WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?
Putting on a light overcoat, for the morning air was sharp and bracing,
Gregory soon found himself in the old square garden. Though its glory
was decidedly on the wane, it was as yet unnipped by the frost It had a
neatness and an order of its own that were quite unlike those where
nature is in entire subordination to art. Indeed it looked very much as
he remembered it in the past, and he welcomed its unchanged aspect. He
strolled to many other remembered boyish haunts, and it seemed that the
very lichens and mosses grew in the same places as of old, and that
nature had stood still and awaited his return.
And yet every familiar object chided him for being so changed, and he
began to find more of pain than pleasure as this contrast between what
he had been and what he might have been was constantly forced upon him.
"Oh that I had never left this place!" he exclaimed, bitterly: "It
would have been better to stay here and drudge as a day laborer. What
has that career out in the world to which I looked forward so ardently
amounted to? The present is disappointment and self-disgust, the future
an indefinite region of fears and forebodings, and even the happy past
is becoming a bitter mockery by reminding me of what can never be
again."
Wearied and despondent, he moodily returned to the house and threw
himself on a lounge in the parlor. A smouldering wood fire upon the
hearth softened the air to summer temperature. The heat was grateful to
his chilled, bloodless body, and gave him a luxurious sense of physical
comfort, and he muttered: "I had about resolved to leave this place
with its memories that are growing into torment, but I suppose it would
be the same anywhere else. I am too weak and ill to face new scenes and
discomfort. A little animal enjoyment and bodily respite from pain seem
about all that is left to me of existence, and I think I can find these
here better than elsewhere. If I am expected, however, to fall under
the management of the daughter of the house on the terms blurted out by
that fidgety nephew of hers, I will fly for my life. A plague on him!
His restlessness makes me nervous! If I could endure a child at all,
the blue-eyed little girl would make a pretty toy."
Sounds from the sitting-room behind the parlor now caught his
attention, and listening he soon became aware that Miss Walton was
teaching the children. "She has just the voice for a 'schoolmarm,'" he
thought--"quick, clear-cut, and decided."
If he had not given way to unreasonable prejudice he might also have
noted that there was nothing harsh or querulous in it.
"With her management and love of nature, she doubtless thinks herself
the personification of goodness. I suppose I shall be well lectured
before I get away. I had a foretaste of it this morning. 'Drawbacks of
city life,' forsooth! She no doubt regards me as a result of these
disadvantages. But if she should come to deem it her mission to convert
or reform me, then will be lost my small remnant of peace and comfort."
But weakness and weariness soon inclined him to sleep. Miss Walton's
voice sounded far away. Then it passed into his dream as that of Miss
Bently chiding him affectedly for his wayward tendencies; again it was
explaining that conscientious young lady's "sense of duty" in view of
Mr. Grobb's offer, and even in his sleep his face darkened with pain
and wrath.
Just then, school hours being over, Miss Walton came into the parlor.
For a moment, as she stood by the fire, she did not notice its
unconscious occupant. Then, seeing him, she was about to leave the room
noiselessly, when the expression of his face arrested her steps.
If Annie Walton's eyes suggested the probability of "sudden gusts,"
they also at times announced a warm, kind heart, for as she looked at
him now her face instantly softened to pity.
"Good he is not," she thought, "but he evidently suffers in his evil.
Something is blighting his life, and what can blight a life save evil?
Perhaps I had better change my proposed crusade against his vanity and
cynicism to a kind, sisterly effort toward making him a better and
therefore a happier man. It will soon come out in conversation that I
have long been the same as engaged to another, and this will relieve me
of absurd suspicions of designs upon him. If I could win a friendly
confidence on his part, I'm sure I could tell him some wholesome
truths, for even an enemy could scarcely look on that face without
relenting."
There was nothing slow or cumbrous about Annie. These thoughts had
flashed through her mind during the brief moment in which her eyes
softened from surprise into sympathy as they caught the expression of
Gregory's face. Then, fearing to disturb him, with silent tread she
passed out to her wonted morning duties.
How seemingly accidental was that visit to the parlor! Its motive
indefinite and forgotten. Apparently it was but a trivial episode of an
uneventful day, involving no greater catastrophe than the momentary
rousing of a sleeper who would doze again. But what day can we with
certainty call uneventful? and what episode trivial? Those
half-aimless, purposeless steps of Annie Walton into the quiet parlor
might lead to results that would radically change the endless future of
several lives.
In her womanly, pitying nature, had not God sent His angel? If a
viewless "ministering spirit," as the sinful man's appointed guardian,
was present, as many believe is the case with every one, how truly he
must have welcomed this unselfish human companionship in his loving
labor to save life; for only they who rescue from sin truly save life.
And yet the sleeper, even in his dreams, was evidently at war with
himself, the world, and God. He was an example of the truth that good
comes from without and not from within us. It is heaven stooping to
men; heaven's messengers sent to us; truth quickened in our minds by
heavenly influence, even as sunlight and rain awaken into beautiful
life the seeds hidden in the soil; and, above all, impulses direct from
God, that steal into our hearts as the south wind penetrates ice-bound
gardens in spring.
But, alas! multitudes like Walter Gregory blind their eyes and steel
their hearts against such influences. God and those allied to Him
longed to bring the healing of faith and love to his wounded spirit. He
scowled back his answer, and, as he then felt, would shrink with morbid
sensitiveness and dislike from the kindest and most delicate
presentation of the transforming truth. But the divine love is ever
seeking to win our attention by messengers innumerable; now by the
appalling storm, again by a summer sunset; now by an awful providence,
again by a great joy; at times by stern prophets and teachers, but more
often by the gentle human agencies of which Annie was the type, as with
pitying face she bent over the worn and jaded man of the world and
hoped and prayed that she might be able to act the part of a true
sister toward him. Thorny and guarded was every avenue to his heart;
and yet her feminine tact, combined with the softening and purifying
influence of his old home, might gain her words acceptance, where the
wisest and most eloquent would plead in vain.
After dinner he again hastened forth for a walk, his purpose being to
avoid company, for he was so moody and morbid, so weak, nervous, and
irritable, that the thought of meeting and decorously conversing with
those whose lives and character were a continual reproach to him was
intolerable. Then he had the impression that the "keen-eyed,
plain-featured Miss Walton," as he characterized her in his mind, would
surely commence discoursing on moral and religious subjects if he gave
her a chance; and he feared that if she did, he would say or do
something very rude, and confirm the bad impression that he was sure of
having already made. If he could have strolled into his club, and among
groups engaged with cards, papers, and city gossip, he would have felt
quite at home. Ties formed at such a place are not very strong as a
usual thing, and the manner of the world can isolate the members and
their real life completely, even when the rooms are thronged. As
Gregory grew worn and thin and his pallor increased, as he smoked and
brooded more and more apart, his companions would shrug their shoulders
significantly and whisper, "It looks as if Gregory would go under soon.
Something's the matter with him."
At first good-natured men would say, "Come, Gregory, take a hand with
us," but when he complied it was with such a listless manner that they
were sorry they had asked him. At last, beyond mere passing courtesies,
they had come to leave him very much alone; and in his unnatural and
perverted state this was just what he most desired. His whole being had
become a diseased, sensitive nerve, shrinking most from any effort
toward his improvement, even as a finger pointed at a festering wound
causes anticipatory agonies.
At the club he would be let alone, but these good people would "take an
interest in him," and might even "talk religion," and probe with
questions and surmises. If they did, he knew, from what he had already
seen of them, that they would try to do it delicately and kindly, but
he felt that the most considerate efforts would be like the surgical
instruments of the dark ages. He needed good, decisive, heroic
treatment. But who would have the courage and skill to give it? Who
cared enough for him to take the trouble?
Not merely had Annie Walton looked with eyes of human pity upon his
sin-marred visage that morning. The Divine personality, enthroned in
the depths of her soul and permeating her life, looked commiseratingly
forth also. Could demons glare from human eyes and God not smile from
them?
As Annie thought much of him after her stolen glance in the morning,
she longed to do that which he dreaded she would try to do--attempt his
reformation. Not that she cared for him personally, or that she had
grown sentimentally interested in his Byronic style of wretchedness. So
far from it, her happy and healthful nature was repelled by his
diseased and morbid one. She found him what girls call a "disagreeable
man." But she yearned toward a sinning, suffering soul, found in any
guise. It was not in her woman's heart to pass by on the other side.