A MIDNIGHT GUARD
Jack Bracken rolled himself in his blanket on the cot, placed in the
room next to Captain Tom, and prepared to sleep again.
But the excitement of the night had been great; his sudden awakening
from sleep, his missing Captain Tom, and finding him in time to
prevent a tragedy, had aroused him thoroughly, and now sleep was far
from his eyes.
And so he lay and thought of his past life, and as it passed before
him it shook him with nervous sleeplessness.
It hurt him. He lay and panted with the strong sorrow of it.
Perhaps it was that, but with it were thoughts also of little Jack,
and the tears came into the eyes of the big-hearted outlaw.
He had his plans all arranged--he and the Bishop--and now as the
village blacksmith he would begin the life of an honest man.
Respected--his heart beat proudly to think of it.
Respected--how little it means to the man who is, how much to the man
who is not.
"Why," he said to himself--"perhaps after a while people will stop
and talk to me an' say as they pass my shop: 'Good mornin',
neighbor, how are you to-day?' Little children--sweet an' innocent
little children--comin' from school may stop an' watch the sparks fly
from my anvil, like they did in the poem I onct read, an' linger
aroun' an' talk to me, shy like; maybe, after awhile I'll get their
confidence, so they will learn to love me, an' call me Uncle
Jack--Uncle Jack," he repeated softly.
"An' I won't be suspectin' people any mo' an' none of 'em will be my
enemy. I'll not be carryin' pistols an' havin' buckets of gold an'
not a friend in the worl'."
His heart beat fast--he could scarcely wait for the morning to come,
so anxious was he to begin the life of an honest man again. He who
had been an outlaw so long, who had not known what it was to know
human sympathy and human friendship--it thrilled him with a rich,
sweet flood of joy.
Then suddenly a great wave swept over him--a wave of such exquisite
joy that he fell on his knees and cried out: "O God, I am a changed
man--how happy I am! jus' to be human agin an' not hounded! How can I
thank You--You who have given me this blessed Man the Bishop tells us
about--this Christ who reaches out an' takes us by the han' an' lifts
us up. O God, if there is divinity given to man, it is given to that
man who can lift up another, as the po' outlaw knows."
He lay silent and thoughtful. All day and night--since he had first
seen Margaret, her eyes had haunted him. He had not seen her before
for many years; but in all that time there had not been a day when he
had not thought of--loved--her.
Margaret--her loneliness--the sadness of her life, all haunted him.
She lived, he knew, alone, in her cottage--an outcast from society.
He had looked but once in her eyes and caught the lingering look of
appeal which unconsciously lay there. He knew she loved him yet--it
was there as plain as in his own face was written the fact that he
loved her. He thought of himself--of her. Then he said:
"For fifteen years I have robbed--killed--oh, God--killed--how it
hurts me now! All the category of crime in bitter wickedness I have
run. And she--once--and now an angel--Bishop himself says so."
"I am a new man--I am a respectable and honest man,"--here he arose
on his cot and drew himself up--"I am Jack Smith--Mr. Jack Smith, the
blacksmith, and my word is my bond."
He slipped out quietly. Once again in the cool night, under the stars
which he had learned to love as brothers and whose silent paths
across the heavens were to him old familiar footpaths, he felt at
ease, and his nervousness left him.
He had not intended to speak to Margaret then--for he thought she was
asleep. He wished only to guard her cabin, up among the stunted old
field pines--while she slept--to see the room he knew she slept
in--the little window she looked out of every day.
The little cabin was a hallowed spot to him. Somehow he knew--he felt
that whatever might be said--in it he knew an angel dwelt. He could
not understand--he only knew.
There is a moral sense within us that is a greater teacher than
either knowledge or wisdom.
For an hour he stood with his head uncovered watching the little
cabin where she lived. Everything about it was sacred, because
Margaret lived there. It was pretty, too, in its neatness and
cleanliness, and there were old-fashioned flowers in the yard and
old-fashioned roses clambered on the rock wall.
He sat down in the path--the little white sanded path down which he
knew she went every day, and so made sacred by her footsteps.
"Perhaps, I am near one of them now," he said--and he kissed the
spot.
And that night and many others did the outlaw watch over the lonely
cabin on the mountain side. And she, the outcast woman, slept within,
unconscious that she was being protected by the man who had loved her
all his life.