THE GODDESS OF THE TENDER FEET
The goddess Calamity is delicate ...her feet are tender. Her feet
are soft, for she treads not upon the ground, she makes her path
upon the hearts of men.--PINDAR.
Animosities perish, the humanities are eternal.
One morning, nearly a week after his interview with Dr. Sewell, John
found Jane in her room surrounded by fine clothing and trunks and
evidently well enough to consider what he had to say to her.
"What are you doing, Jane?" he asked.
"Why, John, I am sorting out the dresses that are nice enough for
London. I think I shall be well enough to go to Aunt Harlow next week."
"I wish you would come to my room. I want to speak to you."
"Your room is such a bare, chilly place, John."
"It is secluded and we must have no listener to what I am going to say
to you."
Jane looked up quickly and anxiously, asking, "Are you in trouble,
John?"
"Yes, in great trouble."
"About money?"
"Worse than that."
"Then it is that tiresome creature, Harry."
"No. It is yourself."
"Oh, indeed; I think you had better look for someone else to quarrel
with."
"I have no quarrel with anyone; I have something to say to you, and to
you, only; but there are always servants in and out of your rooms."
She rose reluctantly, saying as she did so, "If I get cold, it makes no
matter, I suppose."
"Everything about you is of the greatest importance to me, I suppose you
know that."
"It may be so or it may not be so. You have scarcely noticed me for
nearly a week. I am going to London. There, I hope, I shall receive a
little more love and attention."
"But you are not going to London."
"I am going to London. I have written to Lady Harlow saying I would be
with her on next Monday evening."
"Write to Lady Harlow at once and tell her you will not be able to leave
home."
"That is no excuse for breaking my word."
"Tell her I, your husband, need you here. No other excuse is necessary."
Jane laughed as if she was highly amused. "Does 'I, my husband,' expect
Lady Harlow and Jane Hatton to change their plans for his whim?"
"Not for any whim of mine, Jane, would I ask you to change your plans. I
have heard something which will compel me to pay more attention to
you."
"Goodness knows, I am thankful for that! During my late illness, I think
you were exceedingly negligent."
"Why did you make yourself so ill? Tell me that."
"Such a preposterous question!" she replied, but she was startled and
frightened by it and more so by the anger in John's face and voice. In a
moment the truth flashed upon her consciousness and it roused just as
quickly an intense contradiction and a willful determination not only to
stand her ground but to justify her position.
"If this is your catechism, John, I have not yet learned it."
"Sit down, Jane. You must tell me the truth if it takes all the day. You
had better sit down."
Then she threw herself into the large easy chair he pushed towards her;
for she felt strangely weak and trembling and John's sorrowful, angry
manner terrified her.
"Jane," he said, "I have heard to my great grief and shame that it is
your fault we have no more children."
"I think Martha is one too many." At the moment she uttered these words
she was sorry. She did not mean them. She had only intended to annoy
John.
And John cried out, "Good God, Jane. Do you know what you are saying?
Suppose God should take the dear one from us this night."
"I do not suppose things about God. I do not think it is right to
inquire as to what He may do."
"Jane, it is useless to twist my question into another meaning. Suppose
you had not destroyed our other children before they saw the light?"
"John," she cried, "how dare you say such dreadful things to me? I will
not listen to you. Open the door. You might well put the key in your
pocket--and I have been so ill. I have suffered so much--it is
dreadful"--and she fell into a fit of hysterical weeping.
John waited patiently until she had sobbed herself quiet, then he
continued, "When I think of my sons or daughters, _written down in God's
Book_ and blotted out by _you_."
"I will not listen. You are mad. Your 'sons or daughters' could not be
hurt by anyone before they had life."
"They always had life. Before the sea was made or the mountains were
brought forth,
'Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
God thought on _me_ his child,'
and on _you_ and on _every soul_ made for immortality by the growth that
fresh birth gives it. He loves us with an everlasting love. No false
mother can destroy a child's soul, but she can destroy its flesh and so
retard and interfere with its eternal growth. This is the great sin--the
sin of blood-guiltiness--any woman may commit it."
"You talk sheer nonsense, John. I do not believe anything you say."
Then John went to a large Bible lying open on a table. "Listen, then,"
he said, "to the Word of God"; and with intense solemnity he read aloud
to her the wonderful verses in the one-hundred-and-thirty-ninth Psalm,
between the twelfth and seventeenth, laying particular stress on the
sixteenth verse, "'Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect;
and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were
fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.' So then Jane, dear Jane,
you see from the very, very first, when as yet no member of the child
had been formed it was _written down in God's Book_ as a man or a woman
yet to be. All souls so written down, are the children of the Most High.
It was not only yourself and me you were wronging, Jane, you were
sinning against the Father and lover of souls, for we are all 'the
children of the most High.'"
But Jane was apparently unmoved. "I am tired," she said wearily. "I want
to go to my room."
"I have other things to say to you, most important things. Will you come
here this evening after dinner?"
"No, I will not. I am going to see mother."
"Call at Hatton House as you come back, and I will meet you there."
"I shall not come back today. I feel ill--and no wonder."
"When will you return?"
"I don't know. I tell you I feel ill."
"Then you had better not go to Harlow House."
"Where else should a woman go in trouble but to her mother? When her
heart is breaking, then she knows that the nest of all nests is her
mother's breast."
John wanted to tell her that God and a loving husband might and surely
would help her, but when she raised her lovely, sad eyes brimming with
tears and he saw how white and full of suffering her face was, he could
not find in his heart to dispute her words. For he suffered in seeing
her suffer far more than she could understand.
At her own room door he left her and his heart was so heavy he could not
go to the mill. He could not think of gold and cotton while there was
such an abyss between him and his wife. Truly she had wronged and
wounded him in an intolerable manner, but his great love could look
beyond the wrong to her repentance and to his forgiveness.
Walking restlessly about his room or lost in sorrowful broodings an hour
passed, and then he began to tell himself that he must not for the
indulgence of even his great grief desert his lawful work. If things
went wrong at the mill, because of his absence, and gain was lost for
his delay, he would be wronging many more than John Hatton. Come what
might to him personally, he was bound by his father's, as well as his
own, promise to be "diligent in business, serving the Lord." That was
the main article of Hatton's contract with the God they served--the
poor, the sick, the little children whom no one loved, he could not
wrong them because he was in trouble with his wife.
Such thoughts came over him like a flood and he instantly rose up to
answer them. In half an hour he was at his desk, and there he lost the
bitterness of his grief in his daily work. _Work_, the panacea for all
sorrow, the oldest gospel preached to men! And because his soul was fit
for the sunshine it followed him, and the men who only met him among the
looms went for the rest of the day with their heads up and a smile on
their faces, so great is the strengthening quality in the mere presence
of a man of God, going about his daily business in the spirit of God.
He found no wife to meet him at the end of the day. Jane had gone to
Harlow House and taken her maid and a trunk with her. He made no remark.
What wise thing could he do but quietly bear an evil that was past cure
and put a good face on it? He did not know whether or not Jane had
observed the same reticence, but he quickly reflected that no good could
come from servants discussing what they knew nothing about.
However, when Jane did not return or send him any message, the
following day his anxiety was so great that he called on Dr. Sewell in
the evening and asked if he could tell him of his wife's condition.
"I was sent for this morning to Harlow House," he answered.
"Is she ill--worse?"
"No. She is fretting. She ought to fret. I gave her some soothing
medicine. I am not sure I did right."
"O Sewell, what shall I do?"
"Go to Madame Hatton. She is a good, wise woman. She is not in love with
her daughter-in-law, but she is as just as women ever are. She will give
you far better counsel than a mere man can offer you."
So late as it was, John rode up to Hatton Hall. It had begun to rain but
he heeded not any physical discomfort. Still he had a pleasant feeling
when he saw the blaze of Hatton hearthfire brightening the dark shadows
of the dripping trees. And he suddenly sent his boyish "hello" before
him, so it was Mrs. Hatton herself who opened the big hall door, who
stood in the glow of the hall lamp to welcome him, and who between
laughing and scolding sent him to his old room to change his wet
clothing.
He came back to her with a smile and a dry coat, saying, "Dear mother,
you keep all the same upstairs. There isn't pin nor paper moved since I
left my room."
"Of course I keep all the same. I would feel very lonely if I hadn't thy
room and Harry's to look into. They are not always empty. Sometimes I
feel as if you might be there, and Oh but I am happy, when I do so! I
just say a 'good morning' or a 'good night' and shut the door. It is a
queer thing, John."
"What is queer, mother?"
"That feeling of 'presence.' But whatever brings thee here at this time
of night? and it raining, too, as if there was an ark to float!"
"Well, mother, there is in a way. I am in trouble."
"I was fearing it."
"Why?"
"I heard tell that Jane was at Harlow. What is she doing there, my
dear?"
"Dr. Sewell told me something about Jane."
"Oh! He told you at last, did he! He ought to have told you long ago."
"Has he known it a long time?"
"He has--if he knows anything."
"And you--mother?"
"I was not sure as long as he kept quiet, and hummed and ha'ed about it.
But I said enough to Jane on two occasions to let her know I suspected
treachery both to her own life and soul and to thee."
"And to my unborn children, mother."
"To be sure. It is a sin and a shame, both ways. It is that! The last
time she was here, she told me as a bit of news, that Mary Fairfax had
died that morning of cancer, and I said, 'Not she. She killed herself.'
Then Jane said, 'You are mistaken, mother, she died of cancer.' I
replied a bit hotly, 'She gave herself cancer. I have no doubt of that,
and so she died as she deserved to die.' And when Jane said, 'No one
could give herself cancer,' I told her plain and square that she did it
by refusing the children God sent her to bear and to bring up for Him,
taking as a result the pangs of cancer. She knew very well what I
meant."
"What did she say?"
"Not a word. She was too angry to speak wisely and wise enough not to
speak at all."
"Well, mother?"
"I said much more of the same kind. I told her that no one ever abused
Nature and got off scot-free. _'Why-a!'_ I said, 'it is thus and so in
the simplest matters. If you or I eat too much we have a sick headache
or dyspepsia. If you dance or ride too much your heart suffers, and you
know what happened to Abram Bowles with drinking too much. It is much
worse,' I went on, 'if a tie is broken it is death to one or the other
or both, especially if it is done again and again. Nature maltreated
will send in her bill. That is sure as life and death, and the longer it
is delayed, the heavier the bill.' I went on and told her that Mary
Fairfax had been married seventeen years and had never borne but one
child. She had long credit, I said, but Nature sent in her bill at last,
and Mary had it to settle. Now, John, I did my duty, didn't I?"
"You did, mother. What did Jane say?"
"She said women had a hard lot to endure. She said they were born slaves
and died slaves and a good deal more of the same kind of talk. I told
her in reply that women were sent into life _to give life_, to be, as
thou said, _mothers of men_, and she laughed, a queer kind of laugh
though. Then I added, 'You may like the reason or not, Jane. You may
accept or defy it, but I tell you plainly, motherhood was and is and
always will be the chief reason and end of womanhood.'"
"Well, mother?"
"She was unpleasant and sarcastic and said this and that for pure
aggravation about the selfishness of men. So our cup of tea was a bit
bitter, and as a last fling she said my muffins were soggy and she would
send me her mother's receipt. And I have been making muffins for thirty
years, John!"
"I am astonished at Jane. She is usually so careful not to hurt or
offend."
"Well, she forgets once in a while. I had the best of the argument, for
I had only to remind her that it was I who taught her mother how to make
muffins and who gave her my receipt for the same. Then she said,
'Really,' and, 'It is late, I must go!' And go she did and I have not
seen her since."
"I wish I knew what to do, mother."
"Go to thy bed now and try to sleep. This thing is beyond thy ordering
or mending. Leave it to those who are wiser than thou art. It will be
put right at the right time by them. And don't meddle with it rashly.
Every step thou takes is like stirring in muddy water--every step makes
it muddier."
"But I must go to Harlow and see Jane if she does not come home."
"Thou must not go a step on that road. If thou does, thou may go on
stepping it time without end. She left thee of her own free will. Let
her come back in the same way. She is wrong. If thou wert wrong, I would
tell thee so. Yes, I would be the first to bid thee go to Harlow and say
thou wanted to be forgiven and loved again."
"I believe that, mother."
"By the Word of Christ, I would!"
"I shall be utterly unhappy if I do not know that she is well."
"Ask Sewell. If she is sick he will know and he will tell thee the
truth. Go now and sleep. Thy pillow may give thee comfort and wisdom."
"Your advice is always right, mother. I will take it."
"Thou art a good man, John, and all that comes to thee shall be good in
the fullness of its time and necessity. Kiss me, thou dear lad! I am
proud to be thy mother. It is honor enough for Martha Hatton!"
That night John slept sorrowfully and he had the awakening from such a
sleep--the slow, yet sudden realization of his trouble finding him out.
It entered his consciousness with the force of a knockdown blow; he
could hardly stand up against it. Usually he sang or whistled as he
dressed himself, and this was so much a habit of his nature that it
passed without notice in his household. Once, indeed, his father had
fretfully alluded to it, saying, "Singing out of time is always singing
out of tune," and Mrs. Hatton had promptly answered,
"Keep thyself to thyself, Stephen. Singing beats grumbling all to
pieces. Give me the man who _can_ sing at six o'clock in the morning. He
is worth trusting and loving, I'll warrant that. I wish thou would sing
thyself. Happen it might sweeten thee a bit." And Stephen Hatton had
kept himself to himself, about John's early singing thereafter.
This morning there was no song in John's heart and no song on his lips.
He dressed silently and rapidly as if he was in a hurry to do something
and yet he did not know what to do. His mother's positive assertion,
that the best way out of the difficulty was to let it solve itself, did
not satisfy him. He wanted to see his wife. He knew he must say some
plain, hard words to her; but she loved him, and she would surely listen
and understand how hard it was for him to say them.
He went early to the mill. He hoped there might be a letter there for
him. When he found none among his mail, he hurried back to his home.
"Jane would send her letter there," he thought. But there was no letter
there. Then his heart sank within him, but he took no further step at
that hour. Business from hundreds of looms called him. Hundreds of
workers were busy among them. Greenwood was watching for him. Clerks
were waiting for his directions and the great House of Labor shouted
from all its myriad windows.
With a pitiful and involuntary "God help me!" he buckled himself to his
mail. It was larger than ordinary, but he went with exact and patient
care over it. He said to himself, "Troubles love to flock together and I
expect I shall find a worrying letter from Harry this morning"; but
there was no letter at all from Harry and he felt relieved. The only
personal note that came to him was a request that he would not fail to
be present at the meeting of the Gentlemen's Club that evening, as there
was important business to transact.
He sat with this message in his hand, considering. He had for some time
felt uneasy about his continuance in the Club, for its social
regulations were strict and limited. Composed mostly of the landed
gentry in the neighborhood, it had very slowly and reluctantly opened
its doors to a few of the most wealthy manufacturers, and Harry's
appearance as a public and professional singer negatived his right to
its exclusive membership. In case Harry was asked to resign, John would
certainly withdraw with his brother. Yet the mere thought of such a
social humiliation troubled him.
When the mail was attended to be rose quickly, shook himself, as if he
would shake off the trouble that oppressed him, and went through the
mill with Greenwood. This duty he performed with such minute attention
that the overseer privately wondered whatever was the matter with
"Master John," but soon settled the question, by a decision that "he hed
been worried by his wife a bit, and it hed put him all out of gear, and
no wonder." For Greenwood had had his own experiences of this kind and
had suffered many things in consequence of them. So he was sorry for
John as he told himself that "whether married men were rich or poor,
things were pretty equal for them."
Just as the two men parted, Jonathan said, in a kind of afterthought
way, "There's a full meeting of the Gentlemen's Club tonight, sir. I
suppose you know."
"Certainly, but how is it _you_ know?"
"You may well ask that, sir. I am truly nobbut one o' John Hatton's
overseers, but I hev a son who has married into a landed family, and he
told me that some of the old quality were going to propose his
father-in-law for membership tonight. I promised my Ben I would ask your
vote in Master Akers' favor."
"Akers has bought a deal of land lately, I hear."
"Most of the old Akers' Manor back, and there are those who think he
ought to be recognized. I hope you will give him a ball of the right
color, sir."
"Greenwood, I am not well acquainted with Israel Akers. I see him at the
market dinner occasionally, but----"
"Think of it, sir. It is mebbe right to believe in a man until you find
out he isn't worthy of trust."
"That is quite contrary to your usual advice, Greenwood."
"_Privately_, sir, I am a very trusting man. That is my nature--but in
business it is different--trusting doesn't work in business, sir. You
know that, sir."
John nodded an assent, and said, "Look after loom forty, Greenwood. It
was idle. Find out the reason. As to Akers, I shall do the kind and just
thing, you may rest on that. Is he a pleasant man personally?"
"I dare say he is pleasant enough at a dinner-table, and I'll allow that
he is varry unpleasant at a piece table in the Town Hall. But webs of
stuff and pieces of cloth naturally lock up a man's best self. He
wouldn't hev got back to be Akers of Akerside if things wern't that way
ordered."
This Club news troubled John. He did not believe that Akers cared a
penny piece for a membership, and pooh-pooh it as he would, this
trifling affair would not let him alone. It gnawed under the great
sorrow of Jane's absence, like a rat gnawing under his bed or chair.
But come what will, time and the hour run through the hardest day; the
looms suddenly stopped, the mill was locked, the crowd of workers
scattered silently and wearily, and John rode home with a sick sense of
sorrow at his heart. He had no hope that Jane would be there. He knew
the dear, proud woman too well to expect from her such an impossible
submission. Tears sprang to his eyes as he thought of her, and yet there
was set before him an inexorable duty which he dared not ignore, for the
things of Eternity rested on it.
He left his horse at the stable and walked slowly round to the front of
the house. As he reached the door it was swiftly opened, and in smiles
and radiant raiment Jane stood waiting to receive him.
"John! John, dear!" she said softly, and he took her in his arms and
whispered her name over and over on her lips.
"Dinner will be ready in half an hour," she said, "and it is the dinner
you like best of all. Do not loiter, John."
He shook his head happily and took the broad low steps as a boy
might--two or three at a time. Everything now seemed possible to him.
"She is in an angel's temper," he thought. "She has divined between the
wrong and the right. She will throw the wrong over forever."
And Jane watched him up the stairs with womanly pleasure. She said to
herself, "How handsome he is! How good he is! There are none like him."
Then her face clouded, and she went into the parlor and sat down. She
knew there was a trying conversation before her, but, "John cannot
resist the argument of my beauty," she thought, "It is sure to prevail."
In a few moments she continued her reflections. "I may be weak enough to
give a promise for the future, but I will never, never, admit I was
wrong in the past. Make your stand there, Jane Hatton, for if he ever
thinks you did wrong knowingly, you will lose all your influence over
him."
During dinner and while the butler was in the room the conversation was
kept upon general subjects, and John in this interval spoke of Akers'
wish to join the Gentlemen's Club.
"I am not astonished," answered Jane. "Mrs. Will Clough and her daughter
arrived in my Club a year ago. They are very pushing and what they call
'advanced.' They do not believe that the earth is the Lord's nor yet
that it belongs to man. They think it is woman's own heritage. And they
want the name of the Club changed. It has always been the Society Club.
Mrs. William Clough thinks a society club is shockingly behind the
times; and she proposed changing it to the Progressive Club. She said we
were all, she hoped, progressive women."
"Well, Jane, my dear, this is interesting. What next?"
"Mrs. Israel Akers said she had been told that 'very few of the
old-fashioned women were left in Hatton, that even the women in the
mills were progressing and getting nearer and nearer to the modern
ideal'; and she added in a plaintive voice, 'I'm a good bit past
seventy, and I hope some old-fashioned women will live as long as I do,
that we may be company for each other.' Mrs. Clough told her, 'she would
soon learn to love the new woman,' and she said plain out, 'Nay not I! I
can't understand her, and I doan't know what she means.' Then Mrs.
Brierly spoke of the 'old woman' as a downtrodden 'creature' not to be
put in comparison with the splendid 'new woman' who was beginning to
arrive. I'm sure, John, it puzzles me."
"I can only say, Jane, that the 'old woman' has filled her position for
millenniums with honor and affection, almost with adoration. I would not
like to say what will be the result of her taking to men's ways and
men's work."
"You know, John, you cannot judge one kind of woman from the other kind.
They are so entirely different. Women have been kept so ignorant. Now
they place culture and knowledge before everything."
"Surely not before love, Jane?"
"Yes, indeed! Some put knowledge and progress--always progress--before
everything else."
"My dear Jane, think of this--all we call 'progress' ends with death.
What is that progress worth which is bounded by the grave? If progress
in men and women is not united with faith in God, and hope in His
eternal life and love, I would not lift my hand or speak one word to
help either man or woman to such blank misery."
"Do not put yourself out of the way, John. There will be no change in
the women of today that will affect you. But no doubt they will
eventually halve--and better halve--the world's work and honors with
men. Do you not think so, John?"
"My dear, I know not; women perhaps may cease to be women; but I am
positive that men will continue to be men."
"I mean that women will do men's work as well as men do it."
"Nature is an obstinate dame. She offers serious opposition to that
result."
"Well, I was only telling you how far progressive ideas had grown in
Hatton town. Women propose to share with men the honors of statecraft
and the wealth of trading and manufacturing."
"Jane, dear, I don't like to hear you talking such nonsense. The mere
fact that women _can not fight_ affects all the unhappy equality they
aim at; and if it were possible to alter that fact, we should be
equalizing _down_ and not up." Then he looked at his watch and said he
must be at the Club very soon.
"Will you remain in the parlor until I return, Jane?" he asked. "I will
come home as quickly as possible."
"No, John, I find it is better for me to go to sleep early. Indeed, as
you are leaving me, I will go to my room now. Good night, dear!"
He said good night but his voice was cold, and his heart anxious and
dissatisfied. And after Jane had left the room he sat down again,
irresolute and miserable. "Why should I go to the Club?" he asked
himself. "Why should I care about its small ways and regulations? I have
something far more important to think of. I will not go out tonight."
He sat still thinking for half an hour, then he looked again at his
watch and found that it was yet possible to be at the Club in time. So
with a great sigh he obeyed that urging of duty, which even in society
matters he could not neglect and be at rest.
There was no light in Jane's room when he returned home and he spent the
night miserably. Waking he felt as if walking through the valley of the
shadows of loss and intolerable wrong. Phantoms created by his own
sorrow and fear pressed him hard and dreams from incalculable depths
troubled and terrified his soul. In sleep it was no better. He was then
the prisoner of darkness, fettered with the bonds of a long night and
exiled for a space from the eternal Providence.
At length, however, the sun rose and John awoke and brought the terror
to an end by the calling on One Name and by casting himself on the care
and mercy of that One, who is "a very present help in time of trouble."
That was all John needed. He did not expect to escape trouble. All he
asked was that God would be to him "a very present help" in it.
Slowly and thoughtfully he dressed, wondering the while from what depths
of awful and forgotten experiences such dreams came. He was yet
awestruck and his spirit quailed when he thought of the eternity
_behind_ him. Meanwhile his trouble with Jane had partly receded to the
background of thought and feeling. He did not expect to see her at his
breakfast table. That was now a long-time-ago pleasure and he thought
that by dinner-time he would be more able to cope with the
circumstances.
But when he reached the hall the wide door stood open, the morning
sunshine flooded the broad white marble steps which led to the entrance
and Jane was slowly ascending them. She had a little basket of fruit in
her hand, she was most fittingly gowned, and she looked exquisitely
lovely. As soon as John saw her, he ran down the steps to meet her, and
she put her hand in his and he kissed it. Then they went to the
breakfast-table together.
The truce was too sweet to be broken and John took the comfort offered
with gratitude. Jane was in her most charming mood, she waited on him as
lord and lover of the home, found him the delicacies he liked, and gave
with every one that primordial touch of loving and oneness which is the
very heaven of marriage. She answered his words of affection with
radiant smiles and anon began to talk of the Club balloting. "Was it
really an important meeting, John?" she asked. And to her great surprise
John answered, "It would have been hard to make it more important,
Jane."
"About old Akers! What nonsense!"
"Akers gave us no hesitation. He was elected without a dissenting vote.
Another subject was, however, opened which is of the most vital
importance to cotton-spinners."
"Whatever is to do, John?"
"America is likely to go to war with herself--the cotton-spinning States
of the North, against the cotton-growing States of the South."
"What folly!"
"In a business point, yes, but there is something grander than business
in it--an idea that is universally in the soul of man--the idea of
freedom."
"Yes, I have read about that quarrel, but men won't fight if it
interferes with their business, with their money-making and spinning."
"You are wrong, Jane. Men of the Anglo-Saxon race and breeding will
fight more stubbornly for an idea than for conquest, injury, or even for
some favorite leader. Most nations fight for some personality; the
English race and its congeners fight for a principle or an idea. My
dear, remember that America fought England for eight years only for her
right of representation."
"How can a war in America hurt us?"
[Illustration: "He ran down the steps to meet her, and she put her hand
in his."]
"By cutting off our cotton supply--unless England helps the Southern
States."
"But she will do that."
"No, she will not."
"What then?"
"If the war lasts long, we shall have to shut our factories."
"That is not a pleasant thought, John. Let us put it aside this lovely
morning."
Yet she kept reverting to the subject, and as all men love to be
inquired of and to give information, John was easily beguiled, and the
breakfast hour passed without a word that in any way touched the
sorrowful anxiety in his heart. But at length they rose and John said,
"Jane, my dear, come into the garden. We will go to the summer-house. I
want to speak to you, dear. You know----"
"John, I cannot stay with you this morning. There will be a committee of
the ladies of the Home Mission here at eleven o'clock. I have some
preparations for them to make and if I get put out of my way in the
meantime I shall be unable to meet them."
"Is not our mutual happiness of more importance than this meeting?"
"Of course it is. But you know, John, many things in life compel us
continually to put very inferior subjects before either our personal or
our mutual happiness. A conversation such as you wish cannot be
hurried. I am not yet sure what decision I shall come to."
"Decision! Why, Jane, there is only one decision possible."
"You are taking advantage of me, John. I will not talk more with you
this morning."
"Then good morning."
He spoke curtly and went away with the words. Love and anger strove in
his heart, but before he reached his horse, he ran rapidly back. He
found Jane still standing in the empty breakfast-room; her hands were
listlessly dropped and she was lost in an unhappy reverie.
"Jane," he cried, "forgive me. You gave me a breakfast in Paradise this
morning. I shall never forget it. Good-bye, love." He would have kissed
her, but she turned her head aside and did not answer him a word. Yet
she was longing for his kiss and his words were music in her heart. But
that is the way with women; they wound themselves six times out of the
half-dozen wrongs of which they complain.
The next moment she was sorry, Oh, so sorry, that she had sent the man
she loved to an exhausting day of thought and work with an aching pain
in his heart and his mental powers dulled. She had taken all joy and
hope out of his life and left him to fight his way through the hard,
noisy, cruel hours with anxiety and fear his only companions.
"I am so sorry! I am so sorry!" she whispered. "What was the use of
making him happy for fifty-nine minutes, and then undoing it all in the
sixtieth? I wish--I wish----" and she had a swift sense of wrong and
shame in uttering her wish, and so let it die unspoken on her closed
lips.
At the park entrance John stood still a minute; his desire was to put
Bendigo to his utmost speed and quickly find out the lonely world he
knew of beyond Hatton and Harlow. There he could mingle his prayer with
the fresh winds of heaven and the cries of beasts and birds seeking
their food from God. His flesh had been well satisfied, but Oh how
hungry was his soul! It longed for a renewed sense of God's love and it
longed for some word of assurance from Jane. Then there flashed across
his memory the rumor of war and the clouds in the far west gathering
volume and darkness every day. No, he could not run away; he must find
in the fulfilling of his duty whatever consolation duty could give him,
and he turned doggedly to the mill and his mail.
Once more as he lifted his mail, he had that fear of a letter from Harry
which had haunted him more or less for some months. He shuffled the
letters at once, searching for the delicate, disconnected writing so
familiar to him and hardly knew whether its absence was not as
disquieting as its presence would have been.
The mail being attended to, he sent for Greenwood and spoke to him about
the likelihood of war and its consequences. Jonathan proved to be quite
well informed on this subject. He said he had been on the point of
speaking about buying all the cotton they could lay hands on, but
thought Mr. Hatton was perhaps considering the question and not ready to
move yet.
"Do you think they will come to fighting, Greenwood?" Mr. Hatton asked.
"Well, sir, if they'll only keep to cotton and such like, they'll never
fire a gun, not they. But if they keep up this slavery threep, they'll
fight till one side has won and the other side is clean whipped forever.
Why not? That's our way, and most of them are chips of the old oak
block. A hundred years or more ago we had the same question to settle
and we settled it with money. It left us all nearly bankrupt, but it's
better to lose guineas than good men, and the blackamoors were well
satisfied, no doubt."
"How do our men and women feel, Greenwood?"
"They are all for the black men, sir. They hevn't counted the cost to
themselves yet. I'll put it up to them if that is your wish, sir."
"You are nearer to them than I am, Jonathan."
"I am one o' them, sir."
"Then say the word in season when you can."
"The only word now, sir, is that Frenchy bit o' radicalism they call
liberty. I told Lucius Yorke what I thought of him shouting it out in
England."
"Is Yorke here?"
"He was ranting away on Hatton green last night, and his catchword and
watchword was liberty, liberty, and again liberty!' He advised them to
get a blue banner for their Club, and dedicate it to liberty. Then I
stopped him."
"What did you say?"
"I told him to be quiet or I would make him. I told him we got beyond
that word in King John's reign. I asked if he hed niver heard of the
grand old English word _freedom_, and I said there was as much
difference between freedom and liberty, as there was between right and
wrong--and then I proved it to them."
"What I want to know, Greenwood, is this. Will our people be willing to
shut Hatton factory for the sake of--_freedom?"_
"Yes, sir--every man o' them, I can't say about the women. No man can.
Bad or good, they generally want things to go on as they are. If all's
well for them and their children, they doan't care a snap for public
rights or wrongs, except mebbe in their own parish."
"Well, Jonathan, I am going to prepare, as far as I can, for the worst.
If Yorke goes too far, give him a set down and advise all our workers to
try and save a little before the times come when there will be nothing
to save."
"Yes, sir. That's sensible, and one here and there may happen listen to
me."
Then John began to consider his own affairs, for his married life had
been an expensive one and Harry also a considerable drain on his
everyday resources. He was in the midst of this uncomfortable reckoning,
when there was a strong decisive knock at the door. He said, "Come in,"
just as decisively and a tall, dark man entered--a man who did not
belong to cities and narrow doorways, but whom Nature intended for the
hills and her wide unplanted places. He was handsomely dressed and his
long, lean, dark face had a singular attraction, so much so, that it
made everything else of small importance. It was a face containing the
sum of human life and sorrow, its love, and despair, and victory; the
face of a man that had been and always would be a match for Fate.
John knew him at once, either by remembrance or some divination of his
personality, and he rose to meet him saying, "I think you are Ralph
Lugur. I am glad to see you. Sit down, sir."
"I wish that I had come on a more pleasant errand, John Hatton. I am in
trouble about my daughter and her husband."
"What is wrong there?" and John asked the question a little coldly.
"You must go to London, and see what is wrong. Harry is gambling. Lucy
makes no complaints, but I have eyes and ears. I need no words."
"Are you sure of what you are saying, Lugur?"
"I went and took him out of a gambling-house three days ago."
"Thank you! I will attend to the matter."
"You have no time to lose. If I told you your brother was in a burning
house, what haste you would make to save him! He is in still greater
danger. The first train you can get is the best train to take."
"O Harry! Harry!" cried John, as he rose and began to lock his desk and
his safe.
"Harry loves and will obey you. Make haste to help him before he begins
to love the sin that is now his great temptation."
"Do you know much of Harry?"
"I do and I love him. I have kept watch over him for some months. He is
worth loving and worth saving. Go at once to him."
"Have you any opinion about the best means to be used in the future?"
"He must leave London and come to Hatton where he can be under your
constant care. Will you accept this charge? I do not mind telling you
that it is your duty. These looms and spindles any clever spinner can
direct right, but it takes a soul to save a soul. You know that."
"I will be in London tonight, Mr. Lugur. You are a friend worth having.
I thank you."
"Good-bye! I leave for Cardiff at once. I leave Harry with God and
you--and I would not be hard with Harry."
"I shall not. I love Harry."
"You cannot help loving him. He is doing wrong, but you cannot stop
loving him, and you know it was _while as yet we were sinners_, God
loved and saved us. Good-bye, sir!"
The door closed and John turned the key and sat down for a few minutes
to consider his position. This sorrow on the top of his disagreement
with Jane and his anxiety about the threatened war in America called
forth all his latent strength. He told himself that he must now put
personal feelings aside and give his attention first of all to Harry's
case, it being evidently the most urgent of the duties before him. Jane
if left for a few days would no doubt be more reasonable. Greenwood
could be safely left to look after Hatton mill and to buy for it all the
cotton he could lay his hands on. He had not the time to visit his
mother, but he wrote her a few words of explanation and as he knew
Jane's parlors were full of women, he sent her the following note:
MY DEARLY LOVED WIFE,
Instant and important business takes me at a moment's notice to
London. I have no time to come and see you, and solace my heart
with a parting glance of your beauty, to hear your whispered
good-bye, or taste the living sweetness of your kiss, but you will
be constantly present with me. Waking, I shall be loving and
thinking of you; sleeping I shall be dreaming of you. Dearest of
all sweet, fair women, do not forget me. Let me throb with your
heart and live in your constant memory. I will write you every day,
and you will make all my work easy and all my hours happy if you
send me a few kind words to the Charing Cross Hotel. I do not
think I shall be more than three or four days absent, but however
short or long the time may be, I am beyond all words,
Your devoted husband,
JOHN HATTON.
This letter written, John hurried to the railway station, but in spite
of express trains, it was dark when he reached London, and long after
seven o'clock when he reached his brother's house. He noticed at once
that the parlors were unlit and that the whole building had a dark,
unprosperous, unhappy appearance. A servant woman admitted him, and
almost simultaneously Lucy came running downstairs to meet him, for
during the years that had passed since her marriage to Harry Hatton,
Lucy had become a real sister to John and he had for her a most sincere
affection.
They went into a parlor in which there had been a fire and stood talking
for a few moments. But the fire was nearly out, and the girl had only
left a candle on the table, and Lucy said, "I was sitting upstairs,
John, beside the children. Harry told me it would be late when he
returned home, so I went to the nursery. You see children are such good
company. Will you go with me to the nursery? It is the girl's night out,
but if you prefer to----"
"Let us go to the nursery, Lucy, and send the girl out. I have come
specially to have a long talk with you about Harry and her absence will
be a good thing."
Then he took her hand and they went together to a large room upstairs.
There was a bright fire burning on this hearth and a large fur rug
before it. A pretty bassinet, in which a lovely girl-baby was sleeping,
was on one side of the hearth and Lucy's low nursing-chair on the other
side, and a little round table set ready for tea in the center. A
snow-white bed in a distant corner held the two boys, Stephen and Ralph,
who were fast asleep. John stooped first to the baby, and kissed it, and
Lucy said, "I have called her Agnes. It was my mother's name when she
was on earth. Do you think they call her Agnes in heaven, John?"
_"He hath called thee by thy name_, is one of the tokens given us of
God's fatherhood, Lucy."
"Well, John, a father must care what his children are called--if he
cares for the children."
"Yes, we may be sure of that." As he spoke, he was standing by the
sleeping boys. He loved both, but he loved Stephen, the elder, with an
extraordinary affection. And as he looked at the sleeping child, the boy
opened his eyes. Then a beautiful smile illumined his face, a delightful
cry of wonder and joy parted his lips, and he held out his arms to John.
Without a moment's hesitation, John lifted him.
"Dear little Stephen!" he said. "I wish you were a man!"
"Then I would always stay with you, Uncle."
"Yes, yes! Now you must go to sleep and tomorrow I will take you to the
Hippodrome."
"And Ralph, too?"
"To be sure, Ralph goes, too." Then he tenderly laid Stephen back in bed
and watched Lucy from the fireside. She talked softly to him, as she
went about the room, attending to those details of forethought of which
mothers have the secret. He watched her putting everything in place with
silent pleasure. He noted her deft, clever ways, the exquisite neatness
of her dress, her small feet so trigly shod, her lovely face bending
over the most trivial duty with a smile of sweet contentment; and he
could not help thinking hopefully of Harry. Indeed her atmosphere was so
afar from whatever was evil or sorrowful that John wondered how he was
to begin a conversation which must be a disturbance.
Presently the room was in perfect order, and the children asleep; then
she touched a bell, but no one answered it. After waiting a few minutes,
she said, "John, the girl has evidently gone out. I must go down for my
supper tray. In five minutes I will be back."
"I will go with you."
"Thank you! When Harry is not home, I like to eat my last meal beside
the sleeping children. Then I can take a book and read leisurely, so the
hours pass pleasantly away."
"Is Harry generally late?"
"He has to be late. Very often his song is the last on the program. Here
is the tray. It is all ready--except your cup and plate. You will take a
cup of tea with me, John?"
"Yes, but I am going to look for Harry soon and I may keep him all
night. Do you care? Are you afraid?"
"Harry is safe with you. I am glad you are going to keep him all night,
I am not at all afraid," and as she arranged the tray and its contents
on the table by the hearth, John heard the sweetest strain of melody
thrill the little space between them. He looked at her inquiringly, and
she sang softly,
"I dwell
Too near to God, for doubt or fear,
And share the eternal calm."
"Where is Harry tonight?" he asked.
"He was to sing at the _Odeon_ in the oratorio of 'Samson.' I used to go
and hear him but I cannot leave the children now."
"My dear Lucy, I have come to London specially to talk with you and
Harry. I have been made miserable about Harry."
"Who told you anything wrong of Harry?"
"Your father. He is distressed at the road Harry is taking. He says
Harry is beginning to gamble."
"Is my father sure of what he says?"
"Lucy, I am Harry's elder brother. He is dear as life to me. I am your
true friend; be trustful of me. You may speak to me as to your own
heart. I have come to help you."
Then she let all the minor notes of doubt and uncertainty go and
answered, "Harry needs you, John, though I hardly know how. He is in
great temptations--he lost every shilling of the last money you sent. I
do not know how he lost it. We are living now on money I saved when
Harry made so much more, and my father gave me fifty pounds when he was
here, but he advised me not to tell Harry I had it. I was to save it for
days Harry had none--for the children. O John, all this troubles me!"
And John's face flamed up, for his family pride was keenly touched. How
could Henry Hatton humble his family and his own honor by letting the
poor schoolmaster feed his wife and children? And he threw aside then
some considerations he had intended to make in Lucy's favor, for he saw
that she already shared his anxiety, and so would probably be his best
helper in any plan for Harry's salvation, from the insidious temptation
by which he was assailed.