THE UNQUIET CONSCIENCE.
And Tom yielded.
The whisperings of conscience were drowned in the anticipation of
Bennie’s joy. The fear of personal violence would not have conquered
him; neither would the fallacious argument of compensation by
destruction have done so. But that vision of Bennie, with eyes that
could look into his eyes, with eyes that could see the houses and the
breakers, the trees and the birds and the flowers, that could even
see the far-off stars in the sky at night,--that was the vision that
crowded out from Tom’s mind the sharp distinction between right and
wrong, and delivered him over wholly to the tempter.
But he felt the shame of it, nevertheless, as he answered, in a choking
voice, at last,--
“Yes, I could. A hundred dollars ’d give sight to Bennie. I wouldn’t
lie for it, but I’ll keep still for it.”
Lawyer Pleadwell doubled up his glasses, slipped them into a morocco
case, and slipped the case into his vest-pocket. His object was
accomplished.
“Tom,” he said, “you’re a wise lad. If you keep on in this way, you’ll
make a lawyer; and a lawyer, with so evenly balanced a conscience as
yours, will be a credit to the profession.”
Tom was not quite sure whether this was intended for a compliment or
not, so he simply said, “Yes, sir.”
Pleadwell reached across the table for his high silk hat, motioned to
Carolan to follow him, and went out, saying to Tom as he went,--
“You stay here and amuse yourself; we’ll be back shortly.”
Tom sat there alone quite still. His mind was in a tumult. Is it right?
Is it _right_? Some unseen presence kept crowding the question in upon
him.
What would Bennie say to it?
What would Mommie say to it?
Yet there were no lies to be told; he was simply to hold his tongue.
But was it not shielding a criminal from just punishment? Was it not
virtually selling his honor for money? Would it not be better, after
all, to take back his promise, to do his duty fearlessly, and to
work and wait, patiently and with a clear conscience, for means to
accomplish the desire of his heart for Bennie?
He was just getting into a state of painful indecision when Carolan
came in alone, and closed the door carefully behind him. Without saying
a word, he handed to Tom, one by one, ten crisp, new ten-dollar bills.
The boy had never in his life before seen so much money at one time.
To hold it was like a scene in a fairy story; to own it was to be rich
beyond belief. The whispers of conscience were again stilled in the
novelty of possessing wealth with which such blessings might be bought.
Tom took the money, folded it awkwardly, and placed it in the inside
pocket of his vest. Carolan looked on with apparent satisfaction; then
went and seated himself in the chair he had formerly occupied, without
having uttered a word.
This man was a marked character in the anthracite coal region twenty
years ago. He was known among the miners as “Silent Mike,” was credited
with much native ability and sharpness, and was generally believed to
be at the head, in the anthracite region, of the secret order of Molly
Maguires. He was always shrewd enough not to implicate himself in any
lawlessness. The fact that he so controlled the organization as to meet
his personal ends caused it, eventually, to be split with internal
dissensions. Then, as a new reign of law and order came in, and as
organized labor began to base itself on higher principles, and to work
out its problem with less of vengeance and more of justice, the order
gradually passed out of existence.
Thinking there was nothing more to be said or done, Tom rose to go; but
just then Pleadwell entered, laid his silk hat carefully on the table,
and motioned to him to be seated. Having taken his eye-glasses from
their case and adjusted them carefully on his nose, he said to Tom,--
“It will not be wise for you to make any large expenditures of money
for any purpose until after the trial; and in the mean time it will
be absolutely unsafe for you to disclose to any one the fact of your
having money or the means by which it was obtained. Your own discretion
will teach you this. You understand me, do you not?”
Tom nodded, and Pleadwell continued:
“There is one thing more that I desire to speak of: I have heard that
when you reached the foot of the hill on the night the breaker was
burned, you saw a man come from near the point where the fire broke
out, pass by you in the shadow of the building, and disappear around
the corner by the engine-room. Is this true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kind of a looking man was this? Describe him.”
“He was a short man,” Tom replied, “kind o’ slim, an’ he didn’t have
any whiskers”--a sudden thought seemed to strike the boy, and looking
for a moment earnestly at Carolan, and then pointing his finger at him,
he exclaimed,--
“Why, he looked just like--just like him!”
Carolan smiled grimly, but Pleadwell laughed aloud.
“Well, Tom,” he said, “we shall not ask you to tell whom he looks like,
but if I should require your presence at the trial, and should call
you to the witness-stand, you would have no objection, I presume, to
giving a description of the man you saw pass by you in the shadow of
the breaker, just as you have described him to me?”
“No,” replied Tom, “not so long as it’s true.”
“Oh, I should expect you to say nothing that is not strictly true,”
said Pleadwell. “I would not allow a witness of mine to tell a lie.
Well, then, you are to be in the court-room here a week from next
Tuesday morning at nine o’clock. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carolan, put Thomas Taylor’s name on that subpœna. You will consider
yourself subpœnaed, Tom. Now,” taking a heavy gold watch from his
fob-pocket and glancing at it, “you will have just time to catch the
train north.” Then stepping to the door between the two rooms, and
throwing it open, he said, “Harris, go to the station with this boy,
buy his ticket, and see that he gets the right train.”
Harris was the young man who came down with Tom, and he and the boy
were soon on the street together, walking briskly toward the station.
An hour earlier, when they were coming in, Tom had been very talkative
and inquiring, but now his companion was able to get from him no more
than a simple “yes” or “no,” and that only in answer to questions.
Conversation was impossible to the boy, with his mind so crowded with
perplexing doubts. He could not even take notice of the shop-windows,
or of the life in the streets, but followed blindly along by the
side of Harris. Somehow he felt as though he were walking under a
heavy weight, and that roll of money in his pocket seemed to be
burning him where it rested against his breast. He imagined that the
people he met looked at him suspiciously, as if they knew he had been
bribed--_bribed_!
The word came into his mind so suddenly, and with such startling force,
that he stopped still in the street, and only recovered himself when
Harris turned and called to him.
They were just in time for the train.
Tom found a place in the corner of the car where he would be alone, and
sat there thinking over what he had done, and trying to reason himself
into justification of his conduct.
The conductor came along and punched his ticket, and looked at him so
sharply that Tom wondered if he knew. But of course that was absurd.
Then he tried to dismiss the matter from his mind altogether, and give
his attention to what he could see from the car-window.
Outside a drizzling rain was beginning to fall on the brown fields
and leafless trees, and the autumn early twilight was fast deepening
into darkness. It was very dismal and cheerless, and not at all the
kind of outlook that could serve to draw Tom’s mind from its task of
self-contemplation. It was but a few minutes, therefore, before this
controversy with himself was going on again, harder than before.
Somehow that strange word “bribed” kept haunting him. It sounded
constantly in his ears. He imagined that the people in the cars were
speaking it; that even the rhythmic rattle of the wheels upon the rails
kept singing it to him with monotonous reiteration, “Bribed! _bribed_!”
Tom thought, as he hurried down the street in the gathering darkness,
out upon the plank walk, and up the long hill toward home, that he had
never been so unhappy in all his life before. It was strange, too,
for he had so often dreamed of the great joy he should feel when the
coveted hundred dollars had been saved.
Well, he had it now, every cent of it, rolled up and tucked safely away
in the pocket of his vest; but instead of happiness, it had brought
misery.
For the first time within his memory, the thought of meeting his mother
and his brother gave him no pleasure. He would not tell them about
the money that night at any rate; he had decided upon that. Indeed,
he had almost concluded that it would be better that they should not
know about it until after the trial. And then suppose they should not
approve! He was aghast at the very thought.
But Tom was a brave lad, and he put on a bright face before these two,
and told them of his trip to Wilkesbarre, and about what he had seen
and heard,--about the law-office, about Pleadwell and Carolan, about
every thing, indeed, but the bargain and the money.
He tried to eat his supper as if he enjoyed it, though every mouthful
seemed about to choke him, and on the plea of being very tired, he went
early to bed. There he lay half the night debating with his conscience,
trying to make himself believe that he had done right, yet feeling all
the time that he had stooped to dishonor.
He went over in his mind the way in which he should break the news
to Mommie and Bennie, and wondered how they would receive it; and
always beating upon his brain, with a regular cadence that followed
the pulsation of his heart, and with a monotonous rhythm that haunted
him even after he had fallen into a troubled sleep, went that terrible
word, _Bribed_!
* * * * *
The autumn days went by, and still the strike continued. There were
no signs of resumption, no signs of compromise. On the contrary, the
breach between the miners and the operators was growing daily wider.
The burning of the Valley breaker and the arrest of Jack Rennie had
given rise to a bitterness of feeling between the two classes that
hindered greatly an amicable settlement of their differences.
Acts of lawlessness were common, and it was apparent that but little
provocation would be needed to bring on deeds of violence of a
desperate nature. The cry of want began to be heard, and, as the winter
season was drawing near, suffering became more frequent among the
improvident and the unfortunate.
The Taylor family saw coming the time when the pittance of twenty
dollars that the boys had saved for Bennie must be drawn upon to
furnish food and clothing for them all. Tom had tried to get work
outside of the mines, but had failed; there were so many idle men and
boys, and there was so little work to be done at that season of the
year. But the district school was open, not far from his home, and Tom
went there instead.
He was fond of books, and had studied much by himself. He could read
very well indeed. He used to read aloud to Bennie a great deal, and
during these days of enforced idleness the boys occupied much of their
time in that way; finding their literature in copies of old newspapers
which had been given to them, and in a few old books which had belonged
to their father.
Indian Summer came late that year, but it was very fair. It lingered
day after day, with its still air, its far-sounding echoes, its hazy
light and its smoky distances; and the brooding spirit of nature’s
quiet rested down, for a brief but beautiful season, about the unquiet
spirits of men.
On the afternoon of one of its most charming days, Tom and Bennie
sauntered out, hand in hand, as they always went, to where the hill,
south of their little mining village, rose like a huge, upturned bowl,
sloping downward from its summit to every point of the compass. Over
in the little valley to the south lay the ruins of the burned breaker,
still untouched; and off upon the other side, one could see the
sparkling Susquehanna far up into the narrow valley where its waters
sweep around the base of Campbell’s Ledge; across to the blue mountains
on the west; and down the famous valley of Wyoming, with its gray stone
monument in the middle distance, until the eastern hills crept in to
intercept the view.
It was a dreamy day, and a day fit for dreams, and when the boys
reached the summit of the hill, Tom lay down upon the warm sod, and
silently looked away to the haze-wrapped mountains, while Bennie sat
by his side, and pictured to his mind the view before him, as Tom had
described it to him many times, sitting in that very spot.
Poor Tom! These beautiful days had brought to him much perplexity of
mind, much futile reasoning with his conscience, and much, very much,
of silent suffering.
Lying there now, in the sunlight, with open eyes, he saw, in reality,
no more of the beautiful scene before him than did blind Bennie at his
side. He was thinking of the trial, now only three days distant, of
what he should be called upon to do and to say, and of how, after it
was all over, he must tell Mommie and Bennie about the hundred dollars.
Ah, there was the trouble! he could see his way clearly enough until it
should come to that; but how should he ever be able to tell to these
two a thing of which he tried to be proud, but of which, after all, he
felt guilty and ashamed?
Then, what would they say to him? Would they praise him for his
devotion to Bennie, and for his cleverness in having grasped an
opportunity? Or would they grieve over his lack of manly firmness and
his loss of boyish honor? Alas! the more he thought of it, the more he
feared that they would sorrow rather than rejoice.
But an idea came to Tom, as he lay there, thinking the matter over; the
idea that perhaps he could learn what Bennie’s mind would be on the
subject, without exciting any suspicion therein of what had actually
occurred. He resolved to try.
He hardly knew how best to approach the matter, but, after some
consideration, he turned to Bennie and said,--
“Bennie, do you s’pose Jack Rennie act’ally set fire to that breaker?”
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit, Tom,” replied Bennie; “those ’at know,
him says he’s dreadful bad. ’Taint so much worse to burn a breaker
than ’tis to burn a shaft-house, an’ they say he act’ally did burn a
shaft-house up at Hyde Park, only they couldn’t prove it on him.”
“Well, s’pose you’d ’a’ seen--s’pose you could see, you know,
Bennie--an’ s’pose you’d ’a’ seen Jack Rennie set fire to that breaker;
would you tell on him?”
“Yes, I would,” said Bennie, resolutely, “if I thought he’d never get
punished for it ’less I did tell on him.”
“Well, don’t you think,” continued Tom, reflectively, “’at that’d be
sidin’ with the wealthy _clapitulist_, against the poor laborer, who
ain’t got no other way to get even justice for himself, except to make
the rich _corpurations_ afraid of him, that way?”
Tom was using Pleadwell’s argument, not because he believed in it
himself, but simply to see how Bennie would meet it.
Bennie met it by saying,--
“Well, I don’t care; I don’t b’lieve it’s _ever_ right to burn up any
thing ’at belongs to anybody else; an’ if I saw any one a-doin’ it,
I’d tell on him if”--Bennie hesitated a moment, and Tom looked up
eagerly--“if I wasn’t afraid o’ the Molly Maguires. Jack Rennie’s a
Molly, you know.”
“But _wouldn’t_ you be afraid of ’em? s’pose one of ’em should come to
you an’ say, ‘Ben Taylor, if you tell on Jack, we’ll put out your’--I
mean ‘cut off your tongue.’ What’d you do?”
Bennie thought a moment.
“Well, I b’lieve I’d tell on him, anyway; an’ then I’d get a pistol,
an’ I wouldn’t let no Molly get nearer to me’n the muzzle of it.”
In spite of his great anxiety, Tom laughed at the picture of weak,
blind little Bennie holding a crowd of outlaws at bay, with a cocked
revolver in his hand. But he felt that he was not getting at the real
question very fast, so he tried again.
“Well, Bennie, s’pose you’d ’a’ seen him start that fire, an’ he’d ’a’
knowed it, an’ he’d ’a’ said to you, ‘Ben Taylor, if you ever tell on
me, I’ll burn your Mommie’s house down, an’ I’ll most kill your brother
Tom!’ _then_ what’d you do?”
Bennie hesitated. This was more of a poser.
“Well,” he answered, at last, “if I’d ’a’ b’lieved he’d ’a’ done what
he said--I don’t know--I guess I’d--well, maybe, if I didn’t have to
tell any lie, I just wouldn’t say any thing.”
Tom’s spirits rose; he felt that a great point was gained. Here was a
matter in which Bennie would have been even less firm than he himself
had been. Now was the time to come directly to the issue, to ask the
final question.
Tom braced himself to the task. He tried to speak naturally and
carelessly, but there was a strange shortness of breath, and a
huskiness in his voice which he could not control; he could only hope
that Bennie would not notice it.
“Well, then, s’pose--just s’pose, you know--that _I’d_ seen Jack Rennie
set fire to the breaker, an’ ’at he knew I was goin’ to tell on him,
an’ ’at he’d ’a’ said to me, ‘Tom, you got a blind brother Bennie,
ain’t you?’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘Yes,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, ‘What’ll it
cost to get Bennie’s sight for him?’ an’ I’d ’a’ said, ‘Oh, maybe a
hundred dollars,’ an’ he’d ’a’ said, ‘Here, Tom, here’s a hundred
dollars; you go an’ get Bennie’s eyes cured; an’ don’t you say any
thin’ about my settin’ that fire.’ What--what’d you ’a’ done if you’d
’a’ been me?”
Tom raised himself to a sitting posture, and leaned toward Bennie, with
flushed face and painful expectancy in his eyes.
He knew that for him Bennie’s answer meant either a return to a measure
of the old happiness, or a plunging into deeper misery.
The blind boy rose to his feet and stood for a moment as if lost in
thought. Then he turned his sightless eyes to Tom, and said, very
slowly and distinctly,--
“If you’d ’a’ took it, Tom, an’ if you’d ’a’ used it to cure me with,
an’ I’d ’a’ known it, an’ I’d ’a’ got my sight, I don’t believe--I
don’t believe I should ever ’a’ wanted to look at you, Tom, or wanted
you to see me; I’d ’a’ been so ’shamed o’ both of us.”