THE TWO OLD MEN
The past, sometimes, comes dimly back,
Stealing like shadows on the brain;
We see the ruins on its track,
And feel the dead flowers bloom again.
Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the
Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with
habitual exactitude, but he never entered the Aldermen's tea-room
again. When his political friends called upon him to accomplish any
unfinished business, such as giving out contracts long before they
were advertised by law--selling city property for a song to
confederates, who were certain to allow a portion of the profits to
flow back into greedy official pockets--or empowering some favorite to
negotiate worthless real estate, and more worthless goods, for which
the ever-enduring people were compelled to pay fabulous prices--for in
all these things, directly or indirectly, he had been engaged--Farnham
resolutely refused to enter into these transactions more.
He felt in the depths of his heart, that the demoralizing influences
consequent upon those half-secret, half-audacious speculations had led
him to the brink--nay, had actually plunged him into a great crime.
Again and again he had reconsidered the events of Chester's trial and
death, following so closely on each other, with a hope of finding
something that might remove the terrible responsibility from his
conscience. But his stubborn and acute reason would not be convinced
by the sophistry that had so often deceived the public. He had no
power to blind his own conscience, and that told him, more and more
loudly every hour, that his cruel acts had murdered a blameless fellow
creature, directly almost as if the deed had been accomplished by a
blow.
Yes, Joseph had uttered the right word--it was murder.
True there was no earthly tribunal to reach his impalpable crime,
for the law recognizes only physical violence by which death is
accomplished. But there is a just God, before whose high court,
sooner or later, will be arraigned the bloodless murderer, whose
dagger has been words--low whispers, and assassin machinations--or
perchance neglect, and the sweeping back of warm affections on a
true heart.
There the all-seeing One, who judges the thought as well as the act
will make no distinction between life drained drop by drop from the
soul, and that sent forth at a blow with the red hand.
These startling truths fastened themselves at last upon his conviction,
breaking through his worldliness and all the hard accumulations which
a life of underground politics had heaped upon a nature capable of
great good.
It was not without a struggle that the Mayor had yielded himself to
this true self-knowledge. But in vain he argued that he had not
anticipated this fearful result, from proceedings that after all were
only intended as the means of removing an obnoxious person from his
path. In vain he reasoned with himself, "I did not wish the man's
death, nor use means to bring it about." The fault lay in his own
sensitive nature. But his reason answered back, neither does the man
who commits murder in his hour of intoxication, mean to become
inebriated or to take a human life when he lifts the first cup to his
lip; yet even the law, that which takes hold only of actual things,
deems this man guilty as if his soul had not been brutalized and made
blind before the blow.
There might have been other influences besides poor Chester's death,
that aided to accomplish this transfiguration of character; for as
Farnham bent beneath the pressure of this truth, other impressions,
perhaps not less potent because unrecognized, stole in upon him;
angels sometimes come softly and fill a newly aroused soul with love,
as the night sheds its dew on the green leaves of an oak, after the
storm has passed by.
What was there in the appearance of Joseph to soften the
self-upbraiding of this stern man? The boy's words had been, perhaps,
the most severe reproof that he had ever met; but they called forth no
bitterness. Instead of this arose an attraction so powerful that he
could not resist it. Thus he had followed the lad to his own door, and
afterwards would turn in the street and gaze on any boy of his size
with a yearning desire to see him again.
But the gentle lad was at home, studying his father's beautiful art,
and seldom went into the street. His life had always been so secluded
that this one event was a great epoch, to which his mind was
constantly going back. A spirit of loneliness came upon him after the
little girls left the house, and at sunset he might sometimes be found
almost in tears, homesick for a sight of them. A beautiful sympathy
had sprung up between him and Mary Fuller that filled him with vague
uneasiness.
Sometimes, too, he would think of the Mayor, so stern and cold to
others, but so full of gentleness to him, and with the warm gratitude
of youth he could not help looking forward to the time when he might
visit Fred again, and thus see the man who had filled him with so much
of terror unseen, and with such strange happiness after.
Once or twice he spoke of this in a timid way, but his father checked
him almost with harshness, and with the reserve of a sensitive nature,
he buried this strange feeling in his bosom till it became almost a
want, which after a time was gratified.
One night, when he had spent the whole day in attempting to copy one
of his father's pictures, while the old artist sat by, giving him such
help as lay in his power, an unaccountable desire seized upon the lad,
and he arose almost with tears in his eyes.
"Father," he said, with great earnestness. "Father I cannot hold the
brush, my hand grows unsteady; please let me go and see Frederick; it
seems to me as if some one there wanted me very much!"
"If Frederick wanted to see us, he would come here, I should think!"
answered the father.
"I believe--I almost think that his father is sick," said Joseph.
"And how did you know this?" asked Mr. Esmond, rather sharply, for he
seemed jealous of his son's interest in the Mayor's family.
"I don't know it--but it seemed to me all day yesterday and to-day,
that something was the matter."
"And if there is, your mother's child--my child should not trouble
himself about it!"
Joseph looked at his father in astonishment. These sharp words were so
unlike his usual kindliness, that the lad was bewildered.
"I--I thought you liked Fred so much," he said, at last.
"But it is not Fred--it is his father you are thinking of, unnatural
child that you are!"
"Father--oh, father!"
"There--there," said the old man, more gently. "I did not mean it. Go,
my son if you wish, I will not stop you, but do not give much love to
any one but your father, he has had so little, so very little on
earth. Don't let this man get your heart away from me."
"Away from you, my own, own father?" said Joseph, grieved, and deeply
hurt.
"Well--well, all this is foolish talk--but I am getting very childish.
It ages one so to live alone, Joseph, you would not believe it, but I
am a younger man by five years than the Mayor."
"The Mayor has grown very old since I first saw him father, you would
be astonished!"
"Then you have seen him more than once?"
"Yes; he comes to Mrs. Peters, now, almost every day, and sometimes I
see him."
"In this house--in this house!" exclaimed the artist, "to-morrow we
will move--to-night, if another room can be got!"
As the old man spoke, a hesitating knock was heard at the door. Joseph
and his father looked at each other wistfully; at length the boy
stepped forward and turned the latch.
Mr. Farnham stood on the threshold. The artist drew his tall form up,
and remained immovable, with his dark eyes fixed sternly on the
Mayor's.
Joseph paused irresolute, with the last dying gold of sunset falling
on his head, from a neighboring window.
The artist glanced from him to the Mayor, and a look of sudden pain
swept across his face. It was a strange, jealous pang to strike a man
of his age.
"Go," said the Mayor gently to the lad; "go, and leave us alone, I
wish to speak with your father."
Joseph looked at his father questioningly.
"Go!" said the old man, in a voice so husky that he could only force
himself to utter that single word.
Joseph went out, and those two old men--for the Mayor looked very old
that night--sat down in the dim chamber, and talked together for the
first time in their lives.
Joseph shut himself in the dark hall, and found a seat upon the
stairs, filled with vague wonder; for his keen imagination seized upon
this event, and his affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old
men, whose voices came through the ill-fitting door in indistinct
murmurs.
It must have been an hour when the door opened, and Joseph saw the
Mayor and his father standing just within the room. The light from a
tallow candle fell upon them from behind, striking their side faces
with singular effect. Both were pale, but the cheek of the Mayor, on
which the light lay strongest, glistened with moisture. Could it be
that this was the trace of tears?--and, if so, what power had that
humble artist, to make a man weep who had not been known to shed tears
since his boyhood!
The artist too had a look of tender sadness on his face, as if all his
deeper feelings had been moved.
The two old men--we call them old, but events rather than time had
left hoary marks upon them--the two old men held each other by the
hand; Joseph arose and drew back, that the Mayor might pass, but when
he went by without a word, the boy was seized with a pang of
disappointment, and followed him.
"Mayor," he said, "please won't you say good-bye to me, I have wanted
to see you so much all day?"
The Mayor turned his face; the light from a street-lamp shone upon it,
as he stood in the lower entrance. Surely there had been tears on that
stern face.
"Yes," answered Mr. Farnham, looking into those deep earnest eyes, "I
will bid you good-bye."
"Mr. Farnham," said Joseph, "won't you stay a little?"
The Mayor stepped back into the hall, but wavered in his walk, and
supported himself by the lad. Joseph could feel that the hands which
were laid on his shoulders trembled.
"Are you sick?" questioned the lad, with his forehead up lifted in
reverential tenderness.
"Sick--no! I think it is not sickness, but, but"--
"Have I or father done anything to hurt you, sir?"
"Hurt me!--no, no--but Joseph you said once that I had murdered Mr.
Chester, did you believe it?"
Joseph's head drooped forward. His eyes were suffused with sadness,
he could not answer.
"Did you think so, Joseph?" repeated the Mayor, in a voice of strange
solicitude.
"I thought so then, but now I am sure you could not have intended to
do it."
"No!" answered the Mayor, impressively. "I did not intend it; when you
think of me hereafter you will remember this--and remember too, my
child, that when a man takes the first step toward an unjust act, he
loses a great portion of his power to control the second--great crime
grows out of small errors, my boy, remember that, and I charge you,
repeat it to my son, when he has need of such warning."
"I will repeat it to him, as you wish me to, sir!"
"And now farewell."
Joseph felt a kiss quiver upon his forehead, like the touch of a
spirit that had taken flight. He looked around, the Mayor was gone.
"Farewell--why did not he say good-bye--or good-night, Joseph?
Farewell! that is a very solemn word. I wish he had not said
farewell!"