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[Illustration: "LET ME OPEN THE BURR FOR YOU." Chestnut Burr.
_Frontispiece._]
The Works of E. P. Roe
VOLUME FOUR
OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
ILLUSTRATED
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
In sending this, my fourth venture, out upon the uncertain waters of
public opinion, I shall say but few words of preface. In the past I
have received considerable well-deserved criticism from the gentlemen
of the caustic pen, but so far from having any hard feeling toward
them, I have rather wondered that they found so much to say that was
favorable. How they will judge this simple October story (if they think
it worth while to judge it at all) I leave to the future, and turn to
those for whom the book was really written.
In fancy I see them around the glowing hearth in quiet homes, such as I
have tried to describe in the following pages, and hope that this
new-comer will be welcomed for the sake of those that preceded it.
Possibly it may make friends of its own.
From widely separated parts of the country, and from almost every
class, I have received many and cordial assurances that my former books
were sources not only of pleasure, but also of help and benefit, and I
am deeply grateful for the privilege of unobtrusively entering so many
households, and saying words on that subject which is inseparable from
happiness in both worlds.
I think the purpose of the book will become apparent to the reader. The
incidents and characters are mainly imaginary.
Observation has shown me that there are many in the world, like my
hero, whose condition can be illustrated by the following lines:
Were some great ship all out of stores,
When half-way o'er the sea,
Fit emblem of too many lives,
Such vessel doomed would be.
Must there not be something fatally wrong in that scheme of life which
finds an heir of eternity weary, listless, discouraged, while yet in
the dawning of existence? It is not in perishing _things_, merely, to
give back the lost zest. But a glad zest and hopefulness might be
inspired even in the most jaded and _ennui_-cursed, were there in our
homes such simple, truthful natures as that of my heroine; and in the
sphere of quiet homes--not elsewhere--I believe that woman can best
rule and save the world.
Highland Falls, N.Y., September, 1874.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I A HERO BUT NOT HEROIC
CHAPTER II OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
CHAPTER III MORBID BROODING
CHAPTER IV HOW MISS WALTON MANAGED PEOPLE
CHAPTER V WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?
CHAPTER VI UNEXPECTED CHESTNUT BURRS
CHAPTER VII A CONSPIRACY
CHAPTER VIII WITCHCRAFT
CHAPTER IX MISS WALTON RECOMMENDS A HOBBY
CHAPTER X A PLOT AGAINST MISS WALTON
CHAPTER XI A DRINKING SONG AT A PRAYER-MEETING
CHAPTER XII FOILED IN ONE DIRECTION
CHAPTER XIII INTERPRETING CHESTNUT BURRS
CHAPTER XIV A WELL-MEANIN' MAN
CHAPTER XV MISS WALTON'S DREAM
CHAPTER XVI AN ACCIDENT IN THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER XVII PROMISE OR DIE
CHAPTER XVIII IN THE DEPTHS
CHAPTER XIX MISS WALTON MADE OF DIFFERENT CLAY FROM OTHERS
CHAPTER XX MISS WALTON MADE OF ORDINARY CLAY
CHAPTER XXI PASSION AND PENITENCE
CHAPTER XXII NOT A HEROINE BUT A WOMAN
CHAPTER XXIII GREGORY'S FINAL CONCLUSION
CHAPTER XXIV THE WORM-INFESTED CHESTNUT--GREGORY TELLS THE WORST
CHAPTER XXV THE OLD HOME IN DANGER--GREGORY RETRIEVES HIMSELF
CHAPTER XXVI CHANGES IN GREGORY
CHAPTER XXVII PLEADING FOR LIFE AND LOVE
CHAPTER XXVIII WHAT A LOVER COULD DO
CHAPTER XXIX DEEPENING SHADOWS
CHAPTER XXX KEPT FROM THE EVIL
CHAPTER XXXI LIVE! LIVE! ANNIE'S APPEAL
CHAPTER XXXII AT SEA--A MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
CHAPTER XXXIII A COLLISION AT SEA--WHAT A CHRISTIAN COULD DO
CHAPTER XXXIV UNMASKED
CHAPTER XXXV A CHESTNUT BURR AND A HOME
CHAPTER I
A HERO, BUT NOT HEROIC
"Shall I ever be strong in mind or body again?" said Walter Gregory,
with irritation, as he entered a crowded Broadway omnibus.
The person thus querying so despairingly with himself was a man not far
from thirty years of age, but the lines of care were furrowed so deeply
on his handsome face, that dismal, lowering morning, the first of
October, that he seemed much older. Having wedged himself in between
two burly forms that suggested thrift down town and good cheer on the
avenue, he appears meagre and shrunken in contrast. He is tall and
thin. His face is white and drawn, instead of being ruddy with health's
rich, warm blood. There is scarcely anything remaining to remind one of
the period of youth, so recently vanished; neither is there the
dignity, nor the consciousness of strength, that should come with
maturer years. His heavy, light-colored mustache and pallid face gave
him the aspect of a _blase_ man of the world who had exhausted himself
and life at an age when wisely directed manhood should be just entering
on its richest pleasures.
And such an opinion of him, with some hopeful exceptions and
indications, would be correct. The expression of irritation and
self-disgust still remaining on his face as the stage rumbles down town
is a hopeful sign. His soul at least is not surrounded by a Chinese
wall of conceit. However perverted his nature may be, it is not a
shallow one, and he evidently has a painful sense of the wrongs
committed against it. Though his square jaw and the curve of his lip
indicate firmness, one could not look upon his contracted brow and
half-despairing expression, as he sits oblivious of all surroundings,
without thinking of a ship drifting helplessly and in distress. There
are encouraging possibilities in the fact that from those windows of
the soul, his eyes, a troubled rather than an evil spirit looks out. A
close observer would see at a glance that he was not a good man, but he
might also note that he was not content with being a bad one. There was
little of the rigid pride and sinister hardness or the conceit often
seen on the faces of men of the world who have spent years in spoiling
their manhood; and the sensual phase of coarse dissipation was quite
wanting.
You will find in artificial metropolitan society many men so
emasculated that they are quite vain of being blase--fools that with
conscious superiority smile disdainfully at those still possessing
simple, wholesome tastes for things which they in their indescribable
accent characterize as a "bore."
But Walter Gregory looked like one who had early found the dregs of
evil life very bitter, and his face was like that of nature when
smitten with untimely frosts.
He reached his office at last, and wearily sat down to the routine work
at his desk. Instead of the intent and interested look with which a
young and healthy man would naturally enter on his business, he showed
rather a dogged resolution to work whether he felt like it or not, and
with harsh disregard of his physical weakness.
The world will never cease witnessing the wrongs that men commit
against each other; but perhaps if the wrongs and cruelties that people
inflict on themselves could be summed up the painful aggregate would be
much larger.
As Gregory sat bending over his writing, rather from weakness than from
a stooping habit, his senior partner came in, and was evidently struck
by the appearance of feebleness on the part of the young man. The
unpleasant impression haunted him, for having looked over his letters
he came out of his private office and again glanced uneasily at the
colorless face, which gave evidence that only sheer force of will was
spurring a failing hand and brain to their tasks.
At last Mr. Burnett came and laid his hand on his junior partner's
shoulder, saying, kindly, "Come, Gregory, drop your work. You are ill.
The strain upon you has been too long and severe. The worst is over
now, and we are going to pull through better than I expected. Don't
take the matter so bitterly to heart. I admit myself that the operation
promised well at first. You were misled, and so were we all, by
downright deception. That the swindle was imposed on us through you was
more your misfortune than your fault, and it will make you a keener
business man in the future. You have worked like a galley-slave all
summer to retrieve matters, and have taken no vacation at all. You must
take one now immediately, or you will break down altogether. Go off to
the woods; fish, hunt, follow your fancies; and the bracing October air
will make a new man of you."
"I thank you very much," Gregory began. "I suppose I do need rest. In a
few days, however, I can leave better--"
"No," interrupted Mr. Burnett, with hearty emphasis; "drop everything.
As soon as you finish that letter, be off. Don't show your face here
again till November."
"I thank you for your interest in me," said Gregory, rising. "Indeed, I
believe it would be good economy, for if I don't feel better soon I
shall be of no use here or anywhere else."
"That's it," said old Mr. Burnett, kindly. "Sick and blue, they go
together. Now be off to the woods, and send me some game. I won't
inquire too sharply whether you brought it down with lead or silver."
Gregory soon left the office, and made his arrangements to start on his
trip early the next morning. His purpose was to make a brief visit to
the home of his boyhood and then to go wherever a vagrant fancy might
lead.
The ancestral place was no longer in his family, though he was spared
the pain of seeing it in the hands of strangers. It had been purchased
a few years since by an old and very dear friend of his deceased
father--a gentleman named Walton. It had so happened that Gregory had
rarely met his father's friend, who had been engaged in business at the
West, and of his family he knew little more than that there were two
daughters--one who had married a Southern gentleman, and the other,
much younger, living with her father. Gregory had been much abroad as
the European agent of his house, and it was during such absence that
Mr. Walton had retired from business and purchased the old Gregory
homestead. The young man felt sure, however, that though a comparative
stranger himself, he would, for his father's sake, be a welcome visitor
at the home of his childhood. At any rate he determined to test the
matter, for the moment he found himself at liberty he felt a strange
and an eager longing to revisit the scenes of the happiest portion of
his life. He had meant to pay such a visit in the previous spring, soon
after his arrival from Europe, when his elation at being made partner
in the house which he so long had served as clerk reached almost the
point of happiness.
Among those who had welcomed him back was a man a little older than
himself, who, in his absence, had become known as a successful operator
in Wall Street. They had been intimate before Gregory went abroad, and
the friendship was renewed at once. Gregory prided himself on his
knowledge of the world, and was not by nature inclined to trust
hastily; and yet he did place implicit confidence in Mr. Hunting,
regarding him as a better man than himself. Hunting was an active
member of a church, and his name figured on several charities, while
Gregory had almost ceased to attend any place of worship, and spent his
money selfishly upon himself, or foolishly upon others, giving only as
prompted by impulse. Indeed, his friend had occasionally ventured to
remonstrate with him against his tendencies to dissipation, saying that
a young man of his prospects should not damage them for the sake of
passing gratification. Gregory felt the force of these words, for he
was exceedingly ambitious, and bent upon accumulating wealth and at the
same time making a brilliant figure in business circles.
In addition to the ordinary motives which would naturally lead him to
desire such success he was incited by a secret one more powerful than
all the others combined.
Before going abroad, when but a clerk, he had been the favored suitor
of a beautiful and accomplished girl. Indeed the understanding between
them almost amounted to an engagement, and he revelled in a passionate,
romantic attachment at an age when the blood is hot, the heart
enthusiastic, and when not a particle of worldly cynicism and adverse
experience had taught him to moderate his rose-hued anticipations. She
seemed the embodiment of goodness, as well as beauty and grace, for did
she not repress his tendencies to be a little fast? Did she not, with
more than sisterly solicitude, counsel him to shun certain florid youth
whose premature blossoming indicated that they might early run to seed?
and did he not, in consequence, cut Guy Bonner, the jolliest fellow he
had ever known? Indeed, more than all, had she not ventured to talk
religion to him, so that for a time he had regarded himself as in a
very "hopeful frame of mind," and had been inclined to take a
mission-class in the same school with herself? How lovely and angelic
she had once appeared, stooping in elegant costume from her social
height to the little ragamuffins of the street that sat gaping around
her! As he gazed adoringly, while waiting to be her resort home, his
young heart had swelled with the impulse to be good and noble also.
But one day she caused him to drop out of his roseate clouds. With much
sweetness and resignation, and with appropriate sighs, she said that
"it was her painful duty to tell him that their intimacy must
cease--that she had received an offer from Mr. Grobb, and that her
parents, and indeed all her friends, had urged her to accept him. She
had been led to feel that they with their riper experience and
knowledge of life knew what was best for her, and therefore she had
yielded to their wishes and accepted the offer." She was beginning to
add, in a sentimental tone, that "had she only followed the impulses of
her heart"--when Gregory, at first too stunned and bewildered to speak,
recovered his senses and interrupted with, "Please don't speak of your
heart, Miss Bently. Why mention so small a matter? Go on with your
little transaction by all means. I am a business man myself, and can
readily understand your motives;" and he turned on his heel and strode
from the room, leaving Miss Bently ill at ease.
The young man's first expression of having received, as it were, a
staggering blow, and then his bitter satire, made an impression on her
cotton-and-wool nature, and for a time her proceedings with Mr. Grobb
did not wear the aspect in which they had been presented by her
friends. But her little world so confidently and continually reiterated
the statement that she was making a "splendid match" that her qualms
vanished, and she felt that what all asserted must be true, and so
entered on the gorgeous preparations as if the wedding were all and the
man nothing.
It is the custom to satirize or bitterly denounce such girls, but
perhaps they are rather to be pitied. They are the natural products of
artificial society, wherein wealth, show, and the social eminence which
is based on dress and establishment are held out as the prizes of a
woman's existence. The only wonder is that so much heart and truth
assert themselves among those who all their life have seen wealth
practically worshipped, and worth, ungilded, generally ignored. From
ultra-fashionable circles a girl is often seen developing into the
noblest womanhood; while narrow, mercenary natures are often found
where far better things might have been expected. If such girls as Miss
Bently could only be kept in quiet obscurity, like a bale of
merchandise, till wanted, it would not be so bad; but some of them are
such brilliant belles and incorrigible coquettes that they are like
certain Wall Street speculators who threaten to "break the street" in
making their own fortunes.
Some natures can receive a fair lady's refusal with a good-natured
shrug, as merely the result of a bad venture, and hope for better luck
next time; but to a greater number this is impossible, especially if
they are played with and deceived. Walter Gregory pre-eminently
belonged to the latter class. In early life he had breathed the very
atmosphere of truth, and his tendency to sincerity ever remained the
best element of his character. His was one of those fine-fibred natures
most susceptible to injury. Up to this time his indiscretions had only
been those of foolish, thoughtless youth, while aiming at the standard
of manliness and style in vogue among his city companions.
High-spirited young fellows, not early braced by principle, must pass
through this phase as in babyhood they cut their teeth. If there is
true mettle in them, and they are not perverted by exceptionally bad
influences, they outgrow the idea that to be fast and foolish is to be
men as naturally as they do their roundabouts.
What a man does is often not so important as the state of the heart
that prompts the act. In common parlance, Walter was as good-hearted a
fellow as ever breathed. Indeed, he was really inclined to noble
enthusiasms.
If Miss Bently had been what he imagined her, she might have led him
swiftly and surely into true manhood; but she was only an adept at
pretty seeming with him, and when Mr. Grobb offered her his vast
wealth, with himself as the only incumbrance, she acted promptly and
characteristically.
But perhaps it can be safely said that in no den of iniquity in the
city could Walter Gregory have received such moral injury as poisoned
his very soul when, in Mr. Bently's elegant and respectable parlor, the
"angel" he worshipped "explained how she was situated," and from a
"sense of duty" stated her purpose to yield to the wishes of her
friends. Gregory had often seen Mr. Grobb, but had given him no
thought, supposing him some elderly relative of the family. That this
was the accepted suitor of the girl who had, with tender, meaning
glances, sung for him sentimental ballads, who had sweetly talked to
him of religion and mission work, seemed a monstrous perversion. Call
it unjust, unreasonable, if you will, yet it was the most natural thing
in the world for one possessing his sensitive, intense nature to pass
into harsh, bitter cynicism, and to regard Miss Bently as a typical
girl of the period.
A young man is far on the road to evil when he loses faith in woman.
During the formative period of character she is, of earthly influences,
the most potent in making or marring him. A kind refusal, where no
false encouragement has been given, often does a man good, and leaves
his faith intact; but an experience similar to that of young Gregory is
like putting into a fountain that which may stain and embitter the
waters of the stream in all its length.
At the early age of twenty-two he became what is usually understood by
the phrase "a man of the world." Still his moral nature could not sink
into the depths without many a bitter outcry against its wrongs. It was
with no slight effort that he drowned the memory of his early home and
its good influences. During the first two or three years he
occasionally had periods of passionate remorse, and made spasmodic
efforts toward better things. But they were made in human strength, and
in view of the penalties of evil, rather than because he was enamored
of the right. Some special temptation would soon sweep him away into
the old life, and thus, because of his broken promises and repeated
failures, he at last lost faith in himself also, and lacked that
self-respect without which no man can cope successfully with his evil
nature and an evil world.
Living in a boarding-house, with none of the restraints and purifying
influences of a good home, he formed intimacies with brilliant but
unscrupulous young men. The theatre became his church, and at last the
code of his fast, fashionable set was that which governed his life. He
avoided gross, vulgar dissipation, both because his nature revolted at
it, and also on account of his purpose to permit nothing to interfere
with his prospects of advancement in business. He meant to show Miss
Bently that she had made a bad business speculation after all. Thus
ambition became the controlling element in his character; and he might
have had a worse one. Moreover, in all his moral debasement he never
lost a decided tendency toward truthfulness and honesty. He would have
starved rather than touch anything that did not belong to him, nor
would he allow himself to deceive in matters of business, and it was
upon these points that he specially prided himself.
Gregory's unusual business ability, coupled with his knowledge of
French and German, led to his being sent abroad as agent of his firm.
Five years of life in the materialistic and sceptical atmosphere of
continental cities confirmed the evil tendencies which were only too
well developed before he left his own land. He became what so many
appear to be in our day, a practical materialist and atheist. Present
life and surroundings, present profit and pleasure, were all in all. He
ceased to recognize the existence of a soul within himself having
distinct needs and interests. His thoughts centred wholly in the
comfort and pleasures of the day and in that which would advance his
ambitious schemes. His scepticism was not intellectual and in reference
to the Bible and its teachings, but practical and in reference to
humanity itself. He believed that with few exceptions men and women
lived for their own profit and pleasure, and that religion and creeds
were matters of custom and fashion, or an accident of birth. Only the
reverence in which religion had been held in his early home kept him
from sharing fully in the contempt which the gentlemen he met abroad
seemed to have for it. He could not altogether despise his mother's
faith, but he regarded her as a gentle enthusiast haunted by sacred
traditions. The companionships which he had formed led him to believe
that unless influenced by some interested motive a liberal-minded man
of the world must of necessity outgrow these things. With the
self-deception of his kind, he thought he was broad and liberal in his
views, when in reality he had lost all distinction between truth and
error, and was narrowing his mind down to things only. Jew or Gentile,
Christian or Pagan, it was becoming all one to him. Men changed their
creeds and religions with other fashions, but all looked after what
they believed to be the main chance, and he proposed to do the same.
As time passed on, however, he began to admit to himself that it was
strange that in making all things bend to his pleasure he did not
secure more. He wearied of certain things. Stronger excitements were
needed to spur his jaded senses. His bets, his stakes at cards grew
heavier, his pleasures more gross, till a delicate organization so
revolted at its wrongs and so chastised him for excess that he was
deterred from self-gratification in that direction.
Some men's bodies are a "means of grace" to them. Coarse dissipation is
a physical impossibility, or swift suicide in a very painful form.
Young Gregory found that only in the excitements of the mind could he
hope to find continued enjoyment. His ambition to accumulate wealth and
become a brilliant business man most accorded with his tastes and
training, and on these objects he gradually concentrated all his
energies, seeking only in club-rooms and places of fashionable resort
recreation from the strain of business.
He recognized that the best way to advance his own interests was to
serve his employers well; and this he did so effectually that at last
he was made a partner in the business, and, with a sense of something
more like pleasure than he had known for a long time, returned to New
York and entered upon his new duties.
As we have said, among those who warmly greeted and congratulated him,
was Mr. Hunting. They gradually came to spend much time together, and
business and money-getting were their favorite themes. Gregory saw that
his friend was as keen on the track of fortune as himself, and that he
had apparently been much more successful. Mr. Hunting intimated that
after one reached the charmed inner circle Wall Street was a perfect
Eldorado, and seemed to take pains to drop occasional suggestions as to
how an investment shrewdly made by one with his favored point of
observation often secured in a day a larger return than a year of
plodding business.
These remarks were not lost on Gregory, and the wish became very strong
that he might share in some of the splendid "hits" by which his friend
was accumulating so rapidly.
Usually Mr. Hunting was very quiet and self-possessed, but one evening
in May he came into Gregory's rooms in a manner indicating not a little
excitement and elation.
"Gregory!" he exclaimed, "I am going to make my fortune."
"Make your fortune! You are as rich as Croesus now."
"The past will be as nothing. I've struck a mine rather than a vein."
"It's a pity some of your friends could not share in your luck."
"Well, a few can. This is so large, and such a good thing, that I have
concluded to let a few intimates go in with me. Only all must keep very
quiet about it;" and he proposed an operation that seemed certain of
success as he explained it.
Gregory concluded to put into it nearly all he had independent of his
investment in the firm, and also obtained permission to interest his
partners, and to procure an interview between them and Mr. Hunting.
The scheme looked so very plausible that they were drawn into it also;
but Mr. Burnett took Gregory aside and said: "After all, we must place
a great deal of confidence in Mr. Hunting's word in this matter. Are
you satisfied that we can safely do so?"
"I would stake my life on his word in this case," said Gregory,
eagerly, "and I pledge all I have put in the firm on his truth."
This was the last flicker of his old enthusiasm and trust in anybody or
anything, including himself. With almost the skill of genius Mr.
Hunting adroitly, within the limits of the law, swindled them all, and
made a vast profit out of their losses. The transaction was not
generally known, but even some of the hardened gamblers of the street
said "it was too bad."
But the bank-officers with whom Burnett & Co. did business knew about
it, and if it had not been for their lenience and aid the firm would
have failed. As it was, it required a struggle of months to regain the
solid ground of safety.
At first the firm was suspicious of Gregory, and disposed to blame him
very much. But when he proved to them that he had lost his private
means by Hunting's treachery, and insisted on making over to them all
his right and title to the property he had invested with them, they saw
that he was no confederate of the swindler, but that he had suffered
more than any of them.
He had, indeed. He had lost his ambition. The large sum of money that
was to be the basis of the immense fortune he had hoped to amass was
gone. He had greatly prided himself on his business ability, but had
signalized his entrance on his new and responsible position by being
overreached and swindled in a transaction that had impoverished himself
and almost ruined his partners. He grew very misanthropic, and was
quite as bitter against himself as against others. In his estimation
people were either cloaking their evil or had not been tempted, and he
felt after Hunting dropped the mask that he would never trust any one
again.
It may be said, all this is very unreasonable. Yes, it is; but then
people will judge the world by their own experience of it, and some
natures are more easily warped by wrong than others. No logic can cope
with feeling and prejudice. Because of his own misguided life and the
wrong he had received from others, Walter Gregory was no more able to
form a correct estimate of society than one color-blind is to judge of
the tints of flowers. And yet he belonged to that class who claim
pre-eminently to know the world. Because he thought he knew it so well
he hated and despised it, and himself as part of it.
The months that followed his great and sudden downfall dragged their
slow length along. He worked early and late, without thought of sparing
himself. If he could only see what the firm had lost through him made
good, he did not care what became of himself. Why should he? There was
little in the present to interest him, and the future looked, in his
depressed, morbid state, as monotonous and barren as the sands of a
desert. Seemingly, he had exhausted life, and it had lost all zest for
him.
But while his power to enjoy had gone, not so his power to suffer. His
conscience was uneasy, and told him in a vague way that something was
wrong. Reason, or, more correctly speaking, instinct, condemned his
life as a wretched blunder. He had lived for his own enjoyment, and
now, when but half through life, what was there for him to enjoy?
As in increasing weakness he dragged himself to the office on a sultry
September day, the thought occurred to him that the end was nearer than
he expected.
"Let it come," he said, bitterly. "Why should I live?"
The thought of his early home recurred to him with increasing
frequency, and he had a growing desire to visit it before his strength
failed utterly. Therefore it was with a certain melancholy pleasure
that he found himself at liberty, through the kindness of his partners,
to make this visit, and at the season, too, when his boyish memories of
the place, like the foliage, would be most varied and vivid.