had its compensations. You are a married man, and you
love as your parents loved, with the fire and tenderness of both. Happy
man! Fortunate woman!"
He stopped before the nearest portrait, and stared at it.
"Well, what do you think of my acquaintance with your history?" he
asked.
"Very clever, Monsignor," answered Horace impressed. "It is like
necromancy, though I see how the trick is done."
"Precisely. It is my own story. It is the story of thousands of boys
whom your set will not regard as American boys, unless when they are
looking for fighting material. Everything and anything that could carry
a gun in the recent war was American with a vengeance. The Boston
Coriolanus kissed such an one and swore that he must have come over in
the Mayflower. But enough--I am not holding a brief for anybody. The
description I have just given you of your life and mine is also----"
"One moment--pardon me," said Horace, "how did you know I was married?"
"And happy?" said Monsignor. "Well, that was easy. When we were talking
to-night at tea about the hanging of Howard Tims, what disgust in your
tone when you cried out, there should be no pity for the wretch that
kills his wife."
"And there should not."
"Of course. But I knew Tims. I met him for an hour, and I did not feel
like hanging him."
"You are a celibate."
"Therefore unprejudiced. But he was condemned by a jury of unmarried
men. A clever fellow he is, and yet he made some curious blunders in his
attempt to escape the other night. I would like to have helped him. I
have a theory of disappearing from the sight of men, which would help
the desperate much. This Tims was a lad of your own appearance,
disposition, history even. I had a feeling that he ought not to die.
What a pity we are too wise to yield always to our feelings."
"But about your theory, Monsignor?" said Horace. "A theory of
disappearing?"
"A few nights ago some friends of mine were discussing the possible
methods by which such a man as Tims might make his escape sure. You know
that the influences at his command were great, and tremendous efforts
were made to spare his family the disgrace of the gallows. The officers
of the law were quite determined that he should not escape. If he had
escaped, the pursuit would have been relentless and able. He would have
been caught. And as I maintained, simply because he would never think of
using his slight acquaintance with me. You smile at that. So did my
friends. I have been reading up the escapes of famous criminals--it is
quite a literature. I learned therein one thing: that they were all
caught again because they could not give up connection with their past:
with the people, the scenes, the habits to which they had been
accustomed. So they left a little path from their hiding-place to the
past, and the clever detectives always found it. Thinking over this
matter I discovered that there is an art of disappearing, a real art,
which many have used to advantage. The principle by which this art may
be formulated is simple: the person disappearing must cut himself off
from his past as completely as if he had been secretly drowned in
mid-ocean."
"They all seem to do that," said Horace, "and yet they are caught as
easily as rats with traps and cheese."
"I see you think this art means running away to Brazil in a wig and blue
spectacles, as they do in a play. Let me show some of the consequences a
poor devil takes upon himself who follows the art like an artist. He
must escape, not only from his pursuers--that's easy--but from his
friends--not so easy--and chiefly from himself--there's the rub. He who
flies from the relentless pursuit of the law must practically die. He
must change his country, never meet friend or relative again, get a new
language, a new trade, a new place in society; in fact a new past,
peopled with parents and relatives, a new habit of body and life, a new
appearance; the color of hair, eyes, skin must be changed; and he must
eat and drink, walk, sleep, think, and speak differently. He must become
another man almost as if he had changed his nature for another's."
"I understand," said Horace, interested; "but the theory is impossible.
No one could do that even if they desired."
"Tims would have desired it and accomplished it had I thought of
suggesting it to him. Here is what would have happened. He escapes from
the prison, which is easy enough, and comes straight to me. We never met
but once. Therefore not a man in the world would have thought of looking
for him at my house. A week later he is transferred to the house of Judy
Trainor, who has been expecting a sick son from California, a boy who
disappeared ten years previous and is probably dead. I arrange her
expectation, and the neighbors are invited to rejoice with her over the
finding of her son. He spends a month or two in the house recovering
from his illness, and when he appears in public he knows as much about
the past of Tommy Trainor as Tommy ever knew. He is welcomed by his old
friends. They recognize him from his resemblance to his father, old
Micky Trainor. He slips into his position comfortably, and in five years
the whole neighborhood would go to court and swear Tims into a lunatic
asylum if he ever tried to resume his own personality."
The two men set up a shout at this sound conclusion.
"After all, there are consequences as dark as the gallows," said Horace.
"For instance," said the priest with a wave of his hand, "sleeping under
the eyes of these painted ghosts."
"Poor Tim Hurley," said Horace, "little he thought he'd be a ghost
to-night."
"He's not to be regretted," replied the other, "except for the heart
that suffers by his absence. He is with God. Death is the one moment of
our career when we throw ourselves absolutely into the arms of God."
The two were getting ready to slip between the sheets of the pompous
colonial bed, when Horace began to laugh softly to himself. He kept up
the chuckling until they were lying side by side in the darkened room.
"I am sure, I have a share in that chuckle," said Monsignor.
"Shades of my ancestors," murmured Horace, "forgive this insult to your
pious memory--that I should occupy one bed with an idolatrous priest."
"They have got over all that. In eternity there is no bigotry. But what
a pity that two fine boys like us should be kept apart by that awful
spirit which prompts men to hate one another for the love of God, and to
lie like slaves for the pure love of truth."
"I am cured," said Horace, placing his hand on the Monsignor's arm. "I
shall never again overlook the human in a man. Let me thank you,
Monsignor, for this opening of my eyes. I shall never forget it. This
night has been Arabian in its enchantment. I don't like the idea of
to-morrow."
"No more do I. Life is tiresome in a way. For me it is an everlasting
job of beating the air with truth, because others beat it with lies. We
can't help but rejoice when the time comes to breathe the eternal airs,
where nothing but truth can live."
Horace sighed, and fell asleep thinking of Sonia rather than the
delights of eternity. The priest slept as soundly. No protest against
this charming and manly companionship stirred the silence of the room.
The ghosts of the portraits did not disturb the bold cricket of the
window-sill. He chirped proudly, pausing now and then to catch the
breathing of the sleepers, and to interpret their unconscious movings.
The trained and spiritual ear might have caught the faint sighs and
velvet footsteps of long-departed souls, or interpreted them out of the
sighing and whispering of the leaves outside the window, and the tread
of nervous mice in the fireplace. The dawn came and lighted up the faces
of the men, faces rising out of the heavy dark like a revelation of
another world; the veil of melancholy, which Sleep borrows from its
brother Death, resting on the head which Sonia loved, and deepening the
shadows on the serious countenance of the priest. They lay there like
brothers of the same womb, and one might fancy the great mother Eve
stealing in between the two lights of dawn and day to kiss and bless her
just-united children.
When they were parting after breakfast, Monsignor said gayly.
"If at any time you wish to disappear, command me."
"Thanks, but I would rather you had to do the act, that I might see you
carry out your theory. Where do you go now?"
"To tell Tim Hurley's mother he's dead, and thus break her heart," he
replied sadly, "and then to mend it by telling her how like a saint he
died."
"Add to that," said Horace, with a sudden rush of tears, which for his
life he could not explain, "the comfort of a sure support from me for
the rest of her life."
They clasped hands with feeling, and their eyes expressed the same
thought and resolution to meet again.