When Jethro Bass walked out of the hotel that evening men looked at him,
and made way for him, but none spoke to him. There was something in his
face that forbade speech. He was a great man once more--a greater man
than ever; and he had, if the persistent rumors were true, accomplished
an almost incomprehensible feat, even for Jethro Bass. There was another
reason, too, why they stared at him. In all those twelve weeks of that
most trying of all sessions he had not once gone into the street, and
he had been less than ever common in the eyes of men. Twice a day he had
descended to the dining room for a simple meal--that was all; and fewer
had gained entrance to Room Number 7 this session than ever before.
There is a river that flows by the capital, a wide and gentle river
bordered by green meadows and fringed with willows; higher up, if you go
far enough, a forest comes down to the water on the western side. Jethro
walked through the hooded bridge, and up the eastern bank until he could
see the forest like a black band between the orange sky and the orange
river, and there he sat down upon a fallen log on the edge of the bank.
But Jethro was thinking of another scene,--of a granite-ribbed pasture
on Coniston Mountain that swings in limitless space, from either end of
which a man may step off into eternity. William Wetherell, in one of
his letters, had described that place as the Threshold of the Nameless
Worlds, and so it had seemed to Jethro in the years of his desolation.
He was thinking of it now, even as it had been in his mind that winter's
evening when Cynthia had come to Coniston and had surprised him with
that look of terrible loneliness on his face.
Yes, and he was thinking of Cynthia. When, indeed, had he not been
thinking of her? How many tunes had he rehearsed the events in the
tannery house--for they were the events of his life now. The triumphs
over his opponents and enemies fell away, and the pride of power. Such
had not been his achievements. She had loved him, and no man had reached
a higher pinnacle than that.
Why he had forfeited that love for vengeance, he could not tell. The
embers of a man's passions will suddenly burst into flame, and he will
fiddle madly while the fire burns his soul. He had avenged her as well
as himself; but had he avenged her, now that he held Isaac Worthington
in his power? By crushing him, had he not added to her trouble and her
sorrow? She had confessed that she loved Isaac Worthington's son, and
was not he (Jethro) widening the breach between Cynthia and the son by
crushing the father? Jethro had not thought of this. But he had thought
of her, night and day, as he had sat in his room directing the battle.
Not a day had passed that he had not looked for a letter, hoping against
hope. If she had written to him once, if she had come to him once, would
he have desisted? He could not say--the fires of hatred had burned so
fiercely, and still burned so fiercely, that he clenched his fists when
it came over him that Isaac Worthington was at last in his power.
A white line above the forest was all that remained of the sunset when
he rose up and took from his coat a silver locket and opened it and held
it to the fading light. Presently he closed it again, and walked slowly
along the river bank toward the little city twinkling on its hill. He
crossed the hooded bridge and climbed the slope, stopping for a moment
at a little stationery shop; he passed through the groups which were
still loudly discussing this thing he had done, and gained his room and
locked the door. Men came to it and knocked and got no answer. The room
was in darkness, and the night breeze stirred among the trees in the
park and blew in at the window.
At last Jethro got up and lighted the gas and paused at the centre
table. He was to violate more than one principle of his life that night,
though not without a struggle; and he sat for a long while looking at
the blank paper before him. Then he wrote, and sealed the letter--which
contained three lines--and pulled the bell cord. The call was answered
by a messenger who had been far many years in the service of the Pelican
House, and who knew many secrets of the gods. The man actually grew pale
when he saw the address on the envelope which was put in his hand and
read the denomination of the crisp note under it that was the price of
silence.
“F-find the gentleman and give it to him yourself. Er--John?”
“Yes, Mr. Bass?”
“If you don't find him, bring it--back.”
When the man had gone, Jethro turned down the gas and went again to his
chair by the window. For a while voices came up to him from the street,
but at length the groups dispersed, one by one; and a distant clock
boomed out eleven solemn strokes. Twice the clock struck again, at the
half-hour and midnight, and the noises in the house--the banging
of doors and the jangling of keys and the hurrying of feet in the
corridors--were hushed. Jethro took no thought of these or of time, and
sat gazing at the stars in the depths of the sky above the capital dome
until a shadow emerged from the black mass of the trees opposite
and crossed the street. In a few minutes there were footsteps in the
corridor,--stealthy footsteps--and a knock on the door. Jethro got up
and opened it, and closed it again and locked it. Then he turned up the
gas.
“S-sit down,” he said, and nodded his head toward the chair by the
table.
Isaac Worthington laid his silk hat on the table, and sat down. He
looked very haggard and worn in that light, very unlike the first
citizen who had entered Brampton in triumph on his return from the West
not many months before. The long strain of a long fight, in which he had
risked much for which he had labored a life to gain, had told on him,
and there were crow's-feet at the corners of, his eyes, and dark circles
under them. Isaac Worthington had never lost before, and to destroy the
fruits of such a man's ambition is to destroy the man. He was not as
young as he had once been. But now, in the very hour of defeat, hope
had rekindled the fire in the eyes and brought back the peculiar,
tight-lipped, mocking smile to the mouth. An hour ago, when he had
been pacing Alexander Duncan's library, the eyes and the mouth had been
different.
Long habit asserts itself at the strangest moments. Jethro Bass took his
seat by the window, and remained silent. The clock tolled the half-hour
after midnight.
“You wanted to see me,” said Mr. Worthington, finally.
Jethro nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“I suppose,” said Mr. Worthington, slowly, “I suppose you are ready to
sell out.” He found it a little difficult to control his voice.
“Yes,” answered Jethro, “r-ready to sell out.”
Mr. Worthington was somewhat taken aback by this simple admission. He
glanced at Jethro sitting motionless by the window, and in his heart
he feared him: he had come into that room when the gas was low, afraid.
Although he would not confess it to himself, he had been in fear of
Jethro Bass all his life, and his fear had been greater than ever since
the March day when Jethro had left Coniston. And could he have known,
now, the fires of hatred burning in Jethro's breast, Isaac Worthington
would have been in terror indeed.
“What have you got to sell?” he demanded sharply.
“G-guess you know, or you wouldn't have come here.”
“What proof have I that you have it to sell?”
Jethro looked at him for an instant.
“M-my word,” he said.
Isaac Worthington was silent for a while: he was striving to calm
himself, for an indefinable something had shaken him. The strange
stillness of the hour and the stranger atmosphere which seemed to
surround this transaction filled him with a nameless dread. The man in
the window had been his lifelong enemy: more than this, Jethro Bass, was
not like ordinary men--his ways were enshrouded in mystery, and when he
struck, he struck hard. There grew upon Isaac Worthington a sense that
this midnight hour was in some way to be the culmination of the long
years of hatred between them.
He believed Jethro: he would have believed him even if Mr. Flint had not
informed him that afternoon that he was beaten, and bitterly he wished
he had taken Mr. Flint's advice many months before. Denunciation
sprang to his lips which he dared not utter. He was beaten, and he must
pay--the pound of flesh. Isaac Worthington almost thought it would be a
pound of flesh.
“How much do you want?” he said.
Again Jethro looked at him.
“B-biggest price you can pay,” he answered.
“You must have made up your mind what you want. You've had time enough.”
“H-have made up my mind,” said Jethro.
“Make your demand,” said Mr. Worthington, “and I'll give you my answer.”
“B-biggest price you can pay,” said Jethro, again.
Mr. Worthington's nerves could stand it no longer.
“Look here,” he cried, rising in his chair, “if you've brought me here
to trifle with me, you've made a mistake. It's your business to get
control of things that belong to other people, and sell them out. I
am here to buy. Nothing but necessity brings me here, and nothing but
necessity will keep me here a moment longer than I have to stay to
finish this abominable affair. I am ready to pay you twenty thousand
dollars the day that bill becomes a law.”
This time Jethro did not look at him.
“P-pay me now,” he said.
“I will pay you the day the bill becomes a law. Then I shall know where
I stand.”
Jethro did not answer this ultimatum in any manner, but remained
perfectly still looking out of the window. Mr. Worthington glanced at
him, twice, and got his fingers on the brim of his hat, but he did not
pick it up. He stood so for a while, knowing full well that if he went
out of that room his chance was gone. Consolidation might come in other
years, but he, Isaac Worthington, would not be a factor in it.
“You don't want a check, do you?” he said at last.
“No--d-don't want a check.”
“What in God's name do you want? I haven't got twenty thousand dollars
in currency in my pocket.”
“Sit down, Isaac Worthington,” said Jethro.
Mr. Worthington sat down--out of sheer astonishment, perhaps.
“W-want the consolidation--don't you? Want it bad--don't you?”
Mr. Worthington did, not answer. Jethro stood over him now, looking down
at him from the other side of the narrow table.
“Know Cynthy Wetherell?” he said.
Then Isaac Worthington understood that his premonitions had been real.
The pound of flesh was to be demanded, but strangely enough, he did not
yet comprehend the nature of it.
“I know that there is such a person,” he answered, for his pride would
not permit him to say more.
“W-what do you know about her?”
Isaac Worthington was bitterly angry--the more so because he was
helpless, and could not question Jethro's right to ask. What did he
know about her? Nothing, except that she had intrigued to marry his son.
Bob's letter had described her, to be sure, but he could not be expected
to believe that: and he had not heard Miss Lucretia Penniman's speech.
And yet he could not tell Jethro that he knew nothing about her, for he
was shrewd enough to perceive the drift of the next question.
“Kn-know anything against her?” said Jethro.
Mr. Worthington leaned back in his chair.
“I can't see what Miss Wetherell has to do with the present occasion,”
he replied.
“H-had her dismissed by the prudential committee had her
dismissed--didn't you?”
“They chose to act as they saw fit.”
“T-told Levi Dodd to dismiss her--didn't you?”
That was a matter of common knowledge in Brampton, having leaked out
through Jonathan Hill.
“I must decline to discuss this,” said Mr. Worthington.
“W-wouldn't if I was you.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. T-told Levi Dodd to dismiss her, didn't you?”
“Yes, I did.” Isaac Worthington had lost in self-esteem by not saying so
before.
“Why? Wahn't she honest? Wahn't she capable? Wahn't she a lady?”
“I can't say that I know anything against Miss Wetherell's character, if
that's what you mean.”
“F-fit to teach--wahn't she--fit to teach?”
“I believe she has since qualified before Mr. Errol.”
“Fit to teach--wahn't fit to marry your son--was she?”
Isaac Worthington clutched the table and started from his chair. He
grew white to his lips with anger, and yet he knew that he must control
himself.
“Mr. Bass,” he said, “you have something to sell, and I have something
to buy--if the price is not ruinous. Let us confine ourselves to that.
My affairs and my son's affairs are neither here nor there. I ask you
again, how much do you want for this Consolidation Bill?”
“N-no money will buy it.”
“What!”
“C-consent to this marriage, c-consent to this marriage.” There was yet
room for Isaac Worthington to be amazed, and for a while he stared up at
Jethro, speechless.
“Is that your price?” he asked at last.
“Th-that's my price,” said Jethro.
Isaac Worthington got up and went to the window and stood looking
out above the black mass of trees at the dome outlined against the
star-flecked sky. At first his anger choked him, and he could not
think; he had just enough reason left not to walk out of the door. But
presently habit asserted itself in him, too, and he began to reflect
and calculate in spite of his anger. It is strange that memory plays so
small a part in such a man. Before he allowed his mind to dwell on the
fearful price, he thought of his ambitions gratified; and yet he did
not think then of the woman to whom he had once confided those
ambitions--the woman who was the girl's mother. Perhaps Jethro was
thinking of her.
It may have been--I know not--that Isaac Worthington wondered at this
revelation of the character of Jethro Bass, for it was a revelation. For
this girl's sake Jethro was willing to forego his revenge, was willing
at the end of his days to allow the world to believe that he had sold
out to his enemy, or that he had been defeated by him.
But when he thought of the marriage, Isaac Worthington ground his teeth.
A certain sentiment which we may call pride was so strong in him that he
felt ready to make almost any sacrifice to prevent it. To hinder it
he had quarrelled with his son, and driven him away, and threatened
disinheritance. The price was indeed heavy--the heaviest he could pay.
But the alternative--was not that heavier? To relinquish his dream of
power, to sink for a while into a crippled state; for he had spent large
sums, and one of those periodical depressions had come in the business
of the mills, and those Western investments were not looking so bright
now.
So, with his hands opening and closing in front of him, Isaac
Worthington fought out his battle. A terrible war, that, between
ambition and pride--a war to the knife. The issue may yet have been
undecided when he turned round to Jethro with a sneer which he could not
resist.
“Why doesn't she marry him without my consent?”
In a moment Mr. Worthington knew he had gone too far. A certain kind of
an eye is an incomparable weapon, and armed men have been cowed by those
who possess it, though otherwise defenceless. Jethro Bass had that kind
of an eye.
“G-guess you wouldn't understand if I was to tell you,” he said.
Mr. Worthington walked to the window again, perhaps to compose himself,
and then came back again.
“Your proposition is,” he said at length, “that if I give my consent
to this marriage, we are to have Bixby and the governor, and the
Consolidation Bill will become a law. Is that it?”
“Th-that's it,” said Jethro, taking his accustomed seat.
“And this consent is to be given when the bill becomes a law?”
“Given now. T-to-night.”
Mr. Worthington took another turn as far as the door, and suddenly came
and stood before Jethro.
“Well, I consent.”
Jethro nodded toward the table.
“Er--pen and paper there,” he said.
“What do you want me to do?” demanded Mr. Worthington.
“W-write to Bob--write to Cynthy. Nice letters.”
“This is carrying matters with too high a hand, Mr. Bass. I will write
the letters to-morrow morning.” It was intolerable that he, the first
citizen of Brampton, should have to submit to such humiliation.
“Write 'em now. W-want to see 'em.”
“But if I give you my word they will be written and sent to you
to-morrow afternoon?”
“T-too late,” said Jethro; “sit down and write 'em now.”
Mr. Worthington went irresolutely to the table, stood for a minute,
and dropped suddenly into the chair there. He would have given anything
(except the realization of his ambitions) to have marched out of the
room and to have slammed the door behind him. The letter paper and
envelopes which Jethro had bought stood in a little pile, and Mr.
Worthington picked up the pen. The clock struck two as he wrote the
date, as though to remind him that he had written it wrong. If Flint
could see him now! Would Flint guess? Would anybody guess? He stared at
the white paper, and his rage came on again like a gust of wind, and he
felt that he would rather beg in the streets than write such a thing.
And yet--and yet he sat there. Surely Jethro Bass must have known that
he could have taken no more exquisite vengeance than this, to compel a
man--and such a man--to sit down in the white heat of passion--and write
two letters of forgiveness! Jethro sat by the window, to all appearances
oblivious to the tortures of his victim.
He who has tried to write a note--the simplest note when his mind was
harassed, will understand something of Isaac Worthington's sensations.
He would no sooner get an inkling of what his opening sentence was to be
than the flames of his anger would rise and sweep it away. He could
not even decide which letter he was to write first: to his son, who had
defied him and who (the father knew in his heart) condemned him? or
to the schoolteacher, who was responsible for all his misery; who--Mr.
Worthington believed--had taken advantage of his son's youth by feminine
wiles of no mean order so as to gain possession of him. I can almost
bring myself to pity the first citizen of Brampton as he sits there
with his pen poised over the paper, and his enemy waiting to read those
tender epistles of forgiveness which he has yet to write. The clock has
almost got round to the half-hour again, and there is only the date--and
a wrong one at that.
“My dear Miss Wetherell,--Circumstances (over which I have no
control?)”--ought he not to call her Cynthia? He has to make the letter
credible in the eyes of the censor who sits by the window. “My dear Miss
Wetherell, I have come to the conclusion”--two sheets torn up, or thrust
into Mr. Worthington's pocket. By this time words have begun to have a
colorless look. “My dear Miss Wetherell,--Having become convinced of
the sincere attachment which my son Robert has for you, I am writing
him to-night to give my full consent to his marriage. He has given me
to understand that you have hitherto persistently refused to accept him
because I have withheld that consent, and I take this opportunity of
expressing my admiration of this praiseworthy resolution on your part.”
(If this be irony, it is sublime! Perhaps Isaac Worthington has a little
of the artist in him, and now that he is in the heat of creation has
forgotten the circumstances under which he is composing.) “My son's
happiness and career in life are of such moment to me that, until the
present, I could not give my sanction to what I at first regarded as
a youthful fancy. Now that, my son, for your sake, has shown his
determination and ability to make his own way in the world,” (Isaac
Worthington was not a little proud of this) “I have determined that it
is wise to withdraw my opposition, and to recall Robert to his proper
place, which is near me. I am sure that my feelings in this matter will
be clear to you, and that you will look with indulgence upon any acts
of mine which sprang from a natural solicitation for the welfare and
happiness of my only child. I shall be in Brampton in a day or two, and
I shall at once give myself the pleasure of calling on you. Sincerely
yours, Isaac D. Worthington.”
Perhaps a little formal and pompous for some people, but an admirable
and conciliatory letter for the first citizen of Brampton. Written under
such trying circumstances, with I know not how many erasures and false
starts, it is little short of a marvel in art: neither too much said,
nor too little, for a relenting parent of Mr. Worthington's character,
and I doubt whether Talleyrand or Napoleon or even Machiavelli himself
could have surpassed it. The second letter, now that Mr. Worthington had
got into the swing, was more easily written. “My dear Robert” (it said),
“I have made up my mind to give my consent to your marriage to Miss
Wetherell, and I am ready to welcome you home, where I trust I shall
see you shortly. I have not been unimpressed by the determined manner in
which you have gone to work for yourself, but I believe that your place
is in Brampton, where I trust you will show the same energy in learning
to succeed me in the business which I have founded there as you have
exhibited in Mr. Broke's works. Affectionately, your Father.”
A very creditable and handsome letter for a forgiving father. When Mr.
Worthington had finished it, and had addressed both the envelopes, his
shame and vexation had, curious to relate, very considerably abated.
Not to go too deeply into the somewhat contradictory mental and cardiac
processes of Mr. Worthington, he had somehow tricked himself by that
magic exercise of wielding his pen into thinking that he was doing a
noble and generous action: into believing that in the course of a very
few days--or weeks, at the most, he would have recalled his erring son
and have given Cynthia his blessing. He would, he told himself, have
been forced eventually to yield when that paragon of inflexibility, Bob,
dictated terms to him at the head of the locomotive works. Better
let the generosity be on his (Mr. Worthington's) side. At all events,
victory had never been bought more cheaply. Humiliation, in Mr.
Worthington's eyes, had an element of publicity in it, and this
episode had had none of that element; and Jethro Bass, moreover, was a
highwayman who had held a pistol to his head. In such logical manner he
gradually bolstered up again his habitual poise and dignity. Next
week, at the latest, men would point to him as the head of the largest
railroad interests in the state.
He pushed back his chair, and rose, merely indicating the result of his
labors by a wave of his hand. And he stood in the window as Jethro Bass
got up and went to the table. I would that I had a pen able to describe
Jethro's sensations when he read them. Unfortunately, he is a man with
few facial expressions. But I believe that he was artist enough himself
to appreciate the perfections of the first citizen's efforts. After
a much longer interval than was necessary for their perusal, Mr.
Worthington turned.
“G-guess they'll do,” said Jethro, as he folded them up. He was too
generous not to indulge, for once, in a little well-deserved praise.
“Hain't underdone it, and hain't overdone it a mite hev you? M-man of
resource. Callate you couldn't hev beat that if you was to take a week
to it.”
“I think it only fair to tell you,” said Mr. Worthington, picking up his
silk hat, “that in those letters I have merely anticipated a very little
my intentions in the matter. My son having proved his earnestness, I was
about to consent to the marriage of my own accord.”
“G-goin' to do it anyway--was you?”
“I had so determined.”
“A-always thought you was high-minded,” said Jethro.
Mr. Worthington was on the point of giving a tart reply to this, but
restrained himself.
“Then I may look upon the matter as settled?” he said. “The
Consolidation Bill is to become a law?”
“Yes,” said Jethro, “you'll get your bill.” Mr. Worthington had got his
hand on the knob of the door when Jethro stopped him with a word. He had
no facial expressions, but he had an eye, as we have seen--an eye
that for the second time appeared terrible to his visitor. “Isaac
Worthington,” he said, “a-act up to it. No trickery--or look out--look
out.”
Then, the incident being closed so far as he was concerned, Jethro went
back to his chair by the window, but it is to be recorded that Isaac
Worthington did not answer him immediately. Then he said:--
“You seem to forget that you are talking to a gentleman.”
“That's so,” answered Jethro, “so you be.”
He sat where he was long after the sky had whitened and the stars had
changed from gold to silver and gone out, and the sunlight had begun to
glance upon the green leaves of the park. Perhaps he was thinking of the
life he had lived, which was spent now: of the men he had ruled, of the
victories he had gained from that place which would know him no more.
He had won the last and the greatest of his victories there, compared
to which the others had indeed been as vanities. Perhaps he looked back
over the highway of his life and thought of the woman whom he had loved,
and wondered what it had been if she had trod it by his side. Who will
judge him? He had been what he had been; and as the Era was, so was he.
Verily, one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.
When Mr. Isaac Worthington arrived at Mr. Duncan's house, where he was
staying, at three o'clock in the morning, he saw to his surprise light
from the library windows lying in bars across the lawn under the trees.
He found Mr. Duncan in that room with Somers, his son, who had just
returned from a seaside place, and they were discussing a very grave
event. Miss Janet Duncan had that day eloped with a gentleman
who--to judge from the photograph Somers held--was both handsome and
romantic-looking. He had long hair and burning eyes, and a title not to
be then verified, and he owned a castle near some place on the peninsula
of Italy not on the map.