Hawkins went straight to the telegraph office and disburdened his
conscience. He said to himself, “She’s not going to give this
galvanized cadaver up, that’s plain. Wild horses can’t pull her away
from him. I’ve done my share; it’s for Sellers to take an innings,
now.” So he sent this message to New York:
“_Come back. Hire special train. She’s going to marry the
materializee_.”
Meantime a note came to Rossmore Towers to say that the Earl of
Rossmore had just arrived from England, and would do himself the
pleasure of calling in the evening. Sally said to herself, “It is a
pity he didn’t stop in New York; but it’s no matter; he can go up
to-morrow and see my father. He has come over here to tomahawk papa,
very likely—or buy out his claim. This thing would have excited me, a
while back; but it has only one interest for me now, and only one
value. I can say to—to—Spine, Spiny, Spinal—I don’t like any _form_ of
that name!—I can say to him to-morrow, ‘_Don’t_ try to keep it up any
more, or I shall have to tell you whom I have been talking with last
night, and then you will be embarrassed.’”
Tracy couldn’t know he was to be invited for the morrow, or he might
have waited. As it was, he was too miserable to wait any longer; for
his last hope—a letter—had failed him. It was fully due to-day; it had
not come. Had his father really flung him away? It looked so. It was
not like his father, but it surely looked so. His father was a rather
tough nut, in truth, but had never been so with his son—still, this
implacable silence had a calamitous look. Anyway, Tracy would go to the
Towers and —then what? He didn’t know; his head was tired out with
thinking—he wouldn’t think about what he must do or say—let it all take
care of itself. So that he saw Sally once more, he would be satisfied,
happen what might; he wouldn’t care.
He hardly knew how he got to the Towers, or when. He knew and cared for
only one thing—he was alone with Sally. She was kind, she was gentle,
there was moisture in her eyes, and a yearning something in her face
and manner which she could not wholly hide—but she kept her distance.
They talked. Bye and bye she said—watching his downcast countenance out
of the corner of her eye—
“It’s so lonesome—with papa and mamma gone. I try to read, but I can’t
seem to get interested in any book. I try the newspapers, but they do
put such rubbish in them. You take up a paper and start to read
something you thinks interesting, and it goes on and on and on about
how somebody—well, Dr. Snodgrass, for instance—”
Not a movement from Tracy, not the quiver of a muscle. Sally was amazed
—what command of himself he must have! Being disconcerted, she paused
so long that Tracy presently looked up wearily and said:
“Well?”
“Oh, I thought you were not listening. Yes, it goes on and on about
this Doctor Snodgrass, till you are so tired, and then about his
younger son—_the favorite son_—Zylobalsamum Snodgrass—”
Not a sign from Tracy, whose head was drooping again. What supernatural
self-possession! Sally fixed her eye on him and began again, resolved
to blast him out of his serenity this time if she knew how to apply the
dynamite that is concealed in certain forms of words when those words
are properly loaded with unexpected meanings.
“And next it goes on and on and on about the eldest son—_not_ the
favorite, this one—and how he is neglected in his poor barren boyhood,
and allowed to grow up unschooled, ignorant, coarse, vulgar, the
comrade of the community’s scum, and become in his completed manhood a
rude, profane, dissipated ruffian—”
That head still drooped! Sally rose, moved softly and solemnly a step
or two, and stood before Tracy—his head came slowly up, his meek eyes
met her intense ones—then she finished with deep impressiveness—
“—named Spinal Meningitis Snodgrass!”
Tracy merely exhibited signs of increased fatigue. The girl was
outraged by this iron indifference and callousness, and cried out—
“What _are_ you made of?”
“I? Why?”
“Haven’t you _any_ sensitiveness? Don’t these things touch any poor
_remnant_ of delicate feeling in you?”
“N—no,” he said wonderingly, “they don’t seem to. Why should they?”
“O, dear me, _how_ can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, and
empty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things as
those! Look me in the eye—straight in the eye. There, now then, answer
me without a flinch. Isn’t Doctor Snodgrass your father, and isn’t
Zylobalsamum your brother,” [here Hawkins was about to enter the room,
but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walk
down town, and so glided swiftly away], “and isn’t your name Spinal
Meningitis, and isn’t your father a doctor and an idiot, like all the
family for generations, and doesn’t he name all his children after
poisons and pestilences and abnormal anatomical eccentricities of the
human body? Answer me, some way or somehow—and quick. _Why_ do you sit
there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me
going mad before your face with suspense!”
“Oh, I wish I could do—do—I wish I could do something, _anything_ that
would give you peace again and make you happy; but I know of nothing—I
know of no way. I have never heard of these awful people before.”
“What? Say it again!”
“I have never—never in my life till now.”
“Oh, you _do_ look so honest when you say that! It _must_ be
true—surely you _couldn’t_ look that way, you _wouldn’t_ look that way
if it were not true—_would_ you?”
“I couldn’t and wouldn’t. It _is_ true. Oh, let us end this
suffering—take me back into your heart and confidence—”
“Wait—one more thing. Tell me you told that falsehood out of mere
vanity and are sorry for it; that you’re _not_ expecting to ever wear
the coronet of an earl—”
“Truly I am cured—cured this very day—I am not expecting it!”
“O, now you _are_ mine! I’ve got you back in the beauty and glory of
your unsmirched poverty and your honorable obscurity, and nobody shall
ever take you from me again but the grave! And if—”
“De earl of Rossmore, fum Englan’!”
“My father!” The young man released the girl and hung his head.
p266.jpg (21K)
The old gentleman stood surveying the couple—the one with a strongly
complimentary right eye, the other with a mixed expression done with
the left. This is difficult, and not often resorted to. Presently his
face relaxed into a kind of constructive gentleness, and he said to his
son:
“Don’t you think you could embrace me, too?”
The young man did it with alacrity.
“Then you _are_ the son of an earl, after all,” said Sally,
reproachfully.
“Yes, I—”
“Then I won’t have you!”
“O, but you know—”
“No, I will not. You’ve told me another fib.”
“She’s right. Go away and leave us. I want to talk with her.”
Berkeley was obliged to go. But he did not go far. He remained on the
premises. At midnight the conference between the old gentleman and the
young girl was still going blithely on, but it presently drew to a
close, and the former said:
“I came all the way over here to inspect you, my dear, with the general
idea of breaking off this match if there were _two_ fools of you, but
as there’s only one, you can have him if you’ll take him.”
“Indeed I will, then! May I kiss you?”
“You may. Thank you. Now you shall have that privilege whenever you are
good.”
Meantime Hawkins had long ago returned and slipped up into the
laboratory. He was rather disconcerted to find his late invention,
Snodgrass, there. The news was told him that the English Rossmore was
come.
—“And I’m his son, Viscount Berkeley, not Howard Tracy any more.”
Hawkins was aghast. He said:
“Good gracious, then you’re dead!”
“Dead?”
“Yes you are—we’ve got your ashes.”
“Hang those ashes, I’m tired of them; I’ll give them to my father.”
Slowly and painfully the statesman worked the truth into his head that
this was really a flesh and blood young man, and not the insubstantial
resurrection he and Sellers had so long supposed him to be. Then he
said with feeling—
“I’m so glad; so glad on Sally’s account, poor thing. We took you for a
departed materialized bank thief from Tahlequah. This will be a heavy
blow to Sellers.” Then he explained the whole matter to Berkeley, who
said:
“Well, the Claimant must manage to stand the blow, severe as it is. But
he’ll get over the disappointment.”
“Who—the colonel? He’ll get over it the minute he invents a new miracle
to take its place. And he’s already at it by this time. But look
here—what do you suppose became of the man you’ve been _representing_
all this time?”
“I don’t know. I saved his clothes—it was all I could do. I am afraid
he lost his life.”
“Well, you must have found twenty or thirty thousand dollars in those
clothes, in money or certificates of deposit.”
“No, I found only five hundred and a trifle. I borrowed the trifle and
banked the five hundred.”
“What’ll we do about it?”
“Return it to the owner.”
“It’s easy said, but not easy to manage. Let’s leave it alone till we
get Sellers’s advice. And that reminds me. I’ve got to run and meet
Sellers and explain who you are _not_ and who you _are_, or he’ll come
thundering in here to stop his daughter from marrying a phantom.
But—suppose your father came over here to break off the match?”
“Well, isn’t he down stairs getting acquainted with Sally? That’s all
safe.”
So Hawkins departed to meet and prepare the Sellerses.
Rossmore Towers saw great times and late hours during the succeeding
week. The two earls were such opposites in nature that they fraternized
at once. Sellers said privately that Rossmore was the most
extraordinary character he had ever met—a man just made out of the
condensed milk of human kindness, yet with the ability to totally hide
the fact from any but the most practised character-reader; a man whose
whole being was sweetness, patience and charity, yet with a cunning so
profound, an ability so marvelous in the acting of a double part, that
many a person of considerable intelligence might live with him for
centuries and never suspect the presence in him of these
characteristics.
Finally there was a quiet wedding at the Towers, instead of a big one
at the British embassy, with the militia and the fire brigades and the
temperance organizations on hand in torchlight procession, as at first
proposed by one of the earls. The art-firm and Barrow were present at
the wedding, and the tinner and Puss had been invited, but the tinner
was ill and Puss was nursing him—for they were engaged.
p270.jpg (39K)
The Sellerses were to go to England with their new allies for a brief
visit, but when it was time to take the train from Washington, the
colonel was missing.
Hawkins was going as far as New York with the party, and said he would
explain the matter on the road.
The explanation was in a letter left by the colonel in Hawkins’s hands.
In it he promised to join Mrs. Sellers later, in England, and then went
on to say:
The truth is, my dear Hawkins, a mighty idea has been born to me within
the hour, and I must not even stop to say goodbye to my dear ones. A
man’s highest duty takes precedence of all minor ones, and must be
attended to with his best promptness and energy, at whatsoever cost to
his affections or his convenience. And first of all a man’s duties is
his duty to his own honor—he must keep that spotless. Mine is
threatened. When I was feeling sure of my imminent future solidity, I
forwarded to the Czar of Russia—perhaps prematurely—an offer for the
purchase of Siberia, naming a vast sum. Since then an episode has
warned me that the method by which I was expecting to acquire this
money—materialization upon a scale of limitless magnitude—is marred by
a taint of temporary uncertainty. His imperial majesty may accept my
offer at any moment. If this should occur now, I should find myself
painfully embarrassed, in fact financially inadequate. I could not take
Siberia. This would become known, and my credit would suffer.
Recently my private hours have been dark indeed, but the sun shines
again now; I see my way; I shall be able to meet my obligation, and
without having to ask an extension of the stipulated time, I think.
This grand new idea of mine—the sublimest I have ever conceived, will
save me whole, I am sure. I am leaving for San Francisco this moment,
to test it, by the help of the great Lick telescope. Like all of my
more notable discoveries and inventions, it is based upon hard,
practical scientific laws; all other bases are unsound and hence
untrustworthy.
In brief, then, I have conceived the stupendous idea of reorganizing
the climates of the earth according to the desire of the populations
interested. That is to say, I will furnish climates to order, for cash
or negotiable paper, taking the old climates in part payment, of
course, at a fair discount, where they are in condition to be repaired
at small cost and let out for hire to poor and remote communities not
able to afford a good climate and not caring for an expensive one for
mere display. My studies have convinced me that the regulation of
climates and the breeding of new varieties at will from the old stock
is a feasible thing. Indeed I am convinced that it has been done
before; done in prehistoric times by now forgotten and unrecorded
civilizations. Everywhere I find hoary evidences of artificial
manipulation of climates in bygone times. Take the glacial period. Was
that produced by accident? Not at all; it was done for money. I have a
thousand proofs of it, and will some day reveal them.
I will confide to you an outline of my idea. It is to utilize the spots
on the sun—get control of them, you understand, and apply the
stupendous energies which they wield to beneficent purposes in the
reorganizing of our climates. At present they merely make trouble and
do harm in the evoking of cyclones and other kinds of electric storms;
but once under humane and intelligent control this will cease and they
will become a boon to man.
I have my plan all mapped out, whereby I hope and expect to acquire
complete and perfect control of the sun-spots, also details of the
method whereby I shall employ the same commercially; but I will not
venture to go into particulars before the patents shall have been
issued. I shall hope and expect to sell shop-rights to the minor
countries at a reasonable figure and supply a good business article of
climate to the great empires at special rates, together with fancy
brands for coronations, battles and other great and particular
occasions. There are billions of money in this enterprise, no expensive
plant is required, and I shall begin to realize in a few days—in a few
weeks at furthest. I shall stand ready to pay cash for Siberia the
moment it is delivered, and thus save my honor and my credit. I am
confident of this.
I would like you to provide a proper outfit and start north as soon as
I telegraph you, be it night or be it day. I wish you to take up all
the country stretching away from the north pole on all sides for many
degrees south, and buy Greenland and Iceland at the best figure you can
get now while they are cheap. It is my intention to move one of the
tropics up there and transfer the frigid zone to the equator. I will
have the entire Arctic Circle in the market as a summer resort next
year, and will use the surplusage of the old climate, over and above
what can be utilized on the equator, to reduce the temperature of
opposition resorts. But I have said enough to give you an idea of the
prodigious nature of my scheme and the feasible and enormously
profitable character of it. I shall join all you happy people in
England as soon as I shall have sold out some of my principal climates
and arranged with the Czar about Siberia.
Meantime, watch for a sign from me. Eight days from now, we shall be
wide asunder; for I shall be on the border of the Pacific, and you far
out on the Atlantic, approaching England. That day, if I am alive and
my sublime discovery is proved and established, I will send you
greeting, and my messenger shall deliver it where you are, in the
solitudes of the sea; for I will waft a vast sun-spot across the disk
like drifting smoke, and you will know it for my love-sign, and will
say “Mulberry Sellers throws us a kiss across the universe.”
APPENDIX.
WEATHER FOR USE IN THIS BOOK.
_Selected from the Best Authorities._
A brief though violent thunderstorm which had raged over the city was
passing away; but still, though the rain had ceased more than an hour
before, wild piles of dark and coppery clouds, in which a fierce and
rayless glow was laboring, gigantically overhung the grotesque and
huddled vista of dwarf houses, while in the distance, sheeting high
over the low, misty confusion of gables and chimneys, spread a pall of
dead, leprous blue, suffused with blotches of dull, glistening yellow,
and with black plague-spots of vapor floating and faint lightnings
crinkling on its surface. Thunder, still muttering in the close and
sultry air, kept the scared dwellers in the street within, behind their
closed shutters; and all deserted, cowed, dejected, squalid, like poor,
stupid, top-heavy things that had felt the wrath of the summer tempest,
stood the drenched structures on either side of the narrow and crooked
way, ghastly and picturesque, under the giant canopy. Rain dripped
wretchedly in slow drops of melancholy sound from their projecting
eaves upon the broken flagging, lay there in pools or trickled into the
swollen drains, where the fallen torrent sullenly gurgled on its way to
the river. “_The Brazen Android._”—_W. D. O’Connor_.
The fiery mid-March sun a moment hung
Above the bleak Judean wilderness;
Then darkness swept upon us, and ’t was night.
“_Easter-Eve at Kerak-Moab_.”—_Clinton Scollard_.
The quick-coming winter twilight was already at hand. Snow was again
falling, sifting delicately down, incidentally as it
were.—“_Felicia_.”—“_Fanny N. D. Murfree“_.
Merciful heavens! The whole west, from right to left, blazes up with a
fierce light, and next instant the earth reels and quivers with the
awful shock of ten thousand batteries of artillery. It is the signal
for the Fury to spring—for a thousand demons to scream and shriek—for
innumerable serpents of fire to writhe and light up the blackness.
Now the rain falls—now the wind is let loose with a terrible shriek—now
the lightning is so constant that the eyes burn, and the thunder-claps
merge into an awful roar, as did the 800 cannon at Gettysburg. Crash!
Crash! Crash! It is the cottonwood trees falling to earth. Shriek!
Shriek! Shriek! It is the Demon racing along the plain and uprooting
even the blades of grass. Shock! Shock! Shock! It is the Fury flinging
his fiery bolts into the bosom of the earth.—“_The Demon and the
Fury_.”—_M. Quad_.
Away up the gorge all diurnal fancies trooped into the wide liberties
of endless luminous vistas of azure sunlit mountains beneath the
shining azure heavens. The sky, looking down in deep blue placidities,
only here and there smote the water to azure emulations of its
tint.—“_In the People’s Country_.”—_Charles Egbert Craddock_.
There was every indication of a dust-storm, though the sun still shone
brilliantly. The hot wind had become wild and rampant. It was whipping
up the sandy coating of the plain in every direction. High in the air
were seen whirling spires and cones of sand—a curious effect against
the deep-blue sky. Below, puffs of sand were breaking out of the plain
in every direction, as though the plain were alive with invisible
horsemen. These sandy cloudlets were instantly dissipated by the wind;
it was the larger clouds that were lifted whole into the air, and the
larger clouds of sand were becoming more and more the rule.
Alfred’s eye, quickly scanning the horizon, descried the roof of the
boundary-rider’s hut still gleaming in the sunlight. He remembered the
hut well. It could not be farther than four miles, if as much as that,
from this point of the track. He also knew these dust-storms of old;
Bindarra was notorious for them: Without thinking twice, Alfred put
spurs to his horse and headed for the hut. Before he had ridden half
the distance the detached clouds of sand banded together in one dense
whirlwind, and it was only owing to his horse’s instinct that he did
not ride wide of the hut altogether; for during the last half-mile he
never saw the hut, until its outline loomed suddenly over his horse’s
ears; and by then the sun was invisible.—“_A Bride from the Bush_.”
It rained forty days and forty nights.—_Genesis_.