THE men were, for the most part, in sullen earnest. From their narrower
outlook they could not see that capital was on the eve of a great
revulsion; that credit had been stretched to its utmost. They had their
own pet plans, their own indolences and careless habits; and, as was
natural, their own desires were the sweetest to them.
There were labor-meetings and harangues. There was a good deal of talk
about the rights of labor and the tyranny of capital; of the rich mill
and factory owners living in palaces, and the men in hovels; of what
England had done, and of what we surely were coming to,--the rich
growing richer, and the poor poorer. But Jack remarked that of the
speakers there was not one who owned a little plot of ground, or had a
bank-account. Two of them were disaffected English weavers, a third an
Irishman, and the only Yerbury man was a quick-tongued, but shiftless
fellow who had started in business for himself, and failed; a kind of
handy Jack-at-all-trades, and correspondingly good for nothing.
Before the close of the week the men in Watkins's shoe-shop had struck.
There was quite an army of them now. The saloons were filled daily and
nightly. Jack thought, with a little grimness, that they might better
save their money for next week's bread.
Several of the men in his room dropped in to see what he thought; and
the result was, that on the following Monday morning ten of them
presented themselves with a tolerably cheerful demeanor, and accepted
the situation. By Tuesday night every vacant place was filled with
hungry, haggard-looking men from Coldbridge. They were jeered at, and
annoyed in various ways: the Yerbury men were called rats and turncoats
and cowards. The mills were driven. There was another great and
successful sale; in fact, amid the failures and difficulties about, Hope
Mills loomed up like a star of the first magnitude.
In the spring Mrs. Eastman and Miss Lawrence went to Europe; and Fred
joined a party of young men on a pleasure-tour through California. Even
Mrs. Lawrence was persuaded to try Saratoga in the summer. The great
house was muffled, and left in the charge of servants; but greenhouses,
graperies, and all the elegant adjuncts were cared for as assiduously as
ever. David Lawrence used to think it over. Sometimes he was tempted to
sell out his palatial residence, but who was there to buy? Other men had
been caught with just such elephants on their hands. The papers were
full of offers "at an immense sacrifice."
Business grew duller and duller. There was a very great overplus of
every thing, it seemed, in the world. Harvests were so abundant, and
prices so low, they were not worth the moving. Fruit lay and rotted on
the ground: you could get nothing for it. And yet there were wan-eyed
and hungry women and children who would have feasted regally on this
waste. Mothers of families turned and patched and darned, and said there
could be no new garments this winter, while store-shelves groaned under
the accumulation of goods. Men were failing on this side and that; the
Alton & West Line Railway stock came down with a crash, and banks were
shaky. Hope Mills were closed for a month to make some repairs, as
business was rather slow just now.
There was a great quaking in real estate as well. The large
property-owners held on stiffly: times would improve; land was worth
more to-day than ever, because every year there were more people, and
they required more houses, and the thing would somehow right itself.
Jack had taken his two feminines off to a great roomy farmhouse, where
they had a horse at their command. Sylvie and Miss Barry were summering
at the White Mountains. Dr. Maverick found a good deal of sickness among
the poorer classes, low fevers and various troubles, that he knew well
enough came from insufficient diet. But what was to be done? There was
so little work, so much lost time, the inexorable rent, and the
importunate grocer's bill. Up on Hope Terrace the luscious grapes fell
to the ground, and were swept up as so much litter; the fresh, lovely
vegetables passed their prime unheeded, and were tossed in the
garbage-pit.
September came in hot and sultry. Hope Mills started, but many another
place did not open. There was a strange, deathly-quiet undercurrent,
like the awful calm before a thunder-shower. Wages took another tumble,
and now no one had the courage to make much of a fight.
The second week in October there came an appalling crash. Yerbury Bank
closed its doors one morning,--the old bank that had weathered many a
gale; that was considered as safe and stanch as the rock of Gibraltar
itself; that held in trust the savings of widows and orphans, the
balance of smaller business-men who would be ruined: indeed, it would
almost ruin Yerbury itself.
There was the greatest consternation. People flew up the street,
bank-book in hand; but the dumb doors seemed only to give back a
pitiless glance to entreaties. What was it? What had happened? "Every
penny I had in the world was in it," groaned one; and the saddening
refrain was repeated over and over, sometimes with tears, at others with
curses.
The old officers of Yerbury Bank had been men of the highest integrity.
Some were dead; some had been pushed aside by the new, fast men who
laughed at past methods, as if honor, honesty, and truth were virtues
easily outgrown. Among these were the Eastmans. George was considered
shrewd and far-sighted, and for two years had been one of the directors,
as well as Horace. They paid the highest rate of interest, which
attracted small savings from all around. There had been no whisper or
fear about it, so solid was its olden reputation. There were people who
would as soon have doubted the Bible.
Two days after this, George Eastman sailed for Europe, on a sudden
summons,--his wife's illness. There had been a meeting called, and a
short statement made. Owing to sudden and unexpected depreciation in
railway-bonds and improvement-bonds, and what not, it was deemed best to
suspend payment for the present. In a few weeks all would be straight
again, with perhaps a trifling loss to depositors. Already the directors
had been very magnanimous. Mr. Eastman and several others had turned
over to the bank a large stock of mortgages: in fact, the virtue of
these men was so lauded that the losses seemed to be quite thrown into
the background.
But the examination revealed a sickening mass of selfishness and
cupidity; transactions that were culpably careless, others dishonorable
to the last degree. If the larger depositors had not been warned, there
was certainly a remarkable unanimity of thought, as, for the past
fortnight, they had been steadily drawing out their thousands. Wild
railroad-speculations, immense mortgages on real estate that now lay
flat and dead: scanty available assets that would hardly pay twenty
cents on a dollar.
This was what David Lawrence heard when he returned from St. Louis, a
heavy-hearted, dispirited man. Two recent failures had borne heavily
upon him. If last winter had been dull, there was no adjective to apply
to this. His first step was to mortgage Hope Terrace. He had deeded it
to his wife, unincumbered; but now it appeared his only chance of
salvation. Mrs. Lawrence made a feeble protest at first, and demanded
that Fred should be sent for, but there was no time. He met his pressing
notes, and was tided over; but, oh! what was to be the end of it all?
An indignation-meeting was called; and so high ran popular feeling, that
new directors were appointed for the bank. Mr. Lawrence would have fain
declined, but the community insisted. In this time of general distrust,
they came back to the loyal gentleman, who, whatever his pride might be,
had never deceived one of them.
Alas! had he not enough perplexity of his own, that this new sorrow and
shame should stare him in the face, bow him to the earth?
Not his own son, thank God! not any blood kin; and yet his daughter's
husband, his fair Gertrude, of whom he had been so proud years ago! He
went back suddenly to that old time, and seemed to see them all again as
little children, a merry household; and his pale, delicate Fred, for
whom his heart beat so anxiously. How they had welcomed his coming!--a
son to hand down the name, a son to lean upon in his old age. Nay, those
were the extremes of life: why should not men count on their sons
through the burden and heat of middle life? Why wait until the evening
for comfort?
Where was he now? Did he think of the one who had toiled that he might
spend? for, now that he looked at it with awesome calmness, like a thing
standing apart, it was one long, dreary pilgrimage of toil. To what end?
Was gathering together riches the noblest use of a man made in God's
image? Ah, how poor and paltry an aim!
Surely he had done something beside that! A pleasant home of culture and
artistic beauty, a circle of refined people gathered about him, the evil
and want and woe of the world shut carefully out by silken curtains and
plate-glass. His daughters he had been proud of. No _mésalliance_, no
common tastes, as he had sometimes fancied that he had detected in that
pretty little Sylvie Barry. And his son?
There had been no positive evil in his life. A young man's follies
perhaps, but few vices, if any, thank God! He would never be a
libertine, a drunkard, a gambler, a thief. But was negative goodness
all? These twenty-four years spent in shaping and culturing, but to what
end? Could he call him back from his pleasure now, and have him take up
this struggle grown too heavy to fight single-handed? and would he be
manful, brave, clear-sighted, and unrepining? No. He felt the change
would be too great. The soul so used to ease and luxury, fine linen and
soft couches, delicate appetites, indolent habits, intellectual pursuits
and graces, to be put in rough harness of business at once, would be
cruel, nay, worse, like chaining humming-birds to a dray-wagon. And
Irene, flitting like a butterfly through elegant _salons_, how would she
be content with poverty and a cottage?
And was this all the work of his own hands? Had he laid up no treasure
against the time of adversity, made no homes into which he might be
received in his trial hour? For two years he had struggled manfully,
earnestly; and all this time at his very gate there had been a traitor,
turning aside the stream until there was nothing but a barren desert
left.
The crown of his life was poverty and ruin! For himself he could give up
luxuries, and come to plain fare; but what of the others? This last news
had swept away all hope.
He sought Horace Eastman, and confronted him with his deceit and wrong:
somehow he could not bring himself to call it by its true name, crime,
and fasten it on the man there and then. There was a high-bred delicacy
about David Lawrence, a little of the old knightly chivalry that in past
times held a man back from striking a fallen foe. And then he was not
quite sure. The dishonorable work lay between the two men, and he
forbore to blame this one wrongly.
He need not have wasted his pity on this man, or have so nicely worded
his charges. Horace Eastman stood there, surprised to be sure, for he
had counted upon getting away before this turn in the wheel of fortune.
For the last year, though he had been outwardly triumphant, and had
carried business matters with a hopefully high hand, he had known what
the end must be, and made ready for it with a kind of exultant elation
at the sense of difficulties surmounted and deceptions carried on
successfully. He really despised the man before him, that he had
sufficient faith in human nature to be deceived. Starting from the
principle that all men are rogues when opportunity offers, he felt no
more guilty now, than if he had followed any other well-known law of
nature. He stood before Mr. Lawrence bland and composed: there was no
vulnerable point to strike, so he need put on no armor. Many a time he
had reasoned the matter out to his own satisfaction, that the failure of
Hope Mills was inevitable. What with losses, dull times, and extravagant
living, it would surely come. That he owed his employer any thing in
integrity and sharp fighting with adverse circumstances, would never
enter the mind of such a man, so inwrapped in self.
"There were some irregularities for your son-in-law's benefit," with an
insolent half smile, half sneer. "He was to explain them to you. There
have been accommodations for the mills occasionally. You were away: what
else could I have done?"
A cold shiver ran over David Lawrence. That part of courage allied to
hope seemed crushed out of him as if by torture. Could he drag his
daughter's name through the mire? for it would be that in any attempt to
bring Eastman to the point of responsibility.
"Do you know how much this--this defalcation will amount to?" He would
call the monstrous thing by its right name now, though he shuddered in
every limb, and a cold perspiration stood in great beads about his thin
temples. A third person witnessing his hesitation might fancy him
faltering and shrinking in the path of dishonor, rather than the other.
"I really have no idea," bracing up his broad, full shoulders with
portentous dignity: "George managed that matter. No doubt there are some
memoranda," pausing with an indifferent air as if it were a matter of a
few dollars.
"The bank must be made good, Mr. Eastman."
"Well; as you think best, as you think best;" nodding confidently, as if
the repayment were the easiest thing in the world. "Let me see,--would
it not be better to write to George?"
What impression could he make upon this man? To appeal to conscience,
justice, or any latent sense of right, would be a waste of words. With
him success was right, and failure the blunder or sin. He was to "do
well unto himself," to gain the world's verdict of approval. That solid
flesh made by good eating and drinking, not debauchery or
intemperance,--the man had few of these gross vices,--that complacent
strength, that keen, concentrating force than could bend all energies in
the one direction, never looking back when he had once set his mind to a
thing, experiencing no remorse for those he crushed under his feet so
long as he went to success over them, knowing no disinterestedness,
trading simply upon the credulity, honor, and honesty of others: he had
chosen him for some of these very qualities. Do men gather grapes of
thistles?
"Bring the books to my office. I shall go over them to-night," was the
haughty command.
Eastman bowed and withdrew. The books were sent by the errand-boy. Then
he threw himself into his luxurious Russia-leather chair, rested his
feet upon the edge of the desk, settled his hands comfortably in his
pockets, and began to consider. A man would be foolish to stay and be
caught in the ruin of a falling house. He might not be crushed, to be
sure; but there would be the _débris_, and he had no fancy for clearing
that away. Not only the mills, but Yerbury, would fall flat. He did not
care to retire to a garden, and raise strawberries and corn: the clink
of gold was more melodious to his ear than the voices of nature. There
was a place for talent like his: the quick sight and keen discrimination
were still able to give the rusty old world a lift out of ruts it had
stopped in, and send it on with a rush. He had money in some
silver-mines: he might go West, and attend to that, then take a run over
to England, and see George. After all, was George really to blame for
getting hold of his wife's portion? He had married Miss Lawrence,
believing in good faith that she was the daughter of a millionnaire;
and, if he had been sharp enough to save something from the general
ruin, lucky for him!
On the whole, Mr. Eastman thought it would be well to go to New York for
a few days until the storm blew over. Jeffries the book-keeper could
attend to all that was needed. Mr. Lawrence would find Hope Mills in a
bad plight, to be sure; but he would not be the first man who had come
to ruin. Mr. Eastman put his desk in order,--he never kept any tell-tale
papers,--walked leisurely out of Hope Mills with that serene, impassable
face and high heart no misfortune could daunt.
David Lawrence spread the books open before him. It would be an endless
task. One fact kept burning into his brain like fire. The Eastmans, or
Hope Mills, owed Yerbury Bank seventy thousand dollars, the hard
earnings and self-denials of poor and middle-class people. How it stung
his haughty pride, unused even to dishonorable thoughts! If he had been
an exact master, he had also been a just and honest one. Shame and
disgrace stared him square in the face, where they would have but looked
askance at Horace Eastman.
It had been quite impossible to take cognizance of every thing after the
business grew so unwieldy. Then he thought of his son again with
passionate longing. Never had he so wanted some of his own kin to lean
upon, to take counsel with, to consider what must be done toward saving
honor: that was no social figment with him, but a deep, heaven-abiding
truth.
Heaven! By some strange turn of thought it entered his mind. He was so
tired, he had been so tired for months and months, so engrossed with
cares and business, that he had hardly stepped inside a church. How they
used to go in the old days; how proud he had been of his four pretty
children, of his tall handsome girls, and his manly son! Respectability,
and setting a good example,--these had been his motives for
church-going. Bits of sermons came back to him: how strange that he
could remember them! There was a rest from labor, a refreshing of soul.
Oh, how dark and arid, how confused and chaotic, his felt! Was there a
something he had never known?
Then he pulled himself together mentally, roused his dreaming brain, and
said something must be done. Fred must come back, and face the terrible
truth. As well send for him now.
He wrote out a message, and rang the bell. A tall, slim youth answered
it.
"I want this telegram sent immediately," he said in his quiet tone of
command. "Is Farrell anywhere about?"
"I can take it, sir, if you please: I often do."
"Very well."
Back to the books again with their long lines of figures. Did he think
he would find the shame and ruin here in bold black and white? He
studied them until they all ran together, and his brain seemed to become
a mass of luminous light with black motes floating about in it. The
tense agony abated. Strange visions haunted him, frivolous fancies, and
wonders that had puzzled him in boyhood; heroic fragments of bygone
declamation; the incidents of a week ago; a picture of some bold
scenery, and he in the cars, whirling by.
"Am I going crazy?" he asked with a ghastly expression. Then he took
several turns about the room, listened to the noise of the great engine,
and assured himself that he was sane.
Had he better go home? He was so tired! In all his life he had never
been so utterly exhausted. Then in a sudden, fretful mood of
contradiction he wondered he should think of fatigue when his limbs felt
strong, and his body knew no physical pain.
"I must shake it off!" he declared resolutely. Of what avail would be
going home to a wife's peevish complaints, and sit by himself to study
out this tangle? As well stay here, and master it. And that palace
yonder was home, and these were the comforts for which he had spent his
years and his energies! This was what he had laid up. An inheritance
incorruptible--why would these things come back to him?
The mill-bell began its clang. He listened to the tramp through the
passage-ways, the confusion of voices. He went to the window. The great
gates for the work-hands were around on the other side; but he could see
the motley procession filing down the street. Not gay and cheerful as in
bygone days: they seemed to drag along, these girls and women in shabby
clothes, their shawls drawn around their shoulders. Old men and
boys--why, where had vigorous middle life disappeared? So many faces had
a hard, discontented look, that pierced him like the sharp point of
ingratitude. Had he not brought himself to ruin to give the people
employment? If he had shut down the mill three years ago, he would have
been a rich man.
Well, why had he not? Was it thought for them? Had the prospect of their
starving lain heavily on his soul?
Ah, the love of money-getting, the fiend of covetousness! But what would
these people have done? Some one had once said, "What is that to thee?
Follow thou me." Was it in a sermon?
He lighted the gas, and went on wearily with his books. Some one opened
the door softly, and peered in. It was Farrell, the day-man. When he saw
Mr. Lawrence he touched his cap respectfully.
"Pardon me, sir: I saw a light"--
"Yes, I am going to stay--all night, I think: I shall be busy. When does
the night-man come?"
"At seven, sir."
"I will send a note up to Hope Terrace, Farrell. Could you take it?"
The man thought of his long day's work and his waiting supper. "Yes," he
answered rather reluctantly.
"Stop in, then, when you go."
Farrell went off grumbling. He would go home to supper first, that he
would. These men had no souls. That long walk-- Some people always rode
in chaises, were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and looked on
the rest of the world as mere lackeys!
There was some wine in the closet, and Mr. Lawrence took a glass to
clear his brain. He rarely used it save at dinner. Then back to the
tormenting books,--columns of business that appeared incredible now. How
had all this money slipped away?
Farrell tapped, and came in.
"Jackson's here now, sir. Is the note ready?"
"Yes. There is some change. Get a hack, Farrell: it is too far to walk.
Did Mr. Eastman"--
There was so long a pause that Farrell said,--
"Mr. Eastman went to New York. He said he might not be back to-morrow."
Mr. Lawrence nodded, as if that were sufficient. He would not peer into
the man's business.
"If you should want any thing, sir, Jackson will be at hand," said the
man kindly; for the thin, pale face, and strange, nervous light in the
eyes startled him.
"Jackson," he began, when outside, "Mr. Lawrence is going to stay a bit,
maybe all night. He has a great pile of books before him; but I'm afraid
he's queer some way. His eyes look wild and strange. Keep a lookout,
will you"--
"You don't mean that he's likely to shuffle? Are things as bad as that?
Has he got a pistol?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe I'm wrong;" and Farrell counted over the
money in his hand. "Anyhow, I would walk up and down this hall, and
listen."
Jackson nodded, and Farrell went his way; yet now he thought the brisk
walk would not hurt him. Jackson heeded his bidding, but all was quiet.
Once he went in the next room, and climbed up to a high sliding window,
used for ventilation. Mr. Lawrence sat there poring over the books. At
twelve it was the same. Jackson tolled off the hour of midnight. Every
thing was safe in the great building. Then he settled himself in an
easy-chair, and presently fell into a doze.
Meanwhile Mr. Lawrence studied the books in a dazed, bewildered way.
Here and there a balance had been struck, and it all looked fair. But
there was a terrible wrong somewhere!
The figures danced before his eyes in lurid lights and grotesque shapes,
with grinning faces, flying, whirling, in a wild, demoniac waltz. The
room was full. The procession he had watched to-night winding out from
the mill, stopped and jeered, and pointed skinny fingers at him. Then
he was at the bank, and they came in troops, wringing their hands, and
cursing him. Strange tales that he had read mixed with them in
inextricable confusion. Pictures of the past hurried by with panoramic
distinctness; and hark! what was that? The grand trump of the Judgment
Day? It tolled and tolled again, like a thunder-peal. Was any one dead?
He was so tired! He put his arms down on the desk, and leaned his face
on them. If he could sleep off this intolerable weariness!
He was a boy again, wading through the limpid brook, stepping from stone
to stone, and sometimes plashing over. Was that the dried sweetness of
balsam,--the pungent odor of pennyroyal and water-mint,--the clean,
resinous fragrance of the pines? Out there were lily-pads,--great
golden-hearted chalices, with long, sinuous greenish-pink stems under
the shady, transparent water. How cool and peaceful! The sky overhead
was of palest blue with white flecks, and somewhere a bird was singing.
If he could go to it; if he could stay amid all this sweet quiet, and
forget-- What was it he wanted to forget? Not his little Fred, surely!
How proud he should be of him in his manhood. What a help and comfort!
There was a strange, sudden darkness. The head drooped a little one
side, and the visions had come to an end.