The Roarer started obediently out into the rain-storm with his little
basket; he did not run, but walked slowly, as if the storm was nothing
compared to his settled melancholy.
'What a note to send to a coal-miner!' I said, during a momentary
absence of our hostess.
'Never fear; it will be appreciated,' replied Ermine.
'What is this king's carriage of which you spoke?' I asked, during the
next hour's conversation.
'O, when they first come over from Germany, they had a sort of a king;
he knew more than the rest, and he lived in that big brick house with
dormel-winders and a cuperler, that stands next the garden. The carriage
was hisn, and it had steps to let down, and curtains and all; they
don't use it much now he's dead. They're a queer set anyhow! The women
look like meal-sacks. After Sol seen me, he couldn't abide to look at
'em.'
Soon after six we heard the great gate creak.
'That's Sol,' said the woman,' and now of course Roarer'll come in and
track all over my floor.' The hall door opened and a shadow passed into
the opposite room, two shadows,--a man and a dog.
'He's going to wash himself now,' continued the wife; 'he's always
washing himself, just like a horse.'
'New fact in natural history, Dora love,' observed Ermine.
After some moments the miner appeared,--a tall, stooping figure with
high forehead, large blue eyes, and long thin yellow hair; there was a
singularly lifeless expression in his face, and a far-off look in his
eyes. He gazed about the room in an absent way, as though he scarcely
saw us. Behind him stalked the Roarer, wagging his tail slowly from side
to side.
'Now, then, dont yer see the ladies, Sol? Where's yer manners?' said his
wife, sharply.
'Ah,--yes,--good evening,' he said, vaguely. Then his wandering eyes
fell upon Ermine's beautiful face, and fixed themselves there with
strange intentness.
'You received my note, Mr. Bangs?' said my cousin in her soft voice.
'Yes, surely. You are Erminia,' replied the man, still standing in the
centre of the room with fixed eyes. The Roarer laid himself down behind
his master, and his tail still wagging, sounded upon the floor with a
regular tap.
'Now then, Sol, since you've come home, perhaps you'll entertain the
ladies while I get supper,' quoth Mrs. Bangs; and forthwith began a
clatter of pans.
The man passed his long hand abstractedly over his forehead. 'Eh,' he
said with long-drawn utterance,--'eh-h? Yes, my rose of Sharon,
certainly, certainly.'
'Then why don't you do it!' said the woman, lighting the fire in the
brick stove.
'And what will the ladies please to do?' he answered, his eyes going
back to Ermine.
'We will look over your pictures, sir,' said my cousin, rising; 'they
are in the upper room, I believe.'
A great flush rose in the painter's thin cheeks. 'Will you,' he said
eagerly,--'will you? Come!'
'It's a broken-down old hole, ladies; Sol will never let me sweep it
out. Reckon you'll be more comfortable here,' said Mrs. Bangs, with her
arms in the flour.
'No, no, my lily of the valley. The ladies will come with me; they will
not scorn the poor room.'
'A studio is always interesting,' said Ermine, sweeping up the rough
stairs behind Solomon's candle. The dog followed us, and laid himself
down on an old mat, as though well accustomed to the place. 'Eh-h, boy,
you came bravely through the storm with the lady's note.' said his
master, beginning to light candle after candle. 'See him laugh!'
'Can a dog laugh?'
'Certainly; look at him now. What is that but a grin of happy
contentment? Don't the Bible say, "grin like a dog"?'
'You seem much attached to the Roarer.'
'Tuscarora, lady, Tuscarora. Yes, I love him well. He has been with me
through all, he has watched the making of all my pictures; he always
lies there when I paint.'
By this time a dozen candles were burning on shelves and brackets, and
we could see all parts of the attic studio. It was but a poor place,
unfloored in the corners where the roof slanted down, and having no
ceiling but the dark beams and thatch; hung upon the walls were the
pictures we had seen, and many others, all crude and high colored, and
all representing the same face,--the sulphur-woman in her youth, the
poor artist's only ideal. He showed us these one by one, handling them
tenderly, and telling us, in his quaint language, all they symbolized.
'This is Ruth, and denoteth the power of hope,' he said. 'Behold Judith,
the queen of revenge. And this dear one is Rachel, for whom Jacob served
seven years, and they seemed unto him but a day, so well he loved her.'
The light shone on his pale face, and we noticed the far-off look in his
eyes, and the long, tapering fingers coming out from the hard-worked
broad palm. To me it was a melancholy scene, the poor artist with his
daubs and the dreary attic.
But Ermine seemed eagerly interested; she looked at the staring
pictures, listened to the explanations, and at last she said gently,
'Let me show you something of perspective, and the part that shadows
play in a pictured face. Have you any crayons?'
No; the man had only his coarse paints and lumps of charcoal; taking a
piece of the coal in her delicate hand, my cousin began to work upon a
sheet of drawing-paper attached to the rough easel. Solomon watched her
intently, as she explained and demonstrated some of the rules of
drawing, the lights and shades, and the manner of representing the
different features and curves. All his pictures were full faces, flat
and unshaded; Ermine showed him the power of the profile and the
three-quarter view. I grew weary of watching them, and pressing my face
against the little window gazed out into the night; steadily the rain
came down and the hills shut us in like a well. I thought of our home in
C----, and its bright lights, warmth, company, and life. Why should we
come masquerading out among the Ohio hills at this late season? And then
I remembered that it was because Ermine would come; she liked such
expeditions, and from childhood I had always followed her lead. '_Dux
nascitur_, etc., etc.' Turning away from the gloomy night, I looked
towards the easel again; Solomon's cheeks were deeply flushed, and his
eyes shone like stars. The lesson went on, the merely mechanical hand
explaining its art to the ignorant fingers of genius. Ermine had taken
lessons all her life, but she had never produced an original picture,
only copies.
At last the lesson was interrupted by a voice from below, 'Sol, Sol,
supper's ready!' No one stirred until, feeling some sympathy for the
amount of work which my ears told me had been going on below, I woke up
the two enthusiasts and took them away from the easel down stairs into
the keeping-room, where a loaded table and a scarlet hostess bore
witness to the truth of my surmise. Strange things we ate that night,
dishes unheard of in towns, but not unpalatable. Ermine had the one
china cup for her corn-coffee; her grand air always secured her such
favors. Tuscarora was there and ate of the best, now and then laying his
shaggy head on the table, and, as his master said, 'smiling at us';
evidently the evening was his gala time. It was nearly nine when the
feast was ended, and I immediately proposed retiring to bed, for, having
but little art enthusiasm, I dreaded a vigil in that dreary attic.
Solomon looked disappointed, but I ruthlessly carried off Ermine to the
opposite room, which we afterwards suspected was the apartment of our
hosts, freshened and set in order in our honor. The sound of the rain on
the piazza roof lulled us soon to sleep, in spite of the strange
surroundings; but more than once I woke and wondered where I was,
suddenly remembering the lonely house in its lonely valley with a shiver
of discomfort. The next morning we woke at our usual hour, but some time
after the miner's departure; breakfast was awaiting us in the
keeping-room, and our hostess said that an ox-team from the Community
would come for us before nine. She seemed sorry to part with us, and
refused any remuneration for our stay; but none the less did we promise
ourselves to send some dresses and even ornaments from C----, to feed
that poor, starving love of finery. As we rode away in the ox-cart, the
Roarer looked wistfully after us through the bars; but his melancholy
mood was upon him again, and he had not the heart even to wag his tail.
As we were sitting in the hotel parlor, in front of our soft-coal fire
in the evening of the following day, and discussing whether or no we
should return to the city within the week, the old landlord entered
without his broad-brimmed hat,--an unusual attention, since he was a
trustee and a man of note in the Community, and removed his hat for no
one or nothing; we even suspected that he slept in it.
'You know Zolomon Barngs,' he said, slowly.
'Yes,' we answered.
'Well, he's dead. Kilt in de mine.' And putting on the hat, removed, we
now saw, in respect for death, he left the room suddenly as he had
entered it. As it happened, we had been discussing the couple, I, as
usual, contending for the wife, and Ermine, as usual, advocating the
cause of the husband.
'Let us go out there immediately to see her, poor woman!' I said,
rising.
'Yes, poor man, we will go to him!' said Ermine.
'But the man is dead, cousin.'
'Then he shall at least have one kind friendly glance before he is
carried to his grave,' answered Ermine quietly.
In a short time we set out in the darkness, and dearly did we have to
pay for the night-ride; no one could understand the motive of our going,
but money was money, and we could pay for all peculiarities. It was a
dark night, and the ride seemed endless as the oxen moved slowly on
through the red-clay mire. At last we reached the turn and saw the
little lonely house with its upper room brightly lighted.
'He is in the studio,' said Ermine; and so it proved. He was not dead,
but dying; not maimed but poisoned by the gas of the mine, and rescued
too late for recovery. They had placed him upon the floor on a couch of
blankets and the dull-eyed Community doctor stood at his side. 'No good,
no good,' he said; 'he must die.' And then, hearing of the returning
cart, he left us, and we could hear the tramp of the oxen over the
little bridge, on their way back to the village.
The dying man's head lay upon his wife's breast, and her arms supported
him; she did not speak, but gazed at us with a dumb agony in her large
eyes. Ermine knelt down and took the lifeless hand streaked with
coal-dust in both her own. 'Solomon,' she said, in her soft, clear
voice, 'do you know me?'
The closed eyes opened slowly, and fixed themselves upon her face a
moment: then they turned towards the window, as if seeking something.
'It's the picter he means,' said the wife. 'He sat up most all last
night a doing it.'
I lighted all the candles, and Ermine brought forward the easel; upon it
stood a sketch in charcoal wonderful to behold,--the same face, the face
of the faded wife, but so noble in its idealized beauty that it might
have been a portrait of her glorified face in Paradise. It was a
profile, with the eyes upturned,--a mere outline, but grand in
conception and expression. I gazed in silent astonishment.
Ermine said, 'Yes, I knew you could do it, Solomon. It is perfect of its
kind.' The shadow of a smile stole over the pallid face, and then the
husband's fading gaze turned upward to meet the wild, dark eyes of the
wife.
'It's you, Dorcas,' he murmured; 'that's how you looked to me, but I
never could get it right before.' She bent over him, and silently we
watched the coming of the shadow of death; he spoke only once, 'My rose
of Sharon--' And then in a moment he was gone, the poor artist was dead.
Wild, wild was the grief of the ungoverned heart left behind; she was
like a mad-woman, and our united strength was needed to keep her from
injuring herself in her frenzy. I was frightened, but Ermine's strong
little hands and lithe arms kept her down until, exhausted, she lay
motionless near her dead husband. Then we carried her down stairs and I
watched by the bedside, while my cousin went back to the studio. She was
absent some time, and then she came back to keep the vigil with me
through the long, still night. At dawn the woman woke, and her face
looked aged in the gray light. She was quiet, and took without a word
the food we had prepared awkwardly enough, in the keeping-room.
'I must go to him, I must go to him.' she murmured, as we led her back.
'Yes,' said Ermine, 'but first let me make you tidy. He loved to see you
neat.' And with deft, gentle touch she dressed the poor creature,
arranging the heavy hair so artistically that, for the first time, I saw
what she might have been, and understood the husband's dream.
'What is that?' I said, as a peculiar sound startled us.
'It's Roarer. He was tied up last night, but I suppose he's gnawed the
rope,' said the woman. I opened the hall door, and in stalked the great
dog, smelling his way directly up the stairs.
'O, he must not go!' I exclaimed.
'Yes, let him go, he loved his master,' said Ermine; 'we will go too.'
So silently we all went up into the chamber of death.
The pictures had been taken down from the walls, but the wonderful
sketch remained on the easel, which had been moved to the head of the
couch where Solomon lay. His long, light hair was smooth, his face
peacefully quiet, and on his breast lay the beautiful bunch of autumn
leaves which he had arranged in our honor. It was a striking
picture,--the noble face of the sketch above, and the dead face of the
artist below. It brought to my mind a design I had once seen, where Fame
with her laurels came at last to the door of the poor artist and gently
knocked; but he had died the night before!
The dog lay at his master's feet, nor stirred until Solomon was carried
out to his grave.
The Community buried the miner in one corner of the lonely little
meadow. No service had they and no mound was raised to mark the spot,
for such was their custom; but in the early spring we went down again
into the valley, and placed a block of granite over the grave. It bore
the inscription:--