SHOWING HOW POWER MET A GUIDE
If a man be harassed too greatly by outrageous fortune, there comes a
time when he will defy the oppressing gods, and set their edicts at
naught. Power's temperament fitted him for sacrifice carried far beyond
the common limits of human endurance; but his gorge rose against this
latest tyranny; the recoil from bright hope to darkest despair brought
him perilously near the gulf. Seated in his room, and reviewing his
wrecked life, he was minded then and there to fling himself into the
worst dissipation New York could offer. What had he gained by his
self-imposed penance, his exile, and his unquestioning service? No monk
of La Trappe had disciplined body and soul more rigorously than he
during seven weary years; yet, seemingly, his atonement was not
accepted, and he was faced now by a decree that entailed unending
banishment. Was Providence, then, less merciful than man? The felon,
convicted of an offense against his country's laws, was better treated
than he. The poor wretch released from prison was met at the gates of
the penitentiary by philanthropic offer of reinstatement among his
fellows; but for the man who had yielded once to the lure of a woman's
love there was, apparently, no forgiveness. Why should he accept any
such inexorable ban? He was young, as men regard youth in these days. He
was rich. The wine of life ran red in his veins. Why should he fold his
arms and bend his head, and say with the meek Jesuit whose moldering
bones had harbored that beautiful volume lying there in its leather
covering, "_Fiat voluntas Tua!_"
That hour of revolt was the bitterest in Power's existence. Like Jacob,
he wrestled with a too potent adversary, and, refusing to yield, asked
for a curse rather than a blessing; for he thought he was striving
against a fiend. Fortunately, he underestimated his own strength. Some
men, he knew, would have tossed every record of the past into the fire,
and married the woman of their choice without other than a momentary
qualm of conscience. That course, to him, was a sheer impossibility.
While the dead Nancy and her living child stood in the gates of Eden,
and option lay only between wedding Marguerite Sinclair and blowing out
his brains, he would die unhesitatingly. But, if he continued to live,
what was the outlook? Wine, women--debauchery, lewdness? His soul
sickened at the notion. He laughed, with bitter humor, while picturing
himself a roué, a "sport", an opulent supporter of musical
comedy--especially with regard to its frailer exponents--a lounger in
"fashionable" resorts. No; that was not the way out of the maze, if ever
a way might be found.
It was a sign of returning sanity that he should fill his pipe. As the
German proverb has it, "God first made man, and then He made woman;
then, feeling sorry for man, He made tobacco". Power continued to sit
there smoking, lost in troubled but more humbled thought, until a
chambermaid entered the room. He had kept no count of time, and had
evidently passed many hours in somber musing; for the apartment was in
semidarkness, and the girl started when she caught sight of the solitary
figure sunk in the depths of an armchair.
"My land!" she cried, "but you made me jump!" Then, aware that this was
not precisely the manner of address expected by patrons of the
Waldorf-Astoria, she added hurriedly, "I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't
know you were in. Shall I switch on the light?"
"Can you?" he said.
"Why, of course, I can. There you are!"
The room was suddenly illuminated. Power rose and stretched his
limbs--he felt as if he had marched many miles carrying a heavy load.
"Like others of your sex, you work miracles, then," he said.
One glance at his face, and the housemaid regained confidence. "Yes, if
it is a miracle to touch a switch," she answered pertly.
"Nothing more wonderful was done when the world was created. 'Let there
be light: and there was light.' You have read the first chapter of
Genesis, I am sure?"
"Yes, and the second."
"Good! Stop there, if you would rest thoroughly content. The serpent
lifts his head in the third. Will you kindly send the valet?"
The girl confided to her fellow-servants in the service-room that the
gentleman in Number So-and-so was very nice, but slightly cracked. He
seemed to have been upset by a lot of old letters--and it was an odd
thing that among all the rich people who lived in the hotel none seemed
to be really happy. Now, if she, deponent, only possessed a fraction of
their wealth, she would enjoy life to the limit.
Power did not change his attire that evening. He dined quietly in the
restaurant, and strolled out into Broadway afterward. The loneliness of
a great city, at first so repellent, was grateful to him now. The
crowded streets were more democratic than the palatial saloons of the
hotel, the air more breathable. But the flood of light in the Great
White Way--though blazing then with a subdued magnificence as compared
with its bewildering luster nowadays--was garish and harsh, and he
turned into the sheltering gloom of a quiet side-street. He was passing
a row of red-stone houses--bay-windowed, austere abodes, with porches
surmounting steep flights of broad steps--when he saw an old, old man
seated at the foot of one of these outer stairways. In summer, at that
hour, every step would be occupied by people gasping for fresh, cool
air; but in the depth of winter it was courting disease and death for
anyone, especially the aged, to seek such repose.
The unusual spectacle stirred Power out of his mournful self-communing.
"Are you ill?" he said, halting in front of the patriarch.
"No, sorr," came the cheerful answer, and a worn, deeply lined face was
raised to his with a smile that banished the ravages of time as sunlight
gilds a ruin. A street-lamp was near, and its rays fell on features
which had once been strong and massive, but were now mellowed into the
rare beauty of hale and kindly age. Silvery hair, still plentiful, and
dark, keen eyes from which gleamed the intelligence and sympathy every
clean-souled man may hope to gain if his years stretch beyond the span
allotted by the prophet, made up a personality which would have appealed
to an artist in search of a model.
"But you are taking a great risk by sitting on cold stone," persisted
Power.
"Sure, sorr, av it's the will o' God that I should die that way, it's as
good as anny other," said the ancient. "All doores ladin' to the next
worruld are pretty much the same to me. I don't care which wan I take so
long as it lades me safe into Purgathory."
Never before had Power heard so modest a claim on the benevolence of the
Almighty.
"Are you tired of life, then?" he asked.
"Sorra a bit am I! Why should I be? Wouldn't it be flyin' in the face o'
Providence to say that I was tired of the sivinty-eight grand years I've
spint in raisonable happiness an' the best o' health."
"I like your philosophy. It has the right ring. But it can hardly be the
will of God that you should shorten the remainder of those years by
resting on a doorstep in this weather."
"Young man," said the other suddenly, "how old are ye?"
"Thirty-five."
"Thorty-foive is it? An' ye stand there an' talk as though ye'd just
come down like Moses from the top o' Mount Sinai, an' had the worrd o'
the Lord nately written in yer pocketbook. Sure, thim days is past
entirely. God doesn't talk to His sarvints anny longer in that way."
"Tell me, then, how does He talk?"
"Faix, sorr, I'm on'y a poor ould man, an' it's not for the likes o' me
to insthruct a gintleman like you; but, av I'm not greatly mistaken,
you've heard His voice more than wance or twice in yer life already, an'
yer own heart'll tell you betther than I can what it sounds like."
"Friend, your eyes are clearer than mine. Still, it will please me if
you get up, and let me walk a little way with you. Or, if you don't feel
able to walk, allow me to take you to your destination in a cab."
His new acquaintance rose, nimbly enough. Then Power saw that he had
been using a bundle of newspapers as a cushion.
"A cab, is it?" laughed the other. "My! but money must come aisy your
road, a thing it 'ud nivver do for me, thry as I might, an' I was a hard
worrker in me time. But I'd sooner walk. I'm feelin' a thrifle shtiff,
an' I haven't far to go."
"May I come with you?"
"Ye may, an' welcome. It's a mighty pleasant thing to have a fri'ndly
chat wid a man who has sinse enough to wear fine clo'es an' talk like
the aristocracy, an' yet not be ashamed to be seen sp'akin' to wan o' my
sort."
"Will you think it rude if I inquire what you mean to do with those
newspapers? Surely, at your age, you don't sell them in the streets."
"Faith, I'll have to thry my hand at it now, an' no mistake. Me
grandson, Jimmy Maguire, was run over this afthernoon by an express van,
an' he's up there at the hospital in West 16th Street. Jimmy is all that
is left betune me an' the wall, an' I'm goin' now to give in his
returns. Mebbe the newspaper folk will let me hould his stand till the
docthors sind him out."
"And if they don't?"
"Sure, sorr, God is good to the poor Irish."
"I hope so, most sincerely. Still, a newspaper is a commercial
enterprise, and the publisher may think you unequal to the job. What
then?"
"Thin? I'd take a reef in me belt for breakfast, an' spind a p'aceful
hour in the cathaydral, that dhrame in shtone up there on Fifth Avenue.
Don't ye remimber that verse in the Psalms, 'I have been young, and now
am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging
bread.' Manny's the toime thim worrds have consoled me whin iverything
looked black, an' I was throubled wid quare thoughts, bein' nigh
famishin' wid hunger."
"Have you actually wanted food--here, in this great city?"
The old fellow laughed merrily. Evidently, he found the question
humorous.
"Sure, I've had the misforchunes of Job," he said. "First, I lost me
darlin' wife. Thin I lost me job as a buildher's foreman. I had two
sons, and wan was dhrowned at say, an' the other was killed in a
mine----"
"In a mine? What sort of mine?"
"A gold mine, at a place called Bison, in Colorado."
"When?"
"Nine years ago last Christmas?"
"Was his name Maguire?"
"No, sorr--Rafferty. A foine, upshtandin' boy he was, too."
Power recalled the incident. Indeed, he had helped to clear the rockfall
which crushed the life out of the unfortunate miner. But he gave no sign
of his knowledge.
"Why is your grandson named Maguire?" he went on.
"He is my daughther's son, an' she died in childbirth. More's the pity,
because Maguire was a dacint man; but he took to the dhrink afther she
was gone, an' that was the ind of him."
"Yet you are a firm believer in the goodness of Providence,
notwithstanding all these cruel blows?"
"Musha, sorr," said Rafferty anxiously, "have ye nivver read the Book o'
Job? Look at the thrials an' crosses put on that poor ould craythur, an'
where would he have been if the thrue faith wasn't in him?"
"Rafferty, I would give ten years of my life to believe as you believe."
"Indade, sorr, ye needn't give tin minutes. Go home to yer room, an'
sink down on your marrowbones, an' ax for help an' guidance, an' they'll
be given you as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Though, moind ye, ye
mayn't know it all at wance, just as it may be rainin' tomorrow, when
the sun will be hid; but he'll be shinin' high up in the sky for all
that."
The two crossed Sixth Avenue together, and Rafferty pointed to a big
building, a place ablaze with light and quivering with the activities of
six-decker printing machines.
"That's where I'm goin'," he said. "Maybe they'll detain me some toime."
"Before we part, my friend, tell me where you live."
"Away over in the poorest part o' Twinty-sivinth Street, sorr."
"And how old is your grandson?"
"He'll be eleven next birthday."
"Is he seriously injured?"
Then tears came into the old man's eyes. For once his splendid courage
wavered.
"They wouldn't tell me at the hospital, an' that's the truth, sorr; but
a polisman who helped to pull him from undher the wagon said he thought
he had escaped the worrst."
"Are you and Jimmy known to any of the priests at the cathedral?"
"Sure, sorr, don't they all know us? I remimber Canon M'Evoy comin'
there twinty-foive years ago."
"And now, Rafferty, as one friend to another, will you let me help you?"
"Musha, an' is it beggin' you think I am?" and a gleam of Celtic fire
shone through the mist of anguish.
"No. But you have given me good counsel tonight, and I am minded to pay
for it."
"Faith, I haven't said a worrd that isn't plain for all min, an' women,
too, to read, if they have a moind to look for it in the right place."
"Sometimes one needs reminding of that, and you have done it. Come, now.
Let me finance you with a few dollars, just to carry you along till
Jimmy is around again."
Rafferty drew a knotted hand across his eyes, and then peered keenly
into Power's face. What he saw there seemed to reassure him.
"Well, an' it's me that's the lucky man, an' no mistake!" he cried,
while whole-hearted joy seemed to make him young again. "I'll take your
help in the spirit it's offered in, sorr. If the situation was revarsed,
I'd do what I could for you, because you have the look av a man who'd do
unto others that which he wants others to do unto him. An', by that same
token, I've as much chance av gettin' Jimmy's stand wid the papers as I
have av bein' run for Prisident av the United States next fall."
Power took a folded note from his pocketbook.
"Put that where the cat can't get it," he said. "And now goodby, and
thank you."
But something unusual in the aspect of the note caused Rafferty to open
it.
"Sure, an' you were nearly committin' a terrible blundher!" he cried
excitedly. "This is a hundred dollars, sorr, an' you'd be m'anin',
mebbe, to give me a foive."
"No. Don't be vexed with me, but that amount of money will make things
easy during the next month or so."
"The next month! Glory be to God, I can live like a prince for three
months, on a hundred dollars!"
"I firmly believe that you will live better than most princes.... That's
right. Stow it away carefully, and don't forget that I am still your
debtor."
"Why, sorr, I can nivver repay you as long as I live."
"Oh, yes, you can. Remember me when you go to the cathedral tomorrow."
"Sorr, may I ax yer name?"
"Power--John Darien Power."
"Arrah, an' are ye Irish?"
"No."
"'Tis an Irish name, annyhow. But it matthers little what nation ye
belong to. You're a rale Christian, an' 'tis writ in your face."
"There have been times when I would have doubted that; but the spirit of
God has been abroad in New York tonight, and, perhaps, it has descended
on me. Once more, goodby! I needn't wish you content, because you
cinched that long ago."
"Ah, sorr, may Hivin bless ye! Manny's the heart you'll make light in
this vale av tears, or I'm no judge av a man."
It seemed to Power's overwrought imagination as though Rafferty had
suddenly assumed the guise and bearing of a supernatural being. Those
concluding words rang in his ears as he hurried away. They had the sound
of a message, an exhortation. The iron walls which appeared to encircle
him had been cast down. His feet were set on an open road, fair and
inviting, and he cared not whither it led so long as he escaped from the
prison in which his soul might have been pent eternally.
Diving through a press of traffic, he reached the opposite side of a
small square. A congestion of street-cars and other vehicles cleared
during a brief interval, and, looking back, he saw the old man standing
motionless, gazing up at the sky. At that instant a ragged urchin,
carrying a bundle of papers, seemed to recognize Rafferty, and spoke to
him.
The Irishman, called back to earth, bent over the youth, and, evidently
obeying a generous impulse, added his own store of "returns" to those of
the boy, patted him on the head, and pointed to a doorway.
Power could have repeated with tolerable accuracy every word that
passed, though the notable din of New York was quadrupled in that
particular locality:
"Say, how's Jimmy, Mr. Rafferty?"
"Eh? Faix, he's mighty bad, but God is good, and mebbe he'll recover. Is
it takin' in yer returns ye are? Well, now, here's some I don't want; so
just add thim to yer own shtock, an' mind ye'll be afther takin' the
money to yer mother. She needs it more'n I do, the poor sowl."
Then the man of faith recrossed Sixth Avenue, and was lost to sight.
In his room that night Power wrote to Marguerite:
"My dear Meg.--This is my first and last letter to you; so I pray
you read it with sympathy. Today I bought a ring at a jeweler's
intending it to be a token of our promised marriage. I am sending
the ring, and I ask you to wear it in remembrance of one who must
remain forever dead to you. The life of happiness we planned has
turned to Dead Sea fruit; for I have been struck by a bolt from
Heaven, and marriage becomes an impossibility. I would explain
myself more clearly if explanation were not an insult. But I
_must_ say this--no man could have foreseen the calamity which has
befallen me, which has laid in wait throughout the long years to
overwhelm me at last. That is all I dare tell you. Forgive me,
dear one. I would not willingly cause you a pang; but Fate is
stronger than I, and I am vanquished. Do you know me well enough
to accept this statement in its crude truth? It cannot be
gainsaid, it cannot be altered, time itself cannot assuage its
rigors. Do not write to me. I have no fear of reproach, which
would never come from your dear lips, but your strong, brave words
would wring my very heartstrings. And yet, I love you, and will
grieve till the end that you should have been reft from me.
Farewell, then, my dear one.
Next morning he paid a visit to the clergy-house connected with the
cathedral on Fifth Avenue. He asked a priest who received him if
anything was known of an old man named Rafferty, who lived on West 27th
Street, and had a grandson named Maguire.
"Yes," said the ecclesiastic. "I know Rafferty well, and esteem him most
highly. In all New York there is no more God-fearing man."
Power smiled. "Fearing?" he questioned.
"Well, I accept the correction. 'Serving,' I should have said."
"And he really exists?"
"Undoubtedly. Why do you ask?"
"I fancied that, perhaps, the age of miracles had not passed."
"Who says it has?"
"Not I. But I come here for a specific purpose. I mean to provide
Rafferty with the sum of fifteen dollars weekly while he lives, and, if
his grandson recovers from an accident he sustained yesterday, a
further sum sufficient to maintain, clothe, and educate the boy until he
is taught a trade. My banker will co-operate in a trust for this
purpose. Will you, or one of your brotherhood, act with him?"
Thus it came to pass that Rafferty, like Job, was more prosperous in the
end than in the beginning, and died when he was "old and full of days";
but he had lived five long years to bless the name of his benefactor.
That evening Power took train to the West. He prepared MacGonigal for
his coming by a telegram, never thinking that an event which lay in the
category of common things for him meant something akin to an earthquake
at Bison. He was enlightened when a brass band, "headed by the mayor and
a deputation of influential citizens" (see _Rocky Mountain News_ of
current date) met him at Bison station, where an address of welcome was
read, the while MacGonigal and Jake beamed on a cheering multitude. At
first Power was astonished and secretly annoyed; then he could not help
but yield to the genuine heartiness of this civic welcome, which
contrasted so markedly with his last dismal home-coming. He made a
modest speech, expressing his real surprise at the community's progress,
and promising not to absent himself again for so long a period.
Then he was escorted in a triumphal procession to the ranch. It was the
organizers' intent that he should sit in an open carriage in solitary
state, in order that thousands of people who had never seen him should
feast their eyes on "the man who made Bison," while it was felt that, if
he were not distracted by conversation, he would give more heed to local
marvels in the shape of trolley-cars, a town hall, a public library, a
"Mary Power" institute, and a whole township of new avenues and streets.
But he declined emphatically to fall in with this arrangement, and, if
his subconscious mind were not dwelling on less transient matters, might
have been much amused by noting how MacGonigal, Jake, and the mayor (a
man previously unknown to him) shared the honors of the hour. Nothing
could have proved more distasteful personally than this joyous
home-coming; yet he went through the ordeal with a quiet dignity that
added to his popularity. For, singularly enough, he had not been
forgotten or ignored in Bison. MacGonigal, the leader of every phase of
local activity, never spoke in public that he did not refer to "our
chief citizen, John Darien Power," and his name and personality figured
in all matters effecting the town's rapid development.
He was deeply touched when he found the ranch exactly as he had left it.
He imagined that Jake and his family were living there; but the overseer
had built himself a fine house close at hand, and the Dolores homestead
was altered in no respect, save that it seemed to have shrunk somewhat,
owing to the growth of the surrounding trees and shrubberies.
When, at last, he and MacGonigal were left together in the room which
was so intimately associated with vital happenings in his career, his
stout partner brought off a remark which the ordered ceremony of the
railroad depot had not permitted.
"Wall, ef I ain't dog-goned glad ter see ye ag'in, Derry!" he said,
holding forth a fat fist for another handshake. "But whar on airth did
ye bury yerself? Between yer friend Mr. Dacre an' meself, the hull blame
world was s'arched fer news of you; but you couldn't hev vanished more
completely ef Jonah's whale had swallered you, or you'd been carried up
to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah."
"Hello, Mac!" cried Power, eying his elderly companion with renewed
interest. "Whence this Biblical flavor in your speech? Have you taken a
much-needed religious turn?"
"It's fer example, an' that's a fac', Derry. Sence you boosted me inter
bein' a notorious char-ac-ter, I've kind o' lived up ter specification.
Thar's no gettin' away from it. Ye can't deal out prizes to a row o'
shiny-faced kids in a Sunday-school without larnin' some of the stock
lingo, an' bits of it stick. But don't let's talk about me. I want ter
hear about you. Whar hev you been?"
"It's a long story, Mac, and will take some telling. Just now, looking
around at this room and its familiar objects, my mind goes back through
the years. What did you say to Nancy when she wrote and asked what had
become of me?"
MacGonigal, who had made quite a speech at the reception, and had been
unusually long-winded during the drive, reverted suddenly to earlier
habit.
"Who's been openin' old sores?" he inquired.
"No one. Nancy wrote to me before she died. That is all."
"Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?"
"Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly
what happened."
"It wasn't such a heap. She cabled an' wrote, an' I had to tell her you
was plumb crazy about--about yer mother's death. That was the on'y
reason I could hand out fer your disappearin' act. Pore thing! Soon
after she got my letter she gev in her own checks."
"Have you met Marten recently?"
"He was in Denver last fall."
"And the child--the little girl--did you see her?"
"Yep. Gosh, Derry, she's as like her mother as two peas in a pod."
"Is Marten fond of her?"
"Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he's a hard
man ter move any other way."
"Where does he live?"
"In Europe, fer the most part. He's out of mines an' rails--in the West,
anyhow. Last I heerd, he was puttin' through a state loan fer the
I-talians."
"Quite an international financier, eh?"
"That's what the papers call him. Guess it's Shakespeare's English fer a
dog-goned shark."
"You know Willard is dead?"
"Know! Didn't I celebrate with a school-treat fer two thousand kids?"
"Mac! Haven't they taught you better than that at your Sunday-schools?"
"Thar's a proverb about skinnin' a Rooshan an' findin' a Tartar. That's
me, all the time, when any of that bunch shows up on the screen. What
d'ye think Marten kem to Denver for?"
"I can't imagine."
"He wanted ter buy the ranch. No, not the mine," for MacGonigal misread
the amazement in Power's face, "just the ranch. Said he was anxious for
little Nancy to own the property whar her mother lived as a gal."
"And what did you say--or do?"
"Handed him a joint straight outer the refrigerator, all fixed with
mustard. 'Marten,' says I, just like that, 'Marten, ef you want yer
little gal ter grow up good an' happy, don't let her suspicion thar's
such a place as Dolores on the map.' 'Why?' says he, lookin' black as
thunder. 'Because,' says I, 'it's well named when thar's one of the
Willard family on the location. Ef any children kin play around here an'
be happy, they'll be Derry Power's, not yours.' Sorry, Derry, ef ye
didn't wish me ter rile him; but, till you was given up fer good, the
one spot in Colorado his money couldn't buy was this yer house an'
land."
And again did MacGonigal fail to interpret his hearer's expression, nor
did he ever understand the tragic import of his words. The story of
Nancy's transgression was buried with her, and the grave seldom gives up
its secrets. Moreover, was she not nearly seven years dead? And seven
years of death count in the scale of forgetfulness as against seventy
and seven of life.