THE ADVERTISEMENT.
I WAITED in silence for the disclosure that was now to come. Naomi
began by asking me a question.
“You remember when we went to see Ambrose in the prison?” she said.
“Perfectly.”
“Ambrose told us of something which his villain of a brother said of
John Jago and me. Do you remember what it was?”
I remembered perfectly. Silas had said, “John Jago is too sweet on
Naomi not to come back.”
“That’s so,” Naomi remarked when I had repeated the words. “I couldn’t
help starting when I heard what Silas had said; and I thought you
noticed me.”
“I did notice you.”
“Did you wonder what it meant?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell you. It meant this: What Silas Meadowcroft said to his
brother of John Jago was what I myself was thinking of John Jago at
that very moment. It startled me to find my own thought in a man’s mind
spoken for me by a man. I am the person, sir, who has driven John Jago
away from Morwick Farm; and I am the person who can and will bring him
back again.”
There was something in her manner, more than in her words, which let
the light in suddenly on my mind.
“You have told me the secret,” I said. “John Jago is in love with you.”
“Mad about me!” she rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Stark,
staring mad!--that’s the only word for him. After we had taken a few
turns on the gravel-walk, he suddenly broke out like a man beside
himself. He fell down on his knees; he kissed my gown, he kissed my
feet; he sobbed and cried for love of me. I’m not badly off for
courage, sir, considering I’m a woman. No man, that I can call to mind,
ever really scared me before. But I own John Jago frightened me; oh my!
he did frighten me! My heart was in my mouth, and my knees shook under
me. I begged and prayed of him to get up and go away. No; there he
knelt, and held by the skirt of my gown. The words poured out from him
like--well, like nothing I can think of but water from a pump. His
happiness and his life, and his hopes in earth and heaven, and Lord
only knows what besides, all depended, he said, on a word from me. I
plucked up spirit enough at that to remind him that I was promised to
Ambrose. ‘I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ I said, ‘to own
that you’re wicked enough to love me when you know I am promised to
another man!’ When I spoke to him he took a new turn; he began abusing
Ambrose. _That_ straightened me up. I snatched my gown out of his hand,
and I gave him my whole mind. ‘I hate you!’ I said. ‘Even if I wasn’t
promised to Ambrose, I wouldn’t marry you--no! not if there wasn’t
another man left in the world to ask me. I hate you, Mr. Jago! I hate
you!’ He saw I was in earnest at last. He got up from my feet, and he
settled down quiet again, all on a sudden. ‘You have said enough’ (that
was how he answered me). ‘You have broken my life. I have no hopes and
no prospects now. I had a pride in the farm, miss, and a pride in my
work; I bore with your brutish cousins’ hatred of me; I was faithful to
Mr. Meadowcroft’s interests; all for your sake, Naomi Colebrook--all
for your sake! I have done with it now; I have done with my life at the
farm. You will never be troubled with me again. I am going away, as the
dumb creatures go when they are sick, to hide myself in a corner, and
die. Do me one last favor. Don’t make me the laughing-stock of the whole
neighborhood. I can’t bear that; it maddens me only to think of it.
Give me your promise never to tell any living soul what I have said to
you to-night--your sacred promise to the man whose life you have
broken!’ I did as he bade me; I gave him my sacred promise with the
tears in my eyes. Yes, that is so. After telling him I hated him (and I
did hate him), I cried over his misery; I did! Mercy, what fools women
are! What is the horrid perversity, sir, which makes us always ready to
pity the men? He held out his hand to me; and he said, ‘Good-by
forever!’ and I pitied him. I said, ‘I’ll shake hands with you if you
will give me your promise in exchange for mine. I beg of you not to
leave the farm. What will my uncle do if you go away? Stay here, and be
friends with me, and forget and forgive, Mr. John.’ He gave me his
promise (he can refuse me nothing); and he gave it again when I saw him
again the next morning. Yes. I’ll do him justice, though I do hate him!
I believe he honestly meant to keep his word as long as my eye was on
him. It was only when he was left to himself that the Devil tempted him
to break his promise and leave the farm. I was brought up to believe in
the Devil, Mr. Lefrank; and I find it explains many things. It explains
John Jago. Only let me find out where he has gone, and I’ll engage he
shall come back and clear Ambrose of the suspicion which his vile
brother has cast on him. Here is the pen all ready for you. Advertise
for him, friend Lefrank; and do it right away, for my sake!”
I let her run on, without attempting to dispute her conclusions, until
she could say no more. When she put the pen into my hand, I began the
composition of the advertisement as obediently as if I, too, believed
that John Jago was a living man.
In the case of any one else, I should have openly acknowledged that my
own convictions remained unshaken. If no quarrel had taken place at the
lime-kiln, I should have been quite ready, as I viewed the case, to
believe that John Jago’s disappearance was referable to the terrible
disappointment which Naomi had inflicted on him. The same morbid dread
of ridicule which had led him to assert that he cared nothing for
Naomi, when he and Silas had quarreled under my bedroom window, might
also have impelled him to withdraw himself secretly and suddenly from
the scene of his discomfiture. But to ask me to believe, after what had
happened at the lime-kiln, that he was still living, was to ask me to
take Ambrose Meadowcroft’s statement for granted as a true statement of
facts.
I had refused to do this from the first; and I still persisted in
taking that course. If I had been called upon to decide the balance of
probability between the narrative related by Ambrose in his defense and
the narrative related by Silas in his confession, I must have owned, no
matter how unwillingly, that the confession was, to my mind, the least
incredible story of the two.
Could I say this to Naomi? I would have written fifty advertisements
inquiring for John Jago rather than say it; and you would have done the
same, if you had been as fond of her as I was. I drew out the
advertisement, for insertion in the Morwick _Mercury_, in these terms:
MURDER.--Printers of newspapers throughout the United States are
desired to publish that Ambrose Meadowcroft and Silas Meadowcroft, of
Morwick Farm, Morwick County, are committed for trial on the charge of
murdering John Jago, now missing from the farm and from the
neighborhood. Any person who can give information of the existence of
said Jago may save the lives of two wrongly-accused men by making
immediate communication. Jago is about five feet four inches high. He
is spare and wiry; his complexion is extremely pale, his eyes are dark,
and very bright and restless. The lower part of his face is concealed
by a thick black beard and mustache. The whole appearance of the man is
wild and flighty.
I added the date and the address. That evening a servant was sent on
horseback to Narrabee to procure the insertion of the advertisement in
the next issue of the newspaper.
When we parted that night, Naomi looked almost like her brighter and
happier self. Now that the advertisement was on its way to the
printing-office, she was more than sanguine: she was certain of the
result.
“You don’t know how you have comforted me,” she said, in her frank,
warm-hearted way, when we parted for the night. “All the newspapers
will copy it, and we shall hear of John Jago before the week is out.”
She turned to go, and came back again to me. “I will never forgive
Silas for writing that confession!” she whispered in my ear. “If he
ever lives under the same roof with Ambrose again, I--well, I believe I
wouldn’t marry Ambrose if he did! There!”
She left me. Through the wakeful hours of the night my mind dwelt on
her last words. That she should contemplate, under any circumstances,
even the bare possibility of not marrying Ambrose, was, I am ashamed to
say, a direct encouragement to certain hopes which I had already begun
to form in secret. The next day’s mail brought me a letter on business.
My clerk wrote to inquire if there was any chance of my returning to
England in time to appear in court at the opening of next law term. I
answered, without hesitation, “It is still impossible for me to fix the
date of my return.” Naomi was in the room while I was writing. How
would she have answered, I wonder, if I had told her the truth, and
said, “You are responsible for this letter?”