Friends as repaired to that locality for religious purposes, and
Daniel was frequently charged with bearing one of them company to the
county jail, which stood on the outskirts of their little town. Here
he never failed to be impressed with the terrors of sin, and to exhort
his family afterward to tread the straight and narrow way. More than
once Dorcas had been allowed to accompany her father on such visits,
with the idea of permeating the maiden’s consciousness with a correct
view of righteous punishment. On such an occasion, when she had just
passed her sixteenth birthday, the Friend who had a “concern” to speak
to the erring, aroused her indignation by his harsh denunciations. So
touched was she that her sympathies far outran her judgment, and in
passing through the room where the prisoners had assembled for worship,
Dorcas let her eyes rove over the throng and tender smiles play about
her mouth. One face among the many never faded from her memory. He was
but a lad, scarcely greater in years than herself, but tall and well
built. His keen glance was riveted to her face from the instant of her
entrance, and when she kindly nodded to the sullen group, this youth
fairly started from his seat. His bronze brow, his piercing black
eyes, his clean-cut limbs--all were instantly photographed upon her
mind.
She lingered a moment at the door, while Daniel turned his carryall,
and as she paused, she was conscious that the boy had reached far over
his companions and was eagerly watching her.
“Father,” she said, “does thee suppose all those prisoners are really
guilty?”
“Undoubtedly, Dorcas. It is a sad sight--a sad sight; but there is no
room to doubt that punishment awaits them hereafter as well as here.”
“I do not believe it,” she said sternly; “that is, dear father, I do
not think our Heavenly Parent will afflict them always, because they
have done wrong once. Would not thee take one of them to thy home and
heart after his release just as eagerly as thee would have done before
he was put in prison?”
“No, I would not. Are we not told that the way of the transgressor is
hard, and are we to set our judgment in defiance of that of the Lord
our God? It is our duty to enforce punishment for sin, to make the
sinner feel his peril, his exclusion, in order that he may repent.”
“But suppose he has repented?”
“Then let him come before his Maker and confess.”
“I think it would be awfully hard, dear father, for me to go before
thee and mother and say I was sorry, after you had so severely shown
your displeasure with me. Now if we held out our hands and welcomed the
sinner home, would he not be more likely to come? Was it not so in the
parable of the Prodigal Son?”
“There be those,” Daniel answered, as if in protest, “who thus construe
the passage, but I believe it not. No man may even turn to his father’s
house until he has been fed on husks.”
The midsummer heat was upon the land. The red sun set in splendor, and
the blood-dyed moon rose as in wrath.
The simple little chamber which was Dorcas’ own, had a broad window
opening upon the upper veranda. The small white cot was close at its
side, and the sweet night wind that bore the breath of the wild rose
and the clustering honeysuckle, softly stirred the dark curls that
strayed beneath the border of the muslin cap which the sleeper wore.
The heat was so great that she had suffered the strings to remain
untied, and the collar of her plain gown was turned away from the white
throat. She stirred. Was the breath from the garden too free upon her
cheek? Consciousness of some invasion made her restless. Presently her
eyelids quivered and lifted; surely Dorcas was dreaming! and yet, no;
there was a manly figure resting on the sill of the open window. She
sat up, making a quick motion to close the neck of her gown, and tie
the cap strings, but as quickly a voice broke upon her ear.
“Do not be afraid. I have been here several minutes wanting to tear off
one of those strings, but I knew it would disturb you.”
Dorcas was never a coward, and her astonishment at this matter-of-fact
statement forbade any outcry.
“Who is thee, and what does thee want?” was her commonplace exclamation.
“I am Henri Beauclaire. I have escaped from the jail. You saw me there.
I found out who you were after I was certain that it was not an angel
who smiled on me last Sunday, and--do not stop me. I only want to tell
you this: when I made up my mind to get out of that mad house, I made
up my mind, too, that I would see you and talk to you before I went
away.”
The girl was fascinated by the picture. A handsome youth with his soul
blazing in his eyes, sitting upright in the brilliant moonlight that
fell across her bed. There was no evil in his face. She kept silent and
let him speak on.
“Your name is Dorcas Chester, and I want you to know that I never
stole the money I was put in jail for stealing; but they proved I did,
and so I had two whole years to serve if I did not get away from them.
Would not you have tried to get out? That is hell over there.”
“Yes,” she half whispered.
“I knew you would. Nothing I can ever do or say will make me anything
in this world but a jail-bird unless I hide. So I am going to France
for a while. My _grandpère_ is there. By and by I will come back, and
you must give me something that I can show you then so that you will
know me, for I shall not look like this.”
He glanced disdainfully at the poor clothes he wore and reached out a
hand as if to receive an offering.
“What shall I give thee? I have nothing.” A thought of a lock of her
hair was in Dorcas’ mind, but she knew it would be missed, cut as
cleverly as she might. Then came the doubt, too, whether it were right
to thus encourage a culprit!
“Give me,” Henri said, and his voice was melodious, “give me that cap
string.”
She shrank back into the shadow. It seemed indelicate to let him touch
her nightgarb.
“Would it, would it make thee think of leading a better life, of God
and forgiveness and----”
“It would make me think of you, and that is of God. Forgiveness I need
not, for I never did the deed. No better life ask I than such one as my
_grandpère_ lives.”
He reached for the cap string.
Mechanically Dorcas tore it off and lifted it to his height.
The boy looked out at the sweet stars paling under the tropical moon,
then he bent his eyes upon the beautiful girl, and slowly said:
“I am going now. Remember, I never did it, and keep yourself just
as you are until that day when the white cap string shall come home
again.” He was gone, and Dorcas sat silent for a moment; then the
painful consciousness forced itself upon her that her father’s voice
was calling. She dropped her head upon the pillow, wrapped the sheet
about her throat, and closed her eyes. The voice came nearer. “Dorcas,
Dorcas,” it said; but she did not stir. Her heart was wildly beating
with fear lest the youth of her dream should be pursued, but her parent
went calmly away, and only at breakfast was there any allusion to the
circumstance.
“Dorcas, thee talked strangely, last night, in thy sleep.”
The girl’s face crimsoned as she felt the untruthfulness of her
reply: “How funny that is!” but the motherly eye was not long without
discovering the loss of the nightcap string.
“Daughter,” she said, “how was it possible for thee to tear thy cap in
this way? It is as though thee had willed to do it and done it with all
thy might.”
And the girl replied, with some of her hoydenish spirit: “Throw the
old thing away; I have plenty more,” for it seemed as if she could not
tolerate the witness to her secret compact.
“I am surprised,” answered the gentle mother. “Waste not, want not.
Get thy thimble and thread; here is some muslin, thee can hem another
string.”
Dorcas did not allow herself to brood over her midnight adventure.
Perhaps she was pained by the part of concealment that she played
toward her parents; perhaps she was troubled, too, by a recollection
of the rebuke contained in the boy’s words. She was sometimes inclined
to feel that he was right and her own little world was wrong in so
strictly upholding law, and in believing the ways of God were at utter
variance from the ways of generous men.
“I care not to live any better life than that _mon grandpère_ lives.”
These words were ringing in her ears, and she pictured to herself the
detail of that life, far enough from reality, no doubt, but a pretty
idyl. She began to read much history, and once asked her mother to
allow her to take French lessons from a villager. Lucretia was shocked.
“Ah, my child! there is little to be read in that tongue that could
benefit thee. Blasphemers and winebibbers they are, with no sense of
shame in their idolatry of sensual things.”
“Then they are an evil-minded people, mother?”
“Yea, yea; a frivolous and false-hearted race.”
Then Dorcas turned away sorrowfully. Could it be that Henri Beauclaire
had told what was not true? If he could steal he might also lie. He
was base had he done both; and if that race was false why was he an
exception among Frenchmen? When this mood was upon her she blushed
alone in her chamber at the thought of the bit of muslin that he so
carefully rolled about his finger and put from sight. Mostly, however,
her meditations were concluded with the memory of his respect for the
clean life of his _grandpère_, and, do as she might, to think him
guilty she could not.
The years went quickly by. It was a round of simple duties to Dorcas,
enlivened by a keen sense of the beautiful and a quick response to
sympathetic needs. The weeks were much alike. First-day meeting,
followed by the household laundry work. Fourth-day meeting, succeeded
by the mending, sweeping, and baking. This was varied by monthly
meeting day dinner, when several Friends were apt to be seated at
their board, or a drive to a quarterly meeting in a larger community;
and the crowning event--not often enjoyed by Lucretia and Dorcas--of
passing a week in the great city at the time of the yearly gathering.
It was on one of the latter occasions that Dorcas met and became much
interested in a young man who was welcomed by Daniel as the son of a
dear and distant friend. She had never mingled with youth a great deal,
and George Townsend’s quick wit and good temper were a source of great
pleasure to her. She had no idea of marriage in her mind, and when,
after months of intimate acquaintance, he directly asked her to become
his wife, she shrank from him as if he had struck her.
“Does thee feel that I have done wrong?” he gently questioned.
“No,” she stammered; but a strange vision of flashing dark eyes and an
earnest injunction to “keep just as you are now” made her faint.
“Will thee let me dwell upon thy request in solitude?” she said, and
the honest-hearted man made answer:
“Thee is right to question thy own soul. If there thee finds a single
cloud, wait until the light cometh.”
When Dorcas sat alone she covered her face with both hands and a few
tears trickled between her fingers. Presently she wiped them away, and
began to question herself as she would have questioned another.
“Why do I hesitate? I am greatly drawn toward George Townsend. Father
and mother regard him highly; he is a God-fearing man, capable and
conscientious; he is a member of our meeting; his business can be
readily arranged so that we may live near my dear parents and bless
their declining years. Why not?”
To so pure a maiden, one whose affections had never keenly asserted
themselves nor been lightly trifled with, the idea of having granted
unasked the treasure of her love was in itself a reproach.
Dorcas paled in view of the thought to which she felt it right to give
definite shape; then she walked restlessly toward the window where once
sat the dark-eyed lad, and she said, honestly and bravely:
“Until to-day the actual meaning of that charge, to ‘keep as you
are,’ never occurred to me. Am I certain that he intended that bit of
muslin to typify my faith--faith to him personally? or was it, as I
vaguely comprehended it then, faith that I would be the same in my
just dealing with his apparent shortcomings? Who can tell? It is six
years since he went away. Perhaps he died before seeing his _grandpère_
again. Perhaps he forgot the place where he suffered so much; or found
his beautiful ancestral home too lovely to leave. Perhaps--” and this
hurt her, but she thought it fair to admit the doubt, “perhaps he
fell into evil ways again. And, indeed, had he been all that my dream
pictured, would he not, within six years, have found an opportunity to
communicate with me? Surely I deserved it.”
Then came another question; “Would I have married him, had he come back
with a clean record and a demand for my love? Could I have given my
life into the hand of an utter stranger, a foreigner of whose race I
know no good? Would my father and mother have blessed me and bade me
go to my husband’s arms with joy? No, it could not have been, and I
could not have done it without. Should Henri return tomorrow for the
fulfillment of such a desire, I should bid him leave me. Is it right to
marry George Townsend with this secret in my heart? Ought I to reveal
it, reveal my doubts and struggles concerning it? No. I should be quite
willing to place my hand in his and say, ‘George, whatever thee has
in thy heart that thee wishes to tell me, that do I wish to hear; but
whatever trials thee has passed through and honestly left behind thee,
with those I have no question.’
“Could I let George go from me and live my life alone, without a pang
because of his absence? No, I could not. Therefore, O Lord, with a
clean heart I will walk beside him, asking daily grace from thy hand,
and humbly seeking to serve thee through serving him.”
She bathed her flushed face, smoothed the curls away, and went into the
garden. There among the sweet-peas and the rich clove-pinks, she laid
her hand in that of her lover and simply said:
“My heart tells me I will be a true wife unto thee.”
The next decade wrought a great change in Dorcas. The vivacity that she
had seemed so likely to lose under the stern repression of her parents,
assumed the semblance of loving good cheer. Her beauty as a matron
surpassed that of her girlhood, and it became a matter of merrymaking
in the household that a stranger never passed her without turning to
look a second time. Her sweet spirit was overflowing with thankfulness
for the great blessing of fervid affection from so manly and upright a
companion as George Townsend. Indeed, if ever the taint of pride clung
to Dorcas it was when she thought of her husband.
A little maiden had for eight years walked beside her. A faithful
representative of the Chester household. Truly, if Daniel had regretted
his own daughter’s alien features, he was content now in the miniature
Lucretia whose demure air was a marked contrast to the flashing wit of
her dark-eyed mother.
The village, too, was changed. Through George Townsend’s exertions
manufacturing interests flourished, and although wealth was pouring
into his coffers, the comfort of a thousand lesser households told of
just dealing between man and man. But the old jail still stood on the
highway, and its barred windows were lengthened to a half score. The
same fiery brick walls, the same foul atmosphere, the same class of
inhabitants were closed behind the multitudinous bolts and bars. The
passer-by winced as he heard the loud laugh or the fearful curse; and
the faces that pressed against the iron casement were faces of the
young and the old, of women as well as men, and gathered from the ranks
of first offenders as well as those of the hardened criminals.
One morning, while yet Dorcas sat at the head of the breakfast table,
dispensing as much of cheer by her sunny face as from the viands, a
message was brought requesting her presence at the county jail. It
was no unusual occurrence for the mother to be thus summoned from her
peaceful home to smooth the path of the unrighteous, and very shortly
she stepped from her carriage into the door of the plague spot of the
neat village. She was met by the jailer’s wife, a coarse woman, but not
untouched with good intentions.
“I was sorry to send for you,” she said, “but a queer-looking man
was let in last night, who has been bleeding at the lungs, and all I
could do and say was nothing till I promised to fetch you early this
morning. He hadn’t ought to been here, I ’spose, but Thomas found him
sitting on the doorstep, and rattling the latch, and when he asked
to be let in and Thomas said as it was a jail, he up and told a queer
story about once having broke out; and anyways it wasn’t right to leave
him out there a-bleedin’, so I put him in one of my rooms; he seemed
decent-like.”
An unaccustomed horror crept over Dorcas. She had to steady herself
against the door-post for a moment before following the woman into the
cramped little chamber.
Half-sitting upon the bed, surrounded with pillows and cloths stained
with blood, was Henri Beauclaire. His eyes flashed with the old
intensity, but from amid the pallor of a countenance wasted with
disease.
“Stand there,” he whispered hoarsely; and motioning to the jailer’s
wife to go out, he fastened his gaze on Dorcas’ half-frightened face.
“Look at me, woman; do you know me?”
She bowed her head.
“Do you know what this is?” he said again, as he drew from his breast a
bit of soiled and yellow muslin.
“This is a betrothal ring. Yes, I tell you, by this you plighted your
troth to me, and by the heavens above, you have broken your faith.”
Dorcas made motion as if to answer.
“Stop,” he said. “You can have nothing to say; it is I who must relieve
my bursting heart. Do you know what this is?” laying his finger on the
bright stains. “This is my life-blood, and you have spilled it. When
I came over sea I had a cough, and they told me I needed care, but
I laughed them to scorn, for I said to myself, when once I am there,
where her gentle hands can smooth the pain away and her sweet smile
bring back the light to my eyes, all will be well. Do you know how
it was with me during these years? When, after being hunted like a
wild beast from wood to cavern, from hill to seaport, at last I stood
by my _grandpère_, his heart was filled with joy--for I was his only
descendant left on earth, and on me he leaned feeble and childish. I
could not leave him for an hour without reproach; how could I come
to you? Year after year he lingered, and although I starved for your
smile, I believed in you, and God knows, had I suspected the awful
truth of your unfaithfulness, I should have done the same. Heaven
itself could not have lured me from that poor man, whose dying
blessing is sounding in my ears this day. When I had laid him away,
scarce three months ago, and found that the old chateau with its
thousands of meters of rich garden and tillage was mine, I bounded for
my passport, I dreamed of naught else than a return to build a family
worthy of the saintly dead.
“Would you know the rest? How I came in the dusk to the village street
and crept in the shadow to your father’s door, feeling that I could not
at once bear the blaze of your beauty. When I had seen the old man open
the casement and sit in the moonlight with a child upon his knee, my
heart misgave me. Fainting for food, for I had been too eager to eat, I
crept back to the inn. Slowly I questioned the _garçon_ concerning the
people of the village, and gradually the truth dawned--you were untrue!
I was like a madman that night. I wore a track in the floor, I doubt
not, with my restless pacing, and when day broke I went forth with a
wild intent to do murderous work. All through the hours of sunlight
I examined the mill, and the dwelling-place where a false heart was
beating, and at night I planned to carry out my work of destruction. I
would fire the mill and the house and take care that, so quick would
leap the flames, that no escape would be possible. And if, through
some strange fatality, my plot was defeated, there, in the fierce
distraction of a great conflagration, I would rush upon you with my
knife and stab you to your death! Yes,” he leaned forward and hissed
the words, “the woman who has taught me that there is no faith, that
God and honor and love are myths, ought to die by the hand of the man
whom she has wrecked.”
Again Dorcas stirred, and again he waved her into silence.
“And what was your excuse? Six years of silence. What were they to me?
Six centuries might have waned, and I should have kept my faith. When
I looked at this trysting string, I said alway and ever the same: ‘She
is as strong as the threads she tore with so great an effort; she will
never waver.’
“What was the good of nature’s brand that you bear: the mark of
unyielding purpose, of faith and love as firm as God’s foundation, as
broad as the firmament--you belie them all. There you stand now with
your great eyes shining as if a _soul_ dwelt behind them; your rich
smooth skin blooming with the color and purity of nature, not artifice;
your red lips curved with a smile you cannot repress, and yet I swear
you are as false as hell!
“Only this”--he touched the crimson stains--“only this defeated my
plan, and enabled you to breath the sweet spring air once more; only
this has made it possible for me to die cursing you with my latest
breath without dealing that blow at your heart that should have mingled
our blood in one stream.”
The exhausted man fell back upon his pillows, and Dorcas crept to his
side and smoothed the rich waves of jet-black hair, and with a wet
sponge moistened his lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and before he
could speak she said calmly:
“I am going to take thee to our home. George Townsend will help me to
nurse thee back to life and peace. I will tell thee, now, that I never
knew thy full intent in asking me for the cap string; had I known it I
should not have given it, for thy reason and my own would have rebelled
against an alliance wholly at variance with Nature’s laws. Thee did not
love _me_, the girl; thee loved my _faith_, my trust in thy honesty;
and I bid thee go on loving it, for I shall trust thee now, just as
I trusted thee then. I believed thee innocent of the crime for which
thee had been confined. I believed it only because thee said it was so,
and thy face told the same story. I believe in thee now, in despite
thy _words_, for thy soul is speaking more truly through thy glance,
and that tells me that thy devotion to thy _grandpère_ was no myth,
while thy frenzy is. Thee shall find thy faith in me is rewarded, for
thee shall live to be one of our household and to bless us all with thy
goodness.”
She ceased speaking, summoned the jailer’s wife, and had the sick man
borne to her carriage.
When she had reached her own door Dorcas entered alone, and quietly
spoke to her husband, who still sat by the breakfast table.
“George, I have brought home a very ill man; will thee please attend to
his removal from the carriage while I prepare a bed? I shall put him
into the little room next our own that I may the more carefully tend
him.”
That night, as Dorcas sat late by the invalid’s side, the only word
that he spoke was the whispered question:
“Are you not afraid?”
And as she bent over him tenderly she answered:
“Not for a moment do I fear thee; I only wish thee well.”
Slowly the strength came to the feeble pulse, but when the frail man
was permitted to leave his sick bed, it was found that his cough became
less frequent and his fever had subsided. Then, too, he was moved into
a large upper chamber, the best the house afforded, and although the
kind attentions of Dorcas were unremitted, he lost all sense of care or
espionage. Gradually he recognized himself as a member of the family,
and never was there any allusion to his advent or expected departure.
Before many months he was the dear “uncle,” of the household, taking
his part in all that went on; teaching the little Lucretia; reading
aloud bits of quaint wisdom or humor, from “Le Roman de la Rose,” and
“Le Roman du Renart;” pages from Froissart, his beloved Pascal, and La
Bruyère; or listening to the many schemes for lifting the burdens of
others that were constantly suggested by George or Dorcas.
From 1820 to 1830 there was a great awakening on the subject of Prison
Reform. The work of England’s noble Howard had been supplemented by
that of the devoted Elizabeth Fry, and the whole world rang with their
achievements. Slow, alas! was the motion across the water, but sure in
its coming.
Henri Beauclaire, too feeble to exert great physical effort, was keenly
alive to the necessity of introducing humanitarian methods in all
places for the confinement of the accused.
He labored unceasingly toward an enlargement and purification of the
county jail, for separate day rooms for the men and women, for decent
food and lavatories, and for constant occupation. In all he did Henri
was warmly seconded by his true friends, and when at last the summons
came that called him from their midst, no one among the villagers was
more regretted.
In the short will which was found amid his small effects, he had
bequeathed the old chateau to his native town as a home for such
discharged prisoners as were friendless and aged, and the closing
clause read thus:
“To my more than sister, my earthly savior, Dorcas Townsend, I leave
the testimony of my later years, and the contents of my strong-box.”
This contained some valuable silver and household linen bearing a
coronet, and a sandalwood casket wherein reposed a yellow muslin cap
string.