Great events, like young Mr. Worthington's visit to Brampton, are all
very well for a while, but they do not always develop with sufficient
rapidity to satisfy the audiences of the drama. Seven days were an
interlude quite long enough in which to discuss every phase and bearing
of this opening scene, and after that the play in all justice ought to
move on. But there it halted--for a while--and the curtain obstinately
refused to come up. If the inhabitants of Brampton had only known that
the drama, when it came, would be well worth waiting for, they might have
been less restless.
It is unnecessary to enrich the pages of this folio with all the
footnotes and remarks of, the sages of Brampton. These can be condensed
into a paragraph of two--and we can ring up the curtain when we like on
the next scene, for which Brampton had to wait considerably over a month.
There is to be no villain in this drama with the face of an Abbe Maury
like the seven cardinal sins. Comfortable looking Mr. Dodd of the
prudential committee, with his chin-tuft of yellow beard, is cast for the
part of the villain, but will play it badly; he would have been better
suited to a comedy part.
Young Mr. Worthington left Brampton on the five o'clock train, and at six
Mr. Dodd met his fellow-member of the committee, Judge Graves.
"Called a meetin'?" asked Mr. Dodd, pulling the yellow tuft.
"What for?" said the judge, sharply.
"What be you a-goin' to do about it?" said Mr. Dodd.
"Do about what?" demanded the judge, looking at the hardware dealer from
under his eyebrows.
Mr. Dodd knew well enough that this was not ignorance on the part of Mr.
Graves, whose position in the matter dad been very well defined in the
two sentences he had spoken. Mr. Dodd perceived that the judge was trying
to get him to commit himself, and would then proceed to annihilate him.
He, Levi Dodd, had no intention of walking into such a trap.
"Well," said he, with a final tug at the tuft, "if that's the way you
feel about it."
"Feel about what?" said the judge, fiercely.
"Callate you know best," said Mr. Dodd, and passed on up the street. But
he felt the judge's gimlet eyes boring holes in his back. The judge's
position was very fine, no doubt for the judge. All of which tends to
show that Levi Dodd had swept his mind, and that it was ready now for the
reception of an opinion.
Six weeks or more, as has been said, passed before the curtain rose
again, but the snarling trumpets of the orchestra played a fitting
prelude. Cynthia's feelings and Cynthia's life need not be gone into
during this interval knowing her character, they may well be imagined.
They were trying enough, but Brampton had no means of guessing them.
During the weeks she came and went between the little house and the
little school, putting all the strength that was in her into her duties.
The Prudential Committee, which sometimes sat on the platform, could find
no fault with the performance of these duties, or with the capability of
the teacher, and it is not going too far to state that the children grew
to love her better than Miss Goddard had been loved. It may be declared
that children are the fittest citizens of a republic, because they are
apt to make up their own minds on any subject without regard to public
opinion. It was so with the scholars of Brampton village lower school:
they grew to love the new teacher, careless of what the attitude of their
elders might be, and some of them could have been seen almost any day
walking home with her down the street.
As for the attitude of the elders--there was none. Before assuming one
they had thought it best, with characteristic caution, to await the next
act in the drama. There were ladies in Brampton whose hearts prompted
them, when they called on the new teacher, to speak a kindly word of
warning and advice; but somehow, when they were seated before her in the
little sitting room of the John Billings house, their courage failed
them. There was something about this daughter of the Coniston storekeeper
and ward of Jethro Bass that made them pause. So much for the ladies of
Brampton. What they said among themselves would fill a chapter, and more.
There was, at this time, a singular falling-off in the attendance of the
Brampton Club. Ephraim sat alone most of the day in his Windsor chair by
the stove, pretending to read newspapers. But he did not mention this
fact to Cynthia. He was more lonesome than ever on the Saturdays and
Sundays which she spent with Jethro Bass.
Jethro Bass! It is he who might be made the theme of the music of the
snarling trumpets. What was he about during those six weeks? That is what
the state at large was beginning to wonder, and the state at large was
looking on at a drama, too. A rumor reached the capital and radiated
thence to every city and town and hamlet, and was followed by other
rumors like confirmations. Jethro Bass, for the first time in a long life
of activity, was inactive: inactive, too, at this most critical period of
his career, the climax of it, with a war to be waged which for bitterness
and ferocity would have no precedent; with the town meetings at hand,
where the frontier fighting was to be done, and no quarter given.
Lieutenants had gone to Coniston for further orders and instructions, and
had come back without either. Achilles was sulking in the tannery
house--some said a broken Achilles. Not a word could be got out of him,
or the sign of an intention. Jake Wheeler moped through the days in Rias
Richardson's store, too sore at heart to speak to any man, and could have
wept if tears had been a relief to him. No more blithe errands over the
mountain to Clovelly and elsewhere, though Jake knew the issue now and
itched for the battle, and the vassals of the hill-Rajah under a jubilant
Bijah Bixby were arming cap-a-pie. Lieutenant-General-and-Senator Peleg
Hartington of Brampton, in his office over the livery stable, shook his
head like a mournful stork when questioned by brother officers from afar.
Operations were at a standstill, and the sinews of war relaxed. Rural
givers of mortgages, who had not had the opportunity of selling them or
had feared to do so, began (mirabile dictu) to express opinions. Most
ominous sign of all--the proprietor of the Pelican Hotel had confessed
that the Throne Room had not been engaged for the coming session.
Was it possible that Jethro Bass lay crushed under the weight of the
accusations which had been printed, and were still being printed, in the
Newcastle Guardian? He did not answer them, or retaliate in other
newspapers, but Jethro Bass had never made use of newspapers in this way.
Still, nothing ever printed about him could be compared with those
articles. Had remorse suddenly overtaken him in his old age? Such were
the questions people we're asking all over the state--people, at least,
who were interested in politics, or in those operations which went by the
name of politics: yes, and many private citizens--who had participated in
politics only to the extent of voting for such candidates as Jethro in
his wisdom had seen fit to give them, read the articles and began to say
that boss domination was at an end. A new era was at hand, which they
fondly (and very properly) believed was to be a golden era. It was,
indeed, to be a golden era--until things got working; and then the gold
would cease. The Newcastle Guardian, with unconscious irony, proclaimed
the golden era; and declared that its columns, even in other days and
under other ownership, had upheld the wisdom of Jethro Bass. And he was
still a wise man, said the Guardian, for he had had sense enough to give
up the fight.
Had he given up the fight? Cynthia fervently hoped and prayed that he
had, but she hoped and prayed in silence. Well she knew, if the event in
the tannery shed had not made him abandon his affairs, no appeal could do
so. Her happiest days in this period were the Saturdays and Sundays spent
with him in Coniston, and as the weeks went by she began to believe that
the change, miraculous as it seemed, had indeed taken place. He had given
up his power. It was a pleasure that made the weeks bearable for her.
What did it matter--whether he had made the sacrifice for the sake of his
love for her? He had made it.
On these Saturdays and Sundays they went on long drives together over the
hills, while she talked to him of her life in Brampton or the books she
was reading, and of those she had chosen for him to read. Sometimes they
did not turn homeward until the delicate tracery of the branches on the
snow warned them of the rising moon. Jethro was often silent for hours at
a time, but it seemed to Cynthia that it was the silence of peace--of a
peace he had never known before. There came no newspapers to the tannery
house now: during the mid-week he read the books of which she had spoken
William Wetherell's books; or sat in thought, counting, perhaps; the days
until she should come again. And the boy of those days for him was more
pathetic than much that is known to the world as sorrow.
And what did Coniston think? Coniston, indeed, knew not what to think,
when, little by little, the great men ceased to drive up to the door of
the tannery house, and presently came no more. Coniston sank then from
its proud position as the real capital of the state to a lonely hamlet
among the hills. Coniston, too, was watching the drama, and had had a
better view of the stage than Brampton, and saw some reason presently for
the change in Jethro Bass. Not that Mr. Satterlee told, but such evidence
was bound, in the end, to speak for itself. The Newcastle Guardian had
been read and debated at the store--debated with some heat by Chester
Perkins and other mortgagors; discussed, nevertheless, in a political
rather than a moral light. Then Cynthia had returned home; her face had
awed them by its sorrow, and she had begun to earn her own living. Then
the politicians had ceased to come. The credit belongs to Rias Richardson
for hawing been the first to piece these three facts together, causing
him to burn his hand so severely on the stove that he had to carry it
bandaged in soda for a week. Cynthia Wetherell had reformed Jethro.
Though the village loved and revered Cynthia, Coniston as a whole did not
rejoice in that reform. The town had fallen from its mighty estate, and
there were certain envious ones who whispered that it had remained for a
young girl who had learned city ways to twist Jethro around her finger;
that she had made him abandon his fight with Isaac D. Worthington because
Mr. Worthington had a son--but there is no use writing such scandal.
Stripped of his power--even though he stripped himself--Jethro began to
lose their respect, a trait tending to prove that the human race may have
had wolves for ancestors as well as apes. People had small opportunity,
however, of showing a lack of respect to his person, for in these days he
noticed no one and spoke to none.
When the lion is crippled, the jackals begin to range. A jackal
reconnoitered the lair to see how badly the lion was crippled, and
conceived with astounding insolence the plan of capturing the lion's
quarry. This jackal, who was an old one, well knew how to round up a
quarry, and fled back over the hills to consult with a bigger jackal, his
master. As a result, two days before March town-meeting day, Mr. Bijah
Bixby paid a visit to the Harwich bank and went among certain Coniston
farmers looking over the sheep, his clothes bulging out in places when he
began, and seemingly normal enough when he had finished. History repeats
itself, even among lions and jackals. Thirty-six years before there had
been a town-meeting in Coniston and a surprise. Established Church,
decent and orderly selectmen and proceedings had been toppled over that
day, every outlying farm sending its representative through the sleet to
do it. And now retribution was at hand. This March-meeting day was mild,
the grass showing a green color on the south slopes where the snow had
melted, and the outlying farmers drove through mud-holes up to the axles.
Drove, albeit, in procession along the roads, grimly enough, and the
sheds Jock Hallowell had built around the meeting-house could not hold
the horses; they lined the fences and usurped the hitching posts of the
village street, and still they came. Their owners trooped with muddy
boots into the meeting-house, and when the moderator rapped for order the
Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Jethro Bass, was not in his place;
never, indeed, would be there again. Six and thirty years he had been
supreme in that town--long enough for any man. The beams and king posts
would know him no more. Mr. Amos Cuthbert was elected Chairman, not
without a gallant and desperate but unsupported fight of a minority led
by Mr. Jake Wheeler, whose loyalty must be taken as a tribute to his
species. Farmer Cuthbert was elected, and his mortgage was not
foreclosed! Had it been, there was more money in the Harwich bank.
There was no telegraph to Coniston in these days, and so Mr. Sam Price,
with his horse in a lather, might have been seen driving with unseemly
haste toward Brampton, where in due time he arrived. Half an hour later
there was excitement at Newcastle, sixty-five miles away, in the office
of the Guardian, and the next morning the excitement had spread over the
whole state.
Jethro Bass was dethroned in Coniston--discredited in his own town!
And where was Jethro? Did his heart ache, did he bow his head as he
thought of that supremacy, so hardly won, so superbly held, gone forever?
Many were the curious eyes on the tannery house that day, and for days
after, but its owner gave no signs of concern. He read and thought and
chopped wood in the tannery shed as usual. Never, I believe, did man,
shorn of power, accept his lot more quietly. His struggle was over, his
battle was fought, a greater peace than he had ever thought to hope for
was won. For the opinion and regard of the world he had never cared. A
greater reward awaited him, greater than any knew--the opinion and regard
and the praise of one whom he loved beyond all the world. On Friday she
came to him, on Friday at sunset, for the days were growing longer, and
that was the happiest sunset of his life. She said nothing as she raised
her face to his and kissed him and clung to him in the little parlor, but
he knew, and he had his reward. So much for earthly power Cynthia brought
the little rawhide trunk this time, and came to Coniston for the March
vacation--a happy two weeks that was soon gone. Happy by comparison, that
is, with what they both had suffered, and a haven of rest after the
struggle and despair of the wilderness. The bond between them had, in
truth, never been stronger, for both the young girl and the old man had
denied themselves the thing they held most dear. Jethro had taken refuge
and found comfort in his love. But Cynthia! Her greatest love had now
been bestowed elsewhere.
If there were letters for the tannery house, Milly Skinner, who made it a
point to meet the stage, brought them. And there were letters during
Cynthia's sojourn,--many of them, bearing the Cambridge postmark. One
evening it was Jethro who laid the letter on the table beside her as she
sat under the lamp. He did not look at her or speak, but she felt that he
knew her secret--felt that he deserved to have from her own lips what he
had been too proud--yes--and too humble to ask. Whose sympathy could she
be sure of, if not of his? Still she had longed to keep this treasure to
herself. She took the letter in her hand.
"I do not answer them, Uncle Jethro, but--I cannot prevent his writing
them," she faltered. She did not confess that she kept them, every one,
and read them over and over again; that she had grown, indeed, to look
forward to them as to a sustenance. "I--I do love him, but I will not
marry him."
Yes, she could be sure of Jethro's sympathy, though he could not express
it in words. Yet she had not told him for this. She had told him, much as
the telling had hurt her, because she feared to cut him more deeply by
her silence.
It was a terrible moment for Jethro, and never had he desired the gift of
speech as now. Had it not been for him; Cynthia might have been Robert
Worthington's wife. He sat down beside her and put his hand over hers
that lay on the letter in her lap. It was the only answer he could make,
but perhaps it was the best, after all. Of what use were words at such a
time!
Four days afterward, on a Monday morning, she went back to Brampton to
begin the new term.
That same Monday a circumstance of no small importance took place in
Brampton--nothing less than the return, after a prolonged absence in the
West and elsewhere, of its first citizen. Isaac D. Worthington was again
in residence. No bells were rung, indeed, and no delegation of citizens
as such, headed by the selectmen, met him at the station; and other
feudal expressions of fealty were lacking. No staff flew Mr.
Worthington's arms; nevertheless the lord of Brampton was in his castle
again, and Brampton felt that he was there. He arrived alone, wearing the
silk hat which had become habitual with him now, and stepping into his
barouche at the station had been driven up Brampton Street behind his
grays, looking neither to the right nor left. His reddish chop whiskers
seemed to cling a little more closely to his face than formerly, and long
years of compression made his mouth look sterner than ever. A hawk-like
man, Isaac Worthington, to be reckoned with and feared, whether in a
frock coat or in breastplate and mail.
His seneschal, Mr. Flint, was awaiting him in the library. Mr. Flint was
large and very ugly, big-boned, smooth-shaven, with coarse features all
askew, and a large nose with many excrescences, and thick lips. He was
forty-two. From a foreman of the mills he had risen, step by step, to his
present position, which no one seemed able to define. He was, indeed, a
seneschal. He managed the mills in his lord's absence, and--if the truth
be told--in his presence; knotty questions of the Truro Railroad were
brought to Mr. Flint and submitted to Mr. Worthington, who decided them,
with Mr. Flint's advice; and, within the last three months, Mr. Flint had
invaded the realm of politics, quietly, as such a man would, under the
cover of his patron's name and glory. Mr. Flint it was who had bought the
Newcastle Guardian, who went occasionally to Newcastle and spoke a few
effective words now and then to the editor; and, if the truth will out,
Mr. Flint had largely conceived that scheme about the railroads which was
to set Mr. Worthington on the throne of the state, although the scheme
was not now being carried out according to Mr. Flint's wishes. Mr. Flint
was, in a sense, a Bismarck, but he was not as yet all powerful.
Sometimes his august master or one of his fellow petty sovereigns would
sweep Mr. Flint's plans into the waste basket, and then Mr. Flint would
be content to wait. To complete the character sketch, Mr. Flint was not
above hanging up his master's hat and coat, Which he did upon the present
occasion, and went up to Mr. Worthington's bedroom to fetch a pocket
handkerchief out of the second drawer. He even knew where the
handkerchiefs were kept. Lucky petty sovereigns sometimes possess Mr.
Flints to make them emperors.
The august personage seated himself briskly at his desk.
"So that scoundrel Bass is actually discredited at last," he said,
blowing his nose in the pocket handkerchief Mr. Flint had brought him. "I
lose patience when I think how long we've stood the rascal in this state.
I knew the people would rise in their indignation when they learned the
truth about him."
Mr. Flint did not answer this. He might have had other views.
"I wonder we did not think of it before," Mr. Worthington continued. "A
very simple remedy, and only requiring a little courage and--and--" (Mr.
Worthington was going to say money, but thought better of it) "and the
chimera disappears. I congratulate you, Flint."
"Congratulate yourself," said Mr. Flint; "that would not have been my
way."
"Very well, I congratulate myself," said the august personage, who was in
too good a humor to be put out by the rejection of a compliment. "You
remember what I said: the time was ripe, just publish a few biographical
articles telling people what he was, and Jethro Bass would snuff out like
a candle. Mr. Duncan tells me the town-meeting results are very good all
over the state. Even if we hadn't knocked out Jethro Bass, we'd have a
fair majority for our bill in the next legislature."
"You know Bass's saying," answered Mr. Flint, "You can hitch that kind of
a hoss, but they won't always stay hitched."
"I know, I know," said Mr. Worthington; "don't croak, Flint. We can buy
more hitch ropes, if necessary. Well, what's the outlay up to the
present? Large, I suppose. Well, whatever it is, it's small compared to
what we'll get for it." He laughed a little and rubbed his hands, and
then he remembered that capacity in which he stood before the world. Yes,
and he stood before himself in the same capacity. Isaac Worthington may
have deceived himself, but he may or may not have been a hero to his
seneschal. "We have to fight fire with fire," he added, in a pained
voice. "Let me see the account."
"I have tabulated the expense in the different cities and towns,"
answered Mr. Flint; "I will show you the account in a little while. The
expenses in Coniston were somewhat greater than the size of the town
justified, perhaps. But Sutton thought--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Mr. Worthington, "if it had cost as much to carry
Coniston as Newcastle, it would have been worth it--for the moral effect
alone."
Moral effect! Mr. Flint thought of Mr. Bixby with his bulging pockets
going about the hills, and smiled at the manner in which moral effects
are sometimes obtained.
"Any news, Flint?"
No news yet, Mr. Flint might have answered. In a few minutes there might
be news, and plenty of it, for it lay ready to be hatched under Mr.
Worthington's eye. A letter in the bold and upright hand of his son was
on the top of the pile, placed there by Mr. Flint himself, who had
examined Mr. Worthington's face closely when he came in to see how much
he might know of its contents. He had decided that Mr. Worthington was in
too good a humor to know anything of them. Mr. Flint had not steamed the
letter open, and read the news; but he could guess at them pretty
shrewdly, and so could have the biggest fool in Brampton. That letter
contained the opening scene of the next act in the drama.
Mr. Worthington cut the envelope and began to read, and while he did so
Mr. Flint, who was not afraid of man or beast, looked at him. It was a
manly and straight forward letter, and Mr. Worthington, no matter what
his opinions on the subject were, should have been proud of it. Bob
announced, first of all, that he was going to marry Cynthia Wetherell;
then he proceeded with praiseworthy self-control (for a lover) to
describe Cynthia's character and attainments: after which he stated that
Cynthia had refused him--twice, because she believed that Mr. Worthington
would oppose the marriage, and had declared that she would never be the
cause of a breach between father and son. Bob asked for his father's
consent, and hoped to have it, but he thought it only right to add that
he had given his word and his love, and did not mean to retract either.
He spoke of his visit to Brampton, and explained that Cynthia was
teaching school there, and urged his father to see her before he made a
decision. Mr. Worthington read it through to the end, his lips closing
tighter and tighter until his mouth was but a line across his face. There
was pain in the face, too, the kind of pain which anger sends, and which
comes with the tottering of a pride that is false. Of what gratification
now was the overthrow of Jethro Bass?
He stared at the letter for a moment after he had finished it, and his
face grew a dark red. Then he seized the paper and tore it slowly,
deliberately, into bits.
Dudley Worthington was not thinking then--not he!--of the young man in
the white beaver who had called at the Social Library many years before
to see a young woman whose name, too, had been Cynthia.--He was thinking,
in fact, for he was a man to think in anger, whether it were not possible
to remove this Cynthia from the face of the earth--at least to a place
beyond his horizon and that of his son. Had he worn the chain mail
instead of the frock coat he would have had her hung outside the town
walls.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. And the words sounded profane indeed as he
fixed his eyes upon Mr. Flint. "You knew that Robert had been to
Brampton."
"Yes," said Flint, "the whole village knew it."
"Good God!" cried Mr. Worthington again, "why was I not informed of this?
Why was I not warned of this? Have I no friends? Do you pretend to look
after my interests and not take the trouble to write me on such a
subject."
"Do you think I could have prevented it?" asked Mr. Flint, very calmly.
"You allow this--this woman to come here to Brampton and teach school in
a place where she can further her designs? What were you about?"
"When the prudential committee appointed her, nothing of this was known,
Mr. Worthington."
"Yes, but now--now! What are you doing, what are they doing to allow her
to remain? Who are on that committee?"
Mr. Flint named the men. They had been reelected, as usual, at the recent
town-meeting. Mr. Errol, who had also been reelected, had returned but
had not yet issued the certificate or conducted the examination.
"Send for them, have them here at once," commanded Mr. Worthington,
without listening to this.
"If you take my advice, you will do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Flint,
who, as usual, had the whole situation at his fingers' ends. He had taken
the trouble to inform himself about the girl, and he had discovered,
shrewdly enough, that she was the kind which might be led, but not
driven. If Mr. Flint's advice had been listened to, this story might have
had quite a different ending. But Mr. Flint had not reached the stage
where his advice was always listened to, and he had a maddened man to
deal with now. At that moment, as if fate had determined to intervene,
the housemaid came into the room.
"Mr. Dodd to see you, sir," she said.
"Show him in," shouted Mr. Worthington; "show him in!"
Mr. Dodd was not a man who could wait for a summons which he had felt in
his bones was coming. He was ordinarily, as we have seen, officious. But
now he was thoroughly frightened. He had seen the great man in the
barouche as he drove past the hardware store, and he had made up his mind
to go up at once, and have it over with. His opinions were formed now, He
put a smile on his face when he was a foot outside of the library door.
"This is a great pleasure, Mr. Worthington, a great pleasure, to see you
back," he said, coming forward. "I callated--"
But the great man sat in his chair, and made no attempt to return the
greeting.
"Mr. Dodd, I thought you were my friend," he said.
Mr. Dodd went all to pieces at this reception.
"So I be, Mr. Worthington--so I be," he cried. "That's why I'm here now.
I've b'en a friend of yours ever since I can remember--never fluctuated.
I'd rather have chopped my hand off than had this happen--so I would. If
I could have foreseen what she was, she'd never have had the place, as
sure as my name's Levi Dodd."
If Mr. Dodd had taken the trouble to look at the seneschal's face, he
would have seen a well-defined sneer there.
"And now that you know what she is," cried Mr. Worthington, rising and
smiting the pile of letters on his desk, "why do you keep her there an
instant?"
Mr. Dodd stopped to pick up the letters, which had flown over the floor.
But the great man was now in the full tide of his anger.
"Never mind the letters," he shouted; "tell me why you keep her there."
"We callated we'd wait and see what steps you'd like taken," said the
trembling townsman.
"Steps! Steps! Good God! What kind of man are you to serve in such a
place when you allow the professed ward of Jethro Bass--of Jethro Bass,
the most notoriously depraved man in this state, to teach the children of
this town. Steps! How soon can you call your committee together?"
"Right away," answered Mr. Dodd, breathlessly. He would have gone on to
exculpate himself, but Mr. Worthington's inexorable finger was pointing
at the door.
"If you are a friend of mine," said that gentleman, "and if you have any
regard for the fair name of this town, you will do so at once."
Mr. Dodd departed precipitately, and Mr. Worthington began to pace the
room, clasping his hands now in front of him, now behind him, in his
agony: repeating now and again various appellations which need not be
printed here, which he applied in turn to the prudential committee, to
his son, and to Cynthia Wetherell.
"I'll run her out of Brampton," he said at last.
"If you do," said Mr. Flint, who had been watching him apparently
unmoved, "you may have Jethro Bass on your back."
"Jethro Bass?" shouted Mr. Worthington, with a laugh that was not
pleasant to hear, "Jethro Bass is as dead as Julius Caesar."
It was one thing for Mr. Dodd to promise so readily a meeting of the
committee, and quite another to decide how he was going to get through
the affair without any more burns and scratches than were absolutely
necessary. He had reversed the usual order, and had been in the fire--now
he was going to the frying-pan. He stood in the street for some time,
pulling at his tuft, and then made his way to Mr. Jonathan Hill's feed
store. Mr. Hill was reading "Sartor Resartus" in his little office, the
temperature of which must have been 95, and Mr. Dodd was perspiring when
he got there.
"It's come," said Mr. Dodd, sententiously.
"What's come?" inquired Mr. Hill, mildly.
"Isaac D.'s come, that's what," said Mr. Dodd. "I hain't b'en sleepin'
well of nights, lately. I can't think what we was about, Jonathan,
puttin' that girl in the school. We'd ought to've knowed she wahn't fit."
"What's the matter with her?" inquired Mr. Hill.
"Matter with her!" exclaimed his fellow-committeeman, "she lives with
Jethro Bass--she's his ward."
"Well, what of it?" said Mr. Hill, who never bothered himself about
gossip or newspapers, or indeed about anything not between the covers of
a book, except when he couldn't help it.
"Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Dodd, "he's the most notorious, depraved man in
the state. Hain't we got to look out for the fair name of Brampton?"
Mr. Hill sighed and closed his book.
"Well," he said; "I'd hoped we were through with that. Let's go up and
see what Judge Graves says about it."
"Hold on," said Mr. Dodd, seizing the feed dealer by the coat, "we've got
to get it fixed in our minds what we're goin' to do, first. We can't
allow no notorious people in our schools. We've got to stand up to the
jedge, and tell him so. We app'inted her on his recommendation, you
know."
"I like the girl," replied Mr. Hill. "I don't think we ever had a better
teacher. She's quiet, and nice appearin', and attends to her business."
Mr. Dodd pulled his tuft, and cocked his head.
"Mr. Worthington holds a note of yours, don't he, Jonathan?"
Mr. Hill reflected. He said he thought perhaps Mr. Worthington did.
"Well," said Mr. Dodd, "I guess we might as well go along up to the jedge
now as any time."
But when they got there Mr. Dodd's knock was so timid that he had to
repeat it before the judge came to the door and peered at them over his
spectacles.
"Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" he asked, severely, though he
knew well enough. He had not been taken by surprise many times during the
last forty years. Mr. Dodd explained that they wished a little meeting of
the committee. The judge ushered them into his bedroom, the parlor being
too good for such an occasion.
"Now, gentlemen," said he, "let us get down to business. Mr. Worthington
arrived here to-day, he has seen Mr. Dodd, and Mr. Dodd has seen Mr.
Hill. Mr. Worthington is a political opponent of Jethro Bass, and wishes
Miss Wetherell dismissed. Mr. Dodd and Mr. Hill have agreed, for various
reasons which I will spare you, that Miss Wetherell should be dismissed.
Have I stated the case, gentlemen, or have I not?"
Mr. Graves took off his spectacles and wiped them, looking from one to
the other of his very uncomfortable fellow-members. Mr. Hill did not
attempt to speak; but Mr. Dodd, who was not sure now that this was not
the fire and the other the frying-pan, pulled at his tuft until words
came to him.
"Jedge," he said finally, "I must say I'm a mite surprised. I must say
your language is unwarranted."
"The truth is never unwarranted," said the judge.
"For the sake of the fair name of Brampton," began Mr. Dodd, "we cannot
allow--"
"Mr. Dodd," interrupted the judge, "I would rather have Mr. Worthington's
arguments from Mr. Worthington himself, if I wanted them at all. There is
no need of prolonging this meeting. If I were to waste my breath until
six o'clock, it would be no use. I was about to say that your opinions
were formed, but I will alter that, and say that your minds are fixed.
You are determined to dismiss Miss Wetherell. Is it not so?"
"I wish you'd hear me, Jedge," said Mr. Dodd, desperately.
"Will you kindly answer me yes or no to that question," said the judge;
"my time is valuable."
"Well, if you put it that way, I guess we are agreed that she hadn't
ought to stay. Not that I've anything against her personally--"
"All right," said the judge, with a calmness that made them tremble. They
had never bearded him before. "All right, you are two to one and no
certificate has been issued. But I tell you this, gentlemen, that you
will live to see the day when you will bitterly regret this injustice to
an innocent and a noble woman, and Isaac D. Worthington will live to
regret it. You may tell him I said so. Good day, gentlemen."
They rose.
"Jedge," began Mr. Dodd again, "I don't think you've been quite fair with
us."
"Fair!" repeated the judge, with unutterable scorn. "Good day,
gentlemen." And he slammed the door behind them.
They walked down the street some distance before either of them spoke.
"Goliah," said Mr. Dodd, at last, "did you ever hear such talk? He's got
the drattedest temper of any man I ever knew, and he never callates to
make a mistake. It's a little mite hard to do your duty when a man talks
that way."
"I'm not sure we've done it," answered Mr. Hill.
"Not sure!" ejaculated the hardware dealer, for he was now far enough
away from the judge's house to speak in his normal tone, "and she
connected with that depraved--"
"Hold on," said Mr. Hill, with an astonishing amount of spirit for him,
"I've heard that before."
Mr. Dodd looked at him, swallowed the wrong way and began to choke.
"You hain't wavered, Jonathan?" he said, when he got his breath.
"No, I haven't," said Mr. Hill, sadly; "but I wish to hell I had."
Mr. Dodd looked at him again, and began to choke again. It was the first
time he had known Jonathan Hill to swear.
"You're a-goin' to stick by what you agreed--by your principles?"
"I'm going to stick by my bread and butter," said Mr. Hill, "not by my
principles. I wish to hell I wasn't."
And so saying that gentleman departed, cutting diagonally across the
street through the snow, leaving Mr. Dodd still choking and pulling at
his tuft. This third and totally-unexpected shaking-up had caused him to
feel somewhat deranged internally, though it had not altered the opinions
now so firmly planted in his head. After a few moments, however, he had
collected himself sufficiently to move on once more, when he discovered
that he was repeating to himself, quite unconsciously, Mr. Hill's
profanity "I wish to hell I wasn't." The iron mastiffs glaring at him
angrily out of the snow banks reminded him that he was in front of Mr.
Worthington's door, and he thought he might as well go in at once and
receive the great man's gratitude. He certainly deserved it. But as he
put his hand on the bell Mr. Worthington himself came out of the house,
and would actually have gone by without noticing Mr. Dodd if he had not
spoken.
"I've got that little matter fixed, Mr. Worthington," he said, "called
the committee, and we voted to discharge the--the young woman." No, he
did not deliver Judge Graves's message.
"Very well, Mr. Dodd," answered the great man, passing on so that Mr.
Dodd was obliged to follow him in order to hear, "I'm glad you've come to
your senses at last. Kindly step into the library and tell Miss Bruce
from me that she may fill the place to-morrow."
"Certain," said Mr. Dodd, with his hand to his chin. He watched the great
man turn in at his bank in the new block, and then he did as he was bid.
By the time school was out that day the news had leaped across Brampton
Street and spread up and down both sides of it that the new teacher had
been dismissed. The story ran fairly straight--there were enough clews,
certainly. The great man's return, the visit of Mr. Dodd, the call on
Judge Graves, all had been marked. The fiat of the first citizen had gone
forth that the ward of Jethro Bass must be got rid of; the designing
young woman who had sought to entrap his son must be punished for her
amazing effrontery.
Cynthia came out of school happily unaware that her name was on the lips
of Brampton: unaware, too, that the lord of the place had come into
residence that day. She had looked forward to living in the same town
with Bob's father as an evil which was necessary to be borne, as one of
the things which are more or less inevitable in the lives of those who
have to make their own ways in the world. The children trooped around
her, and the little girls held her hand, and she talked and laughed with
them as she came up the street in the eyes of Brampton,--came up the
street to the block of new buildings where the bank was. Stepping out of
the bank, with that businesslike alertness which characterized him, was
the first citizen--none other. He found himself entangled among the
romping children and--horror of horrors he bumped into the schoolmistress
herself! Worse than this, he had taken off his hat and begged her pardon
before he looked at her and realized the enormity of his mistake. And the
schoolmistress had actually paid no attention to him, but with merely
heightened color had drawn the children out of his way and passed on
without a word. The first citizen, raging inwardly, but trying to appear
unconcerned, walked rapidly back to his house. On the street of his own
town, before the eyes of men, he had been snubbed by a school-teacher.
And such a schoolteacher!
Mr. Worthington, as he paced his library burning with the shame of this
occurrence, remembered that he had had to glance at her twice before it
came over him who she was. His first sensation had been astonishment. And
now, in spite of his bitter anger, he had to acknowledge that the face
had made an impression on him--a fact that only served to increase his
rage. A conviction grew upon him that it was a face which his son, or any
other man, would not be likely to forget. He himself could not forget it.
In the meantime Cynthia had reached her home, her cheeks still smarting,
conscious that people had stared at her. This much, of course, she
knew--that Brampton believed Bob Worthington to be in love with her: and
the knowledge at such times made her so miserable that the thought of
Jethro's isolation alone deterred her from asking Miss Lucretia Penniman
for a position in Boston. For she wrote to Miss Lucretia about her life
and her reading, as that lady had made her promise to do. She sat down
now at the cherry chest of drawers that was also a desk, to write: not to
pour out her troubles, for she never had done that,--but to calm her mind
by drawing little character sketches of her pupils. But she had only
written the words, "My dear Miss Lucretia," when she looked out of the
window and saw Judge Graves coming up the path, and ran to open the door
for him.
"How do you do, Judge?" she said, for she recognized Mr. Graves as one of
her few friends in Brampton. "I have sent to Boston for the new reader,
but it has not come."
The judge took her hand and pressed it and led her into the little
sitting room. His face was very stern, but his eyes, which had flung fire
at Mr. Dodd, looked at her with a vast compassion. Her heart misgave her.
"My dear," he said,--it was long since the judge had called any woman "my
dear,"--"I have bad news for you. The committee have decided that you
cannot teach any longer in the Brampton school."
"Oh, Judge," she answered, trying to force back the tears which would
come, "I have tried so hard. I had begun to believe that I could fill the
place."
"Fill the place!" cried the judge, startling her with his sudden anger.
"No woman in the state can fill it better than you."
"Then why am I dismissed?" she asked breathlessly.
The judge looked at her in silence, his blue lips quivering. Sometimes
even he found it hard to tell the truth. And yet he had come to tell it,
that she might suffer less. He remembered the time when Isaac D.
Worthington had done him a great wrong.
"You are dismissed," he said, "because Mr. Worthington has come home, and
because the two other members of the committee are dogs and cowards." Mr.
Graves never minced matters when he began, and his voice shook with
passion. "If Mr. Errol had examined you, and you had your certificate, it
might have been different. Errol is not a sycophant. Worthington does not
hold his mortgage."
"Mortgage!" exclaimed Cynthia. The word always struck terror to her soul.
"Mr. Worthington holds Mr. Hill's mortgage," said Mr. Graves, more than
ever beside himself at the sight of her suffering. "That man's tyranny is
not to be borne. We will not give up, Cynthia. I will fight him in this
matter if it takes my last ounce of strength, so help me God!"
Mortgage! Cynthia sank down in the chair by the desk. In spite of the
misery the news had brought, the thought that his father, too, who was
fighting Jethro Bass as a righteous man, dealt in mortgages and coerced
men to do his will, was overwhelming. So she sat for a while staring at
the landscape on the old wall paper.
"I will go to Coniston to-night," she said at last.
"No," cried the judge, seizing her shoulder in his excitement, "no. Do
you think that I have been your friend--that I am your friend?"
"Oh, Judge Graves--"
"Then stay here, where you are. I ask it as a favor to me. You need not
go to the school to-morrow--indeed, you cannot. But stay here for a day
or two at least, and if there is any justice left in a free country, we
shall have it. Will you stay, as a favor to me?"
"I will stay, since you ask it," said Cynthia. "I will do what you think
right."
Her voice was firmer than he expected--much firmer. He glanced at her
quickly, with something very like admiration in his eye.
"You are a good woman, and a brave woman," he said, and with this
somewhat surprising tribute he took his departure instantly.
Cynthia was left to her thoughts, and these were harassing and sorrowful
enough. One idea, however, persisted through them all. Mr. Worthington,
whose power she had lived long enough in Brampton to know, was an unjust
man and a hypocrite. That thought was both sweet and bitter: sweet, as a
retribution; and bitter, because he was Bob's father. She realized, now,
that Bob knew these things, and she respected and loved him the more, if
that were possible, because he had refrained from speaking of them to
her. And now another thought came, and though she put it resolutely from
her, persisted. Was she not justified now in marrying him? The reasoning
was false, so she told herself. She had no right to separate Bob from his
father, whatever his father might be. Did not she still love Jethro Bass?
Yes, but he had renounced his ways. Her heart swelled gratefully as she
spoke the words to herself, and she reflected that he, at least, had
never been a hypocrite.
Of one thing she was sure, now. In the matter of the school she had right
on her side, and she must allow Judge Graves to do whatever he thought
proper to maintain that right. If Isaac D. Worthington's character had
been different, this would not have been her decision. Now she would not
leave Brampton in disgrace, when she had done nothing to merit it. Not
that she believed that the judge would prevail against such mighty odds.
So little did she think so that she fell, presently, into a despondency
which in all her troubles had not overtaken her--the despondency which
comes even to the pure and the strong when they feel the unjust strength
of the world against them. In this state her eyes fell on the letter she
had started to Miss Lucretia Penniman, and in desperation she began to
write.
It was a short letter, reserved enough, and quite in character. It was
right that she should defend herself, which she did with dignity, saying
that she believed the committee had no fault to find with her duties, but
that Mr. Worthington had seen fit to bring influence to bear upon them
because of her connection with Jethro Bass.
It was not the whole truth, but Cynthia could not bring herself to write
of that other reason. At the end she asked, very simply, if Miss Lucretia
could find her something to do in Boston in case her dismissal became
certain. Then she put on her coat, and walked to the postoffice to post
the letter, for she resolved that there could be no shame without reason
for it. There was a little more color in her cheeks, and she held her
head high, preparing to be slighted. But she was not slighted, and got
more salutations, if anything, than usual. She was, indeed, in the right
not to hide her head, and policy alone would have forbade it, had Cynthia
thought of policy.