THE RETURN
It was Sunday and Jack Bracken had been out all the afternoon,
hunting for Cap'n Tom--as he had been in the morning, when not at
church. Hitching up the old horse, the Bishop started out to hunt
also.
He did not go far on the road toward Westmoreland, for as Ben Butler
plodded sleepily along, he almost ran over a crowd of boys in the
public road, teasing what they took to be a tramp, because of his
unkempt beard, his tattered clothes, and his old army cap.
They had angered the man and with many gestures he was endeavoring to
expostulate with his tormentors, at the same time attempting
imprecations which could not be uttered and ended in a low pitiful
sound. He shook his fist at them--he made violent gestures, but from
his mouth came only a guttural sound which had no meaning.
At a word from the Bishop his tormentors vanished, and when he pulled
up before the uncouth figure he found him to be a man not yet in his
prime, with an open face, now blank and expressionless, overgrown
with a black, tangled, and untrimmed beard.
He was evidently a demented tramp.
But at a second look the Bishop started. It was the man's eyes which
startled him. There was in them something so familiar and yet so
unknown that the Bishop had to study a while before he could
remember.
Then there crept into his face a wave of pitying sorrow as he said to
himself:
"Cap'n Tom--Cap'n Tom's eyes."
And from that moment the homeless and demented tramp had a warm place
in the old man's heart.
The Bishop watched him closely. His tattered cap had fallen off,
showing a shock of heavy, uncut hair, streaked prematurely with gray.
"What yo' name?" asked the Bishop kindly.
The man, flushed and angered, still gesticulated and muttered to
himself. But at the sound of the Bishop's voice, for a moment there
flashed into his eyes almost the saneness of returned reason. His
anger vanished. A kindly smile spread over his face. He came toward
the Bishop pleadingly--holding out both hands and striving to speak.
Climbing into the buggy, he sat down by the old man's side, quite
happy and satisfied--and as a little child.
"Where are you from?" asked the Bishop again.
The man shook his head. He pointed to his head and looked meaningly
at the Bishop.
"Can't you tell me where you're gwine, then?"
He looked at the Bishop inquisitively, and for a moment, only, the
same look--almost of intelligence--shone in his eyes. Slowly and with
much difficulty--ay, even as if he were spelling it out, he said:
"A-l-i-c-e"--
The old man turned quickly. Then he paled tremblingly to his very
forehead. The word itself--the sound of that voice sent the blood
rushing to his heart.
"Alice?--and what does he mean? An' his voice an' his eyes--Alice--my
God--it's Cap'n Tom!"
Tenderly, calmly he pulled the cap from off the strange being's head
and felt amid the unkempt locks. But his hands trembled so he could
scarcely control them, and the sight of the poor, broken, half
demented thing before him--so satisfied and happy that he had found a
voice he knew--this creature, the brave, the chivalrous, the heroic
Captain Tom! He could scarcely see for the tears which ran down his
cheeks.
But as he felt, in the depth of his shock of hair, his finger slipped
into an ugly scar, sinking into a cup-shaped hollow fracture which
gleamed in his hair.
"Cap'n Tom, Cap'n Tom," he whispered--"don't you know me--the
Bishop?"
The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as a child might,
into that of the old man.
"A-l-i-c-e"--he slowly and stutteringly pronounced again, as he
pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.
"My God," said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears on the back of
his hand--"my God, but that blow has spiled God's noblest gentleman."
Then there rushed over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his
head heavenward and said:
"_Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning I doubted You; and
now, now, You have sent me po' Cap'n Tom!_"
"You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!" he added cheerily.
The man smiled and nodded.
"A-l-i-c-e," again he repeated.
There was the sound of some one riding, and as the Bishop turned Ben
Butler around Alice Westmore rode up, sitting her saddle mare with
that natural grace which comes only when the horse and rider have
been friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis rode with
her.
The Bishop paled again: "My God," he muttered--"but she mustn't know
this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther she'd think he's dead--to remember him
only as she knowed him last."
The man's eyes were riveted on her--they seemed to devour her as she
rode up, a picture of grace and beauty, sitting her cantering mare
with the ease of long years of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly
at the Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the man
beside him.
Travis followed at a brisk gait:
"Hello, Bishop," he said banteringly--"got a new boarder to-day?"
He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped on without
turning his head.
"Alice!--Alice!"--whispered the man, holding out his hands
pleadingly, in the way he had held them when he first saw the Bishop.
"Alice!"--but she disappeared behind a turn in the road. She had not
noticed him.
The Bishop was relieved.
"We'll go home, Cap'n Tom--you'll want for nothin' whilst I live. An'
who knows--ay, Cap'n Tom, who knows but maybe God has sent you here
to-day to begin the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed
Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him--He's done bigger
things than jes' to straighten out little tangles like that. Cap'n
Tom! Cap'n Tom!" he said excitedly--"God'll do it--God'll do it--for
He is just!"
As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: "I was fetchin' him to
you, Marse Hillard--been lookin' for yo' home all day. I had gone to
the spring for water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute."
"Why, it's Eph," said the Bishop. "Come on to my home, Eph, we'll
take keer of Cap'n Tom."
It was Sunday night. They had eaten their supper, and the old man was
taking his smoke before going to bed. Shiloh, as usual, had climbed
up into his lap and lay looking at the distant line of trees that
girdled the mountain side. There was a flush on her cheeks and a
brightness in her eyes which the old man had noticed for several
weeks.
Shiloh was his pet--his baby. All the affection of his strong nature
found its outlet in this little soul--this motherless little waif,
who likewise found in the old man that rare comradeship of
extremes--the inexplicable law of the physical world which brings the
snow-flower in winter. The one real serious quarrel the old man had
had with his stubborn and ignorant old wife had been when Shiloh was
sent to the factory. But it was always starvation times with them;
and when aroused, the temper and tongue of Mrs. Watts was more than
the peaceful old man could stand up against. And as there were a
dozen other tots of her age in the factory, he had been forced to
acquiesce.
Long after all others had retired--long after the evening star had
arisen, and now, high overhead, looked down through the chinks in the
roof of the cabin on the mountain side, saying it was midnight and
past, the patient old man sat with Shiloh on his lap, watching her
quick, restless breathing, and fearing to put her to bed, lest he
might awaken her.
He put her in bed at last and then slipped into Captain Tom's cabin
before he himself lay down.
To his surprise he was up and reading an old dictionary--studying and
puzzling over the words. It was the only book except the Bible the
Bishop had in his cabin, and this book proved to be Captain Tom's
solace.
After that, day after day, he would sit out under the oak tree by his
cabin intently reading the dictionary.
Eph, his body servant, slept on the floor by his side, and Jack
Bracken sat near him like a sturdy mastiff guarding a child.
Sympathy, pity--were written in the outlaw's face, as he looked at
the once splendid manhood shorn of its strength, and from that day
Jack Bracken showered on Captain Tom all the affection of his
generous soul--all that would have gone to little Jack.
"For he's but a child--the same as little Jack was," he would say.
"Put up yo' novel, Cap'n Tom," said the old man cheerily, when he
went in, "an' let's have prayers."
The sound of the old man's voice was soothing to Captain Tom.
Quickly the book was closed and down on their knees went the three
men.
It was a queer trio--the three kneeling in prayer.
"Almighty God," prayed the old man--"me an' Cap'n Tom an' Jack
Bracken here, we thank You for bein' so much kinder to us than we
deserves. One of us, lost to his friends, is brought back home; one
of us, lost in wickedness but yestiddy, is redeemed to-day; an' me
that doubted You only yestiddy, to me You have fotcht Cap'n Tom back,
a reproach for my doubts an' my disbelief, lame in his head, it is
true, but You've fotcht him back where I can keer for him an' nuss
him. An' I hope You'll see fit, Almighty God, You who made the worl'
an' holds it in the hollow of Yo' han', You, who raised up the dead
Christ, to give po' Cap'n Tom back his reason, that he may fulfill
the things in life ordained by You that he should fulfill since the
beginning of things.
"An' hold Jack Bracken to the mark, Almighty God,--let him toe the
line an' shoot, hereafter, only for good. An' guide me, for I need
it--me that in spite of all You've done for me, doubted You but
yestiddy. Amen."
It was a simple, homely prayer, but it comforted even Captain Tom,
and when Jack Bracken put him to bed that night, even the outlaw felt
that the morning of a new era would awaken them.