STRICKEN DOWN.
For ten minutes, during which the city was blind with hail, I could
see nothing but a thicket of white strings dense as the threads in a
loom; hear nothing but the pounding crash of thunder and fierce hiss
and clatter of the driving stones. Then darkness gathered within and
without, and down came the storm with an access of fury that seemed
verily as if it must flatten out the town like a scattered ants’ nest.
So infernal for the moment was the uproar that I hurried to my
father’s side, fearful that his soul might actually yield itself to
the raging tyranny of its surroundings.
He lay unmoved in the same quiet stupor of the faculties, unconscious,
apparently, that anything out of nature’s custom was enacting near
him.
As suddenly as it had begun, the white deluge ceased, as though the
last of its reservoirs above were emptied. The reaction to comparative
silence was so intense that in the first joy of it one scarcely
harkened to the voice of a great wind that had risen and was following
on the heels of the storm, to batten like a camp follower on the
wreckage of the battle that had swept by. For four weary days it flew,
going past like an endless army, and laden clouds were its parks of
artillery and the swords of its bitterness never rested in their
scabbards.
On that first evening, when the hailstorm had passed and light was
restored, I was standing by the window looking out on the bridge and
the street all freckled with white, when a low moaning sound came to
my ears. I turned sharply round, thinking it was my father, but he lay
peaceful and motionless. I hurried to the door and opened it, and
there in the passage outside was old Peggy, cast down upon her face,
and groaning and muttering in a pitiful manner.
I gave her a little ungallant peck with my foot.
“Now!” I cried, “what’s this? What are you doing?”
Her face was hidden on her arm and she spoke up mumblingly.
“Oh!” she said; “Lord--Lord! It bain’t worthy o’ you!”
“What’s the matter, I say?”
“Take the clean and well-preserved! There’s better fish than a poor
feckless old ’ooman all fly blown like a carkis wi’ ungodliness!”
I gave her another little stir.
“I repent!” she shrieked. “I’ll confess everything! Only spare me now.
Gie me a month--two months, to prepare my sore wicked soul for the
felon’s grave.”
“Peggy,” I said, sternly, “get up and don’t make a fool of yourself.”
She seemed to listen.
“Is that you, Renalt?” she said, presently.
“Get up--do you hear?”
“Keep the bolt fro’ me. Pray to the Lord for a bad old ’ooman. Wrastle
for me, Renalt.”
“Are you crazy?”
She bumped her elbows on the floor as she lay, in fretful terror.
“Wrastle--wrastle!” she whined. “Don’t waste your breath on axing
things. While you talk He enters.”
“Who enters?”
“The Lord of hosts. I saw His face at the window, and the breath o’
His nostrils was like the sound o’ guns. I arlays meant to repent--I
swear it on the blessed book. It’s a wicked thing to compact wi’ the
prince o’ darkness. Believe me, truth, I arlays meant it, but the pot
must be boiled and the beds made and where were old Peggy’s time? You
wudn’t smite a body, Lord, for caring of her dooties, and I repent
now. It’s never too late over one sinner doing penance. Oh, Lord, take
the young and well-favored and gie crass Rottengoose a month for her
sins!”
“Peggy, I haven’t a doubt you’ve plenty to do penance for. But have
you really the stupendous assurance to think that all this storm is
got up on your account? Get up, you old idiot! The thunder’s past and
there’s nothing to be afraid of now.”
Her lean body went in with a great sigh. For some moments she lay as
she was; then cautiously twisted her head and peered up at me.
“Sakes alive!” she muttered, listening. “Was it all for nowt, then?”
I saw the craft come back to her withered eyes in the dusk.
“Heave me up, Renalt,” she said. “The Lord has seen the wisdom o’ let
alone, praise to His mercy.”
“Don’t presume on that, Peggy. He’ll call to you at His own time,
though it mayn’t be through a thunderstorm.”
“Look to yourself, Renalt. The young twigs snap easiest. You may be
the first to go, wi’ the load o’ guilt you gathered in London yon for
company.”
“Very likely. You asked me to pray for you just now, you know. What’s
on your mind, Peggy Rottengoose?”
I had the old sinner to her feet by this time. Her face was a yellow,
haggard thing to look at--shining like stained brass. Something in it
seemed to convey to me that perhaps after all the angel of the storm
had struck at her in passing.
She looked at me morosely and fearfully.
“What but ministering to Satan’s children?” she said.
“You graceless old villain, I’ve a mind to pitch you into the race.”
I made a clutch at her as I spoke, but she evaded me with a wriggle
and a shrill screech.
“I didn’t mean it! Let me go by!”
“What have you got to repent of in the first place?”
“I was stealing the pictur’ o’ Modred--there! No peace ha’ I hard
since I done it!”
I let the old liar pass, and she shuffled away, hugging herself and
glancing round at me once or twice as if she still doubted the meaning
of my threat. I paid no more attention to her, but returned to my
father’s room.
The old man lay on his back placid and unconcerned, but his eyes were
open and he greeted me with a cheerful little nod.
Darkness deepened in the room, and the white face on the pillow became
a luminous spot set weirdly in the midst of it. I had not once till
then, I think, admitted a single feeling of disloyalty toward my
father to my heart. Now a little unaccountable stirring of impatience
and resentment awoke in me. I was under some undefinable nervous
influence, and was surely not true to myself in the passing of the
mood. It seemed suddenly a monstrous thing to me that he, the prime
author of all that evil destiny that had haunted our lives, should be
fading peacefully toward the grave, while we must needs live on to
outface and adjust the ugly heritage of responsibilities that were the
fruits of his selfish policy of inaction.
Such sudden swift reactions from a long routine of endurance are
humanly inevitable. They may flame up at a word, a look, a shying
thought--the spark of divinity glowing with indignation over
intolerable injustice. Then the dull decorum of earth stamps it under
again and we go on as before.
During that spell of rebellion, my soul passed in review the incidents
of a cruel visitation of a father’s sins upon his children. I saw the
stunted minds meanly nurtured in an atmosphere of picturesque
skepticism. I saw the natural outgrowth of this in a reckless
indifference to individual responsibility. Following thereon came one
by one the impulse to triumph by evil--the unchecked desire--the
shameless deed--the road, the river and the two lonely graves.
I rose to my feet and paced the room to and fro, casting a resentful
glance now and again at the quiet figure on the bed. Driven to quick
desperation I strode to the door, opened it and descended the stairs.
In the blaze of my anger I burst into the haunted room, thinking to
stay the monster with the mere breath of my fury. But the cold
blackness drove at me, and, for all my confidence, repelled me on the
very threshold.
I rushed away to the sluice, let it fall and shut off the race. Then I
returned, breathless and panting, and looked at the open door.
“You’re a very material devil,” I muttered; “a boy could silence your
voice, for all its boastfulness.”
As I spoke, again a little ugly secret laugh seemed to issue from it.
Probably it was only an expiring screech of the axle, but it made my
blood run tingling for all that.
I mounted the stairs, determinedly crushing down the demon of fear
that sought to unman me.
“I have silenced its hateful voice,” I cried to myself, and whispered
it again as I re-entered my father’s room.
The old man lay silent and motionless as I seated myself once more by
the window. Now the great blasts of tempest held monopoly of the
ghostly house, unpierced of that other voice that had been like the
grinding of the teeth of the storm.
Presently I heard him stirring restlessly in his bed, and little
fitful moans came from his lips. His uneasiness increased; he muttered
and threw his arms constantly into fresh positions. Could it be that
my untoward silencing of that voice that for such long years had been
his counselor and familiar was making a vacancy in his soul into which
deadlier demons were stealing?
I moved to the bed and looked down upon him. As I did so the old
tenderness reasserted itself and the mood of blackness passed away. If
he had bequeathed to us a dark heritage of suffering, it is by
suffering that the soul climbs from the bestial pitfalls of the
senses.
As I leaned down to cover his chest that his restless tossing had
bared, a second tempest of hail swept furiously upon the town. I ran
to the window and looked out. In the flashing radiance of the lamp
that stood upon the bridge opposite--for night was now settled upon
the city--I saw the tumult of white beat upon the stones and rebound
from them and thrash all the road, as it were, with froth.
Suddenly a figure started up in the midst of the flickering curtain of
ice. It was there in a moment--waving its wild arms--wringing its
hands--shrieking, I could have fancied, though no sound came to me.
But, in the wonder and instant of its rising, I knew it to be Duke’s.
Hardly had I mastered the first shock of surprise when there came the
sound of a great cry behind me. I turned, and there was my father
sitting up in bed, and his face was ghastly.
“The wheel!” he shrieked, in a suffocating voice; “the wheel! I’m
under it!” And fell back upon his pillow.