C. B.’s Task Concludes
As they sped away through the pleasant New England scenery towards
New Bedford, Mary Stewart was entirely happy. She sat by her lover’s
side on one of the seats in the crowded car, entirely oblivious of the
admiring glances directed at her by the men and at him by the women.
She had all the literature of that stern historic coast at her tongue’s
end, although this was her first actual visit, and vividly remembered
now, as she had never done before, how deeply the story of the
Pilgrim Fathers would touch her beloved one. And so she chatted away,
interesting him beyond measure, but with all a woman’s tact, keeping
back the painful side, the cruel intolerance, the witch burnings,
whippings and other cruelties practised in the name of the gentle
Saviour by a community which had only just escaped from the same sort
of treatment.
So the time flew by until the train drew up at the funny little old
station at New Bedford, much the same then as it is now, for the
American railways do not believe in spending much money either on
permanent way or stations. And as the train stopped, a bonny but
sad-eyed woman pressed her face to the window of the car, and Captain
Taber, forgetting his pain, rose up and tried to open the sash, for it
was his wife. The effort was too much for him and he sank back into
C. B.’s arms, ready to receive him, while she, having also recognized
her beloved one, though so sadly changed, came gliding round with the
swiftness of love up the aisle, and dodging under C. B.’s supporting
arms laid the dear head on her breast. “My boy, my love, what have they
done to you? My pet, my own!” At this sacred scene all eyes turned
away, and most of them were wet.
But C. B., who had only yielded a little from innate delicacy, now said
(he had never taken his eyes off his friend’s face)--
“Dear lady, your husband is well but weak. Please let us get him home
where you can be in comfort together, and then you shall have him all
to yourself.”
She turned a grateful eye upon C. B. and said--
“He evidently isn’t very well, will you help me to get him to a hack?”
C. B. looked round and caught Mr. Stewart’s eye, who standing outside
the car, made signs that he had engaged a conveyance to take their
friend up. So they carried the half-fainting man to the hack, which
was roomy and comfortable, and were joined on the way by his eldest
son and daughter, a stalwart pair of twelve and fourteen years old
respectively. And then C. B., having seen his friend comfortably
bestowed, and ascertained that his wife and children would have no
difficulty in getting him into their house at their journey’s end,
stepped aside and allowed them to drive off, his native modesty
refusing to allow him to suggest that he might accompany them for fear
of seeming to intrude.
And as he watched them drive away a sense of great loss and loneliness
fell upon him. For the moment he forgot his good friends the Stewarts,
forgot everything but the salient fact that he had faithfully fulfilled
his task, and now at the end of it stood penniless and deserted in a
strange town thousands of miles from his home. A man came up to him and
asked him if he wanted a hotel, and he shrank back bewildered as he
realized that he was in very truth homeless. Then with a joyful tide
of recollection he thought of the Stewarts, and turned and rushed back
into the dépôt meeting them just coming out.
And then the beautiful bright face of his beloved looking so
searchingly at him as if she knew what he had just felt, and the
knowledge of all that he possessed in her made his heart leap and his
eyes fill. Mr. Stewart queried kindly, “Have ye disposed of our friend
satisfactorily--handed him over to his folks?”
“Yes,” replied C. B. “His wife and son and daughter came for him, and
as they said they could look after him all right and he was still
half unconscious I stepped aside and let them drive away with him. I
didn’t realize until they were gone how dependent I have been on him in
another way. And then I remembered you and Mary here and I was full of
gladness, because apart from our love I should have been very lonely
in this big town. And I have no money. I am beginning to see that out
in the world one must have money, and that it cannot be despised as I
thought.”
Mary’s face glowed as she caught at C. B.’s arm and cried--
“Ah, you dear unselfish love, I am so glad that you will never need to
know the value of money or worry about it. It is a good thing in its
place, and I’m never going to run it down, for my dear daddy has taken
care that I never needed any, only I do know so many people who are
eaten up with the love of it, I’ve seen and heard of so many horrible
things being done for it, that I dread its power.”
“All very well, my dear,” interposed her father drily; “in the meantime
I’d like to suggest that this isn’t the most convenient place to hold
forth on economic topics. The hack is waiting and we’ll get along to
the hotel if you don’t mind.”
Mary laughingly assented and the old gentleman led the way to the hack,
which speedily whirled them off to the comfortable old hostelry on
Purchase Street, the Parker House, where in a few minutes they were
quite at home, much more so, in fact, than they had been in the immense
and luxurious building of the same name in Boston.
They went to their respective rooms and again C. B. felt the sense of
loss that he had experienced when first the captain was taken away from
him. He had realized that sooner or later they must separate, but in
his constant fashion he had not anticipated trouble of that kind and
now it seemed almost as if a limb had been lopped off. It was hard work
too to keep down a rising feeling of resentment against those innocent
ones who had claimed their own, not being aware what C. B. had been to
him. While he thus thought a bell boy came up to him and asked--
“Are you Mr. Adams?”
C. B. answered courteously that he was.
“Then,” went on the messenger, “thar’s a boy here says he’d like to
speak to ye,” and turning beckoned into the apartment the same lad whom
C. B. had met at the station and known as Captain Taber’s son.
“Yes, my lad,” said C. B. kindly, “what can I do for you?”
“Father’s better now,” responded the youth, “but he’s in a terrible
takin’ about your not comin’ to our house, we don’t know how t’ pacify
him. The only thing would do was for me to come off at once and bring
you along.”
C. B. immediately decided to go of course, but bade the youth wait
while he informed his friends. Having done so and excused himself till
dinner, he announced to the lad that he was ready, and in two minutes
they were on their way to sweet Fairhaven. As they drove along, the
youth, getting better of his shyness, asked question after question,
the principal point of which was “How did you save my father’s life? he
says he owes his life to you, and talks as if we’d pushed you off our
doorstep.” This last in a somewhat aggrieved tone.
C. B. was hard put to it to explain to this keen lad all the
circumstances of the case, but he did his best, and by the time they
reached the captain’s modest home the lad knew nearly as much as he did
himself about the matter.
As they pulled up at the porch they heard the captain’s voice within
crying, “Run, Delia, see if that’s him; Lord, do make haste, do.” And
Mrs. Taber came rushing out on the veranda with her face flushed, but
as she saw C. B. she extended her hand saying--
“If I’d only known, but you didn’t let on a word; to think that in
the first hour of that poor dear’s home-coming we should nearly
quarrel over a stranger. Forgive me, won’t ye, I didn’t know.” And
she literally dragged him into the room where, spread out to best
advantage, the most valued possessions of the family were displayed.
And in the midst of it all lay Captain Taber, in an easy chair, a high
flush upon his cheeks and a glitter in his eyes that made C. B. look
very serious as he came towards him.
As he stooped over his friend, the skipper made a feeble grab at him
with one hand and at his wife with the other, and in a voice broken
with tears he exclaimed--
“Here, Delia, look at him! but for him you’d never seen me again, I
know it. He’s borne with me with such overflowing, never-failing love
from the other side of the world--I can’t ever tell you what this
beloved fellow has been to me. An’ then to think that he should be left
standin’ at the station like a hired man, it’s just heart-breakin’,
that’s what it is.”
“Now, dear friend,” broke in the gentle voice of C. B., “you’re doing
yourself harm and giving us all pain for nothing. Nobody was to blame.
You were unconscious, your wife didn’t know me, we were all anxious
that you should be got home as soon as ever it could be done, and of
course I couldn’t stop to explain. Besides, I set out to bring you back
to your wife and children, and once you were there what better thing
could I do than step aside and let them rejoice over you?”
As he ceased the skipper looked up, his eyes still humid with love, and
after gazing for a moment into C. B.’s clear eyes he turned to his wife
with a happy sigh and said--
“Darling, don’t be hurt, forgive me if I’ve wounded you, but you
can never know all that I and you owe to this man. He’s not only
brought me back to you, he’s brought peace to my soul, he’s made me
acquainted with God the Father. You know how you used to harp at me
to get religion; you said it was the one thing wantin’ to make you
happy. Well, I’d never got it your way. I didn’t like your preachers,
shan’t like ’em now any better than before, but I’ve seen Christ lived
from day to day before my eyes, I know what lots of things in the
Gospel mean as I never hoped to do, and I’m satisfied to be a child of
God. But I’m afraid if I come across any of them cantin’, drawlin’,
fat-mouthed, camp-meetin’ religionists I’ll have to tell ’em what I
think of ’em. I’ve seen the real and it’s made me more fierce against
the false. An’ it seems to me that the one thing that I can’t learn
from this beautiful friend is patience and toleration.”
He sank back exhausted, and Mrs. Taber, looking reproachfully at C. B.,
said--
“There now, you are making yourself ill again. I wonder your friend, if
he’s got so much control over you, doesn’t stop you from going on like
that.”
C. B. was entirely unsophisticated, but his ear detected the note of
enmity in the good woman’s voice, and he thanked God with all his heart
that he had something to fall back upon. Nothing could have induced him
to remain where he saw that he would be a daily bone of contention,
even had he been as helpless and alone as for a few minutes that
afternoon he had felt he was. He did not know, he could not explain,
but he could feel that Mrs. Taber, though in other respects as good
a woman as ever lived, would forget at once all his services to her
husband in the jealousy of him occupying even a remote corner of her
husband’s heart. And his mind was swiftly made up. Squeezing his
friend’s hand, which indeed he had never released, he said--
“Mrs. Taber and dear friend, my job here is finished. I undertook to
bring the captain home at his request, and by the help of God and ever
so many human agencies He has used I have succeeded. I never could have
done it if it had not been for that. And now I must leave you. If the
captain needed me God knows I’d stay as long as I could be of any use
to him. But he has now some one to look after him far better than I
can, his dear wife, and he knows that I have found dear friends, so he
has no need to worry about what is to become of me. And I think that
now is a good time to bid him good-bye, knowing how safe he is.”
“Stay,” cried Captain Taber, whose mind had been working fast as C. B.
spoke, “I feel you’re right; I feel, too, that when you go out of this
room I’ll never see you agen. But before you go pray; commend my dear
wife and children and me to the God you’ve taught me to know and love.”
In an instant C. B. had slid to his knees, and amid a tense silence he
lifted his streaming face and cried--
“O dear Father, take all this household into your loving keeping. Let
them always know how good and kind and thoughtful you are, especially
how you love them. Keep them in that knowledge day and night until the
day dawns and the shadows flee away. Keep them happy, contented and
useful, but especially kind and loving to all who are about them. And
may we all meet again in the new world where Jesus is the Head of all
and all are good like Him. For His sake, dear Father. Amen.”
Then rising to his feet he stooped over his friend and kissed him as
men kiss the dying, turned and shook hands with Mrs. Taber and the
three children, and turning swiftly left the house before they had
so far recovered as to try and stop him. And as he went he knew that
his duty to that fine fellow was done and that he would never see
him again. We too have done with him, except to note that Mr. Stewart
fulfilled his promise to the captain in fullest measure and so put him
and his beyond the reach of want or that half dependence which is so
painful to a gallant spirit that has to accept it for the sake of its
dear ones.
It is a good step from the middle of Fairhaven back to the Parker
House, but C. B.’s long legs made little of it. He was now free of
his charge, free to go to the love that awaited him, and he could not
help feeling grateful to God that such a termination had been reached,
because he saw full well how hard he might have found it but for the
Stewarts, how unconsciously he might have become a burden upon those
whose load was almost more than they could carry themselves.
Filled with these reflections he did not notice the distance and
reached the hotel before he was aware that he had travelled nearly as
far. Mr. and Miss Stewart were sitting on the veranda talking, but
Mary’s eyes, ever on the alert, saw him coming, and as he strode up the
steps she came to meet him with both hands outspread, recognizing with
the lightning intuition of love that now he was all her own. For she
like Mrs. Taber had unconsciously resented a share in her loved one’s
heart being held by anybody, although her claim was much slighter. And
the first words she said to him were--
“Back so soon? don’t they want you any more?”
“No,” he replied gaily enough: “they can do without me now of course,
and I am free. It was a bit of a wrench at first, but I soon felt that
it would be a very wrong thing for me to stand for a moment between a
man and his wife. So I have bid them good-bye, and do not suppose I
shall ever see them again.”
By this time they were up to Mr. Stewart, and so she did not reply but
squeezed his arm as she released it, in that act saying--
“I am so glad, for now you are all mine, my very own.” And yet such a
bundle of contradictions are we, that she felt quite indignant that her
king of men should, as she thought, be so cavalierly treated, flung
off as she felt like an old shoe that is worn out and therefore wanted
no longer. But no trace of this was to be seen in the bright face she
turned to her father as C. B. sat down by his side. Without giving
either of them time to speak she said--
“Just think of it, daddy, Christmas is free, they have bidden him
good-bye, and we can leave now if you like.”
Mr. Stewart took a meditative puff at his cigar before he answered,
then he said--
“A good motto, dear one, is never to be in a hurry. Don’t you know
that since Christmas has been away there has been a whole raft of
people here wanting to see him, and hear him talk. We’ve been followed
from Boston, and I know he won’t want to disappoint all these eager
folks who’d like to hear what he’s got to say.” And the deep-set eyes
twinkled beneath their bushy grey lashes.
“Indeed, Mr. Stewart,” broke in C. B., “I don’t want to see another
reporter. And unless you wish it I won’t. All I want now is to be left
alone to enjoy the company of Mary and yourself.”
“You might have left me out I think without hurting your reputation for
truth, but never mind. Now I think as you don’t want a lot of newspaper
stuff written about you, it’s time I admitted that I don’t either, and
if you are quite willing we’ll get back to Boston, or rather New York,
by the Fall River boat to-night. I know what these provincial cities
are, and although I love New Bedford wholeheartedly, on this occasion
I’ll be pleased to get away from her.”
This decision of Mr. Stewart’s sent the young folks into a silent
delight. It would be so good to get away alone, and though neither of
them knew what a Fall River boat was like, they were charmed at the
idea of going to sea after that weary rail-road time. All the callers
were put off, no one was admitted to the privacy of the trio, and so
well was the secret kept that when they departed for the station to
catch the Fall River train there was nobody about to pester them with
inconvenient questions. And when after a short railway journey C. B.
walked with Mary on his arm aboard of the palatial vessel which was
ready to convey them through the picturesque Long Island Sound route
to New York, she was literally _exaltée_, for she had not even then
realized how unsophisticated he was.
“Is this a ship?” he cried in utter amazement. “Dear Lord, what
wonderful things men do! I should never have imagined that such luxury
was possible on the sea!” And when an obsequious negro steward showed
him to his beautiful stateroom, with its perfect hotel appointment, he
felt as if nothing henceforward could astonish him. But he was wrong.
For after a good night’s sleep he sprang up shortly after daylight,
washed, dressed, and went on deck in time to see the wonderful entrance
to New York Harbour. And as he gazed, lost in astonishment, at the
amazing traffic, at the masses of buildings everywhere, a mighty
steamship from England came gliding majestically past, and recognizing
the flag he took off his hat to it. Just as he did so he felt a light
touch upon his arm, and there stood his beloved, radiant as the dawn,
a sweet smile of loving greeting upon her beautiful face. No one was
near, for they were on the uppermost deck of all, which at that hour is
almost deserted. And so they embraced, and their souls went out to each
other in a long, loving, lingering kiss.
Then, unheeding the flight of time, they stood on their lofty platform
while the huge craft beneath them, deftly handled by the invisible
pilot in the wheelhouse, threaded her way among the host of small craft
up to her berth. As she drew nearer C. B.’s amazement deepened, for he
saw the train ferries, laden with railway cars, gliding across the wide
arm of the sea, noted the wonderful energy manifested on every side,
and again and again turned to his lovely companion, saying in short
gasps--
“What a struggle, what work to be sure. And all to get money. And when
it is got, what then? Surely God never intended man to struggle so hard
for money alone. It does not seem right to me.”
But she, looking up at him shyly, said in reply, “Perhaps you are
right, dear one, but you know that there are animals, insects, that
work far harder than man and with apparently far less reason, the ant
and the bee for instance.”
But whenever she took him up like that she found that his ignorance
of so many things which had always been an open book to her precluded
all argument. He was in the primitive stage when everything around is
new, and consequently was unable to appreciate the difficulties and
limitations of civilized man.
“Come down, dear,” said she at last, “father will be seeking us”; and
they descended to witness a scene on the great main-deck that arrested
C. B. as if he had been paralysed. It was crammed with people, all
ready to go ashore, all apparently full of eagerness to leave the
vessel and recommence the struggle. And as he looked upon the swarming
crowd his heart was filled with a great pity for them as he thought
how intolerable such a life would be to him. But his sweetheart deftly
guided him to her father’s cabin, where stood the old gentleman, his
morning cigar between his lips, calmly surveying the busy scene with
the eye of a master and enjoying the stir and bustle.
He greeted them with curt affection and invited them to come in and
rest; “for,” said he, “you must have been on deck a long time.”
“Since daylight, I think, daddy,” replied Mary laughingly, “but it
hasn’t seemed like five minutes; it’s so interesting to watch the
absolute wonder of Christmas at everything. I declare I never have
known anything more delightful in my life than to witness his amazement
and to tell him the most commonplace things, which he receives as if
they were details of miracles. Oh dear, dad, I never was so happy,
never.”
“I’m so glad,” rejoined her father, “and now you two young people must
just leave things to me, for we’re at the wharf. Here, steward!” and an
obsequious black man came running up, “get our grips and take them down
the gangway to a hack. We’ll go to the Everett House.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be there at the hack station waitin’ for you when you
come down the gangway, sir;” and off he went.
Like a man in a dream C. B. followed Mr. Stewart with his beloved on
his arm, but guiding him rather than leaning on him, until, in some
strange fashion as it seemed to him savouring of an enchantment, they
found themselves in a very babel of noise of men shouting, horses’
hoofs striking fire on the slippery cobbles, clanging of bells and
shrill whistlings, seated in the carriage and passing swiftly through
a tremendous entanglement of traffic between mighty rows of buildings.
Tenderly his beloved looked in his bewildered face and sympathized
with him, as much out of his element as a fish is out of water, while
Mr. Stewart, his square jaw set and his bushy eyebrows frowning, sat
opposite them busily weaving plans for their future.
It was not until they were quietly settled in their comfortable
sitting-room at the spacious hotel in Union Square that C. B. began to
lose that worried, harassed look which so distressed his sweetheart.
Then, when Mr. Stewart had left them, pleading business, she said
tenderly--
“My dear one, I know how you hate all this. And so do I for your sake.
Now tell me if you can what you would like to do after--well, after we
are married?”
Without a moment’s hesitation he answered--
“Why, I would like to take you home. Home to that dear place where all
this needless bustle and uproar never comes, where peace and love reign
without a break and God is King. Oh, how I long to be there again!”
For a moment her brow clouded as she felt that if the choice were to be
made by him between living here with her in the vortex of gay society
and going back to his island home alone, he would give her up, and the
question trembled on her lip. But she dared not ask it. She felt that
where he was she could be happy, and that she had chosen rightly in
taking such a man for her husband in any case, for although full of
spirits and intelligence and so easily first in all the gay companies
she had been wont to frequent, she had always longed for the peace and
quiet of a country where the absurd conventions of civilization did not
count. And she was glad. So she said quietly, “In the words of Ruth, in
that book you love so well, ‘Whither thou goest I will go, thy people
shall be my people, thy God my God.’ I will leave all for you, dear,
and I feel sure that I shall never regret my choice.”
He, simple soul, took all that for granted, and as he had never dreamed
that there had been anything heroic in the sacrifice Mr. Stewart was
making, or thought about the monetary aspect of the affair, so now it
seemed to him the most natural thing in the world that this dear girl,
loving him as she said she did, should be glad to throw all the stress
and strain of the life she had been used to behind her and follow him.
I fear that many will account it callous selfishness on his part, but
it was really not so. In his very soul he felt that it would be best
for them both. He remembered the lovely life of his father and mother,
and could conceive of nothing happier, more delightful for his beloved.
And so his soul was at rest.
They sat there and talked of their simple future until the waiter came
and announced luncheon, which they took together as the father had not
returned. And the afternoon slipped away as the morning had done, until
the shadows lengthened and still Mr. Stewart did not come. At last,
when it was quite dark, he returned, and flung himself into a chair
with a sigh of weariness. Immediately his daughter was at his side full
of solicitude.
“Tired, daddy dear?” she queried gently.
“Yes, love, and ruined,” he answered quietly. “There is just enough
saved from the wreck to take us out to your lover’s island and keep us
there till we die. And I don’t know that I’m sorry. I can’t say that
the Lord gave, but I think the Lord has taken away, and I can say I
know, that blessed be the name of the Lord.”