THE CYNIC'S SHADOW
The doubt and distrust of all humanity, first implanted in Winn Hardy's
mind by his friend and adviser, Nickerson, was now working its
inevitable injury. Much of it had been brushed away during Winn's
association with the simple and honest people of Rockhaven and
especially Jess; but now that he was back again in the city and in touch
with its pushing, selfish life, once more cynicism ruled him. His
vocation as reporter paid poorly; he was in daily contact with
unscrupulous and suspicious men, saw poverty begging in alleyways and
arrogant wealth riding in carriages, men obsequiously bowing before the
rich and snubbing the poor, and on all sides and in all ways he was made
to realize that money was the god the city worshipped, and show, its
religion.
On Sunday, when the usual morning chimes answered each other, his
thoughts flew to Rockhaven and the two bells there; but when with his
aunt, in church, he listened to the operatic singing and classic
sermon, it all seemed to lack heart and sincerity, and not one solitary
note of supplication entered the minister's prayer. Then the elegantly
dressed ladies who greeted one another as at a reception, the men who
looked bored and at the close of the service seemed relieved, each and
all seemed to Winn to be there on exhibition.
Then, too, his moral safeguards were in daily danger, and the sneering
Nickerson, their assailant.
"Well, old boy," he said to Winn one evening at the club, "how do you
like penny-a-lining these cold winter days? Is an editorship any nearer
in sight?"
"Nothing in sight for me except one demnition grind," replied Winn,
disconsolately; "I get discouraged sometimes and think I am no good on
earth."
Nickerson looked at him with a sarcastic smile.
"Winn, my dear fellow," he said at last, "I'm going to be very candid
with you, so don't be angry with me. To begin with you are too honest
and too good-hearted. You think of others first and yourself last, and
then you have scruples. Now scruples don't go here in the city, and
whoever cultivates them gets left. In the first place, Weston & Hill
played you for a dupe, and if I hadn't come to the rescue, you'd have
been stranded on the island and out five hundred, and the natives would
have been ready to ride you on a rail. Then when we saved your bacon and
you knew they were two thieves, you even returned them the little extra
money they had sent you to pay the men. I won't say anything about the
heroic way you made your aunt's loss good. It was heroic, but it wasn't
sense.
"Now, after all this eye-opening experience, and you on your uppers, so
to speak, I offered to start you in a lawful business, you won't have
it, simply because it smacks of gambling! Winn, you are one of the best
fellows in the world, and I like you, but you are a fool--net!"
"Well, I'll keep on being one," answered Winn warmly (for no man enjoys
plain truth), "before I'll open a bucket shop and knowingly rob people."
"Yes, and walk while the rest ride," asserted Jack, tersely, "you know
the old deacon's advice to his son just starting out in life,--'Make
money, my son, honestly if you can, but make it!'"
"All very good," replied Winn, "but old. I doubt whether you can change
my fool ideas, if you talk till doomsday; but you may mellow them. And
that reminds me of another fool thing I've done. I bought the sole
right, title, and deed of the Rockhaven Granite Company's quarry a few
weeks ago."
"The wisest buy you ever made, my boy," answered Jack, quickly; "and now
if you will hustle around and get some men to put money into a new
company, you will be in luck once more." Then, as another idea came to
this quick-witted man of the world, he added, "What's the matter with
Jess Hutton and all the money we made for him?"
But Winn was silent, while a tide of memory swept over his feelings. And
in it was Mona, with her tender love, and Jess, with the heart and hand
he offered at parting, and all the good people on the island whom Winn
knew to be his friends. And as all the possibilities Rockhaven contained
came back to him, now it suddenly dawned upon him that Jack Nickerson
had named him rightly.
"I see I've put you to sleep," continued Jack, after the long pause
while he watched Winn, "and now I'll wake you up. I saw Ethel Sherman in
a box at the theatre last night, with our mutual friend, Simmons. He
must have reached his second childhood!"
Then Winn did wake up.
And more than that, a few unconsidered trifles connected with this same
vivacious Ethel assumed index shape. He recalled that she had for the
past six weeks specified the evenings she would be at home to him, for
a week ahead. He also recalled that a plenitude of choicest flowers had
always graced her parlor lately.
"And why not," he answered coolly, "old Simmons is a widower worth a
million, has just built an elegant new residence of the granite we
quarried, and Ethel's in the market. I think she shows good sense--at
least your kind of good sense, Jack."
"Yes, and of all experienced people," asserted Nickerson, defiantly.
"Sentiment is a fine thing in books or on the stage, it may influence
silly girls or callow boys, but it's out of date in this age."
And Winn, recalling his own early episode with Ethel, and the lesson in
life that for weeks had been forced upon him, was more than half
inclined to believe his friend to be right.
And yet, as he thought of this prospective January and May affair, and a
fossil like Simmons, with dyed hair, false teeth, and certainly sixty
years wrinkling his face, he felt disgusted with Ethel. And the more he
thought of the groove he was in, of the cold, selfish, grasping city
life where mammon was king and sentiment a jest, the more his heart
turned to Rockhaven. Then the thought of Mona came back to him, and a
yearning for her, impossible to resist. And with it, self-reproach that
he had let his own discouragement control his actions so long. A few
days more did he waver, and then his heart's impulse won.
The winter had nearly passed and the days were lengthening when this
impulse came, but he waited no longer.
"I'm going to Rockhaven," he said to his aunt that night, "and shall be
gone a few days. I've obtained a week's leave of absence from the paper,
and start to-morrow. I want to see Jess Hutton and some of my old
friends there. I've also an idea that possibly the quarry can be started
again. If I can bring it about," he added, after a pause, "how would you
feel about loaning me a few thousand dollars, auntie?"
Then the motherly side of Mrs. Converse spoke out.
"I'll do it gladly, Winn," she responded. "I've felt all along that the
money you saved me was more yours than mine, and you shall have all of
it that you need."
And when Winn left the city, as once before, a new courage and new hopes
tinged his horizon.
And first and foremost in them was the flowerlike face and soulful eyes
of Mona.
The wisest of us, however, are but mere bats in this world, blindly
flying hither and thither. At times one may, by sheer good luck, fly
free; and then again we strike our heads against a wall.
Yet we think we are very wise.
And so, Winn Hardy, full of hope and love, found, when he reached the
coast town where the steamer _Rockhaven_ made landing, that her trips
were but twice a week now and he had a full day to wait.
How slowly it passed while he chafed at the delay! how his eagerness to
be with Mona grew! how his longing increased as he counted the hours he
must wait! and with all mingled a self-reproach, need not be specified.
For it had dawned upon Winn that his conclusions regarding Mona might
have been wrong, and once we feel that we have made a mistake, we soon
feel sure that it must be so.
And Winn was now certain.
But he would and could repair it easily. All that was necessary was to
assure Mona that he had been discouraged or he would have written again,
and to reproach her gently for neglecting to answer his letter.
How easily we plan excuses for our own conduct, and how like a child's
toy we are apt to consider a woman's heart!
When, after a day's wait that seemed a week to Winn, the _Rockhaven_
made landing, he leaped aboard to grasp Captain Roby's hand almost as
he would a father's. But a half gale was blowing outside, the captain
nervously anxious to unload, and start back; and only a word of greeting
did Winn receive until the steamer was well under way toward Rockhaven.
Then, feeling privileged, he entered the little pilot house.
"Well, Captain Roby," he said, "how are you and how's the island?"
"Oh, it's thar yit," answered that bronze-faced skipper, shifting the
wheel a point and heading seaward, "an' likely to stay thar. It seems
sorter nat'rel to see ye, Mr. Hardy," he added cheerfully, "an' I'm
right glad to git the chance. We've been wonderin' what become o' ye an'
how the quarryin' business was comin' out. Ye ain't thinkin' o' startin'
it up agin, air ye?"
"Possibly," answered Winn, "in fact, that is a part of my errand here,
and to make you all a visit. The old company failed, as, I presume, you
know, and I've bought the quarry myself now."
"I'm mighty glad on't," replied the captain cordially, "an' so'll all on
us be. We've sorter took to ye, Mr. Hardy."
"And how is my old friend, Jess?" asked Winn, unable to withhold that
query longer, "and Mrs. Hutton and her daughter and Mrs. Moore?"
"Wal, Jess an' the Widder Hutton took a notion to git hitched long 'fore
Christmas," answered the captain slowly, "an' they're gone to the city
'n' taken Mona with 'em. We gin 'em a great send-off, and I run ashore
jist a purpose for 'em. It's curus ye haint seen Jess up thar. I'd
a-s'posed ye would."
Winn's heart sank.
"When do you go back, captain?" he said finally, trying to hide his
bitter disappointment. "I supposed you made daily trips as usual."
"Only Tuesdays and Fridays," he answered; "thar ain't much need o'
runnin' oftener."
And this was Friday!
And Winn, the now ardent Romeo, had three full days and four nights to
spend on Rockhaven, and Juliet was not there!
There are many of the fair sex who will say that it served him right.
And what a picture of cheerless desolation was this sea-girt island when
Winn neared it! A half gale was blowing, the waves leaping high against
the snow-topped cliffs, and as the _Rockhaven_, rolling, pitching, and
half coated with frozen spray, turned into the little harbor and neared
her dock, only one man, shivering in oil skins, was there to meet her.
"I wish ye'd put up with me," said Captain Roby to Winn, when the
steamer's plank was shoved out. "We'd be more'n glad to hev ye, an'll
make ye welcome."
And Winn, dreading the empty white cottage next to Mrs. Moore's fully as
much as that excellent woman's curiosity, accepted the captain's offer.
That evening, in spite of Winn's disappointment, was a pleasant one to
him, for the news of his arrival had flown like the wind, and a constant
stream of callers came to the captain's house. It seemed as if all
Rockhaven was desirous of extending a welcome hand, and from Parson Bush
down to men whose names Winn had never known, they kept coming. Never
before had he been so lionized or made to feel that he had so many
friends, and so cordially did they one and all greet him that, had the
Rev. Bush suggested that they all join in a hymn of thankfulness, Winn
would not have been more surprised. It recalled the parting words of
Jess, and in a forcible way.
But alas! that genial philosopher was absent!
Winn, however, saw his opening, and with a little natural pride, stated
that he now owned the quarry, and, if some capital could be furnished
by these island people, he was in a position to put in a matter of five
or ten thousand dollars, and the industry would be started anew. Then as
a climax to this proposition, he read to them the history of the
Rockhaven Granite Company and gave a description of the auction of its
assets.
But he did not mention the price he had paid for the quarry.
It was midnight ere the crowd dispersed and Winn, proud and happy, was
shown to his room. But the next day a reaction came; for when he called
upon Mrs. Moore, as he felt he must, the closed white cottage next door
and the little dooryard, now under snow, where Mona had reared her
flowers, seemed like a tomb. His worthy landlady was overjoyed to see
him, however, and gave an explicit account of the wedding that had
occurred, of Mrs. Hutton's dress, how pretty Mona looked and how happy
all were. She, too, supposed Winn must have heard of it, and marvelled
greatly that the Hutton family could have been in the city now three
months, and Winn not meet them. Where they were stopping, what doing,
and when they were to return, she knew not. So Winn left her, as much in
the dark as ever.
And then, though the snow lay thick on the ledges swept by the ocean's
winds, like a love-lorn swain he must visit Norse Hill and go over to
the gorge to peer into its interior, and the cave, then back to the old
tide mill and to the village. When Sunday came he was really glad to
attend church, and by evening was so disconsolate that he wished for
wings to fly to the mainland. In spite of cordiality, Rockhaven was now
a desolate spot.
And when Tuesday came and he sailed away, the sole passenger over the
misty ocean with Captain Roby, Winn was a wiser and sadder man. When he
reached the city he felt that if he could but find Mona, to kneel at her
feet and beg for her love would be a blessed privilege.