Produced by Al Haines
HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS
BY W. M. L. JAY
Author of "Shiloh," etc.
"Sin will pluck on sin."
_King Richard III._
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY,
713 BROADWAY
1874
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
E. P. DUTTON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
In sending forth another book belonging to the class known as religious
novels, the author is moved to say a word to the critics who received a
former one with so pleasant a mixture of praise and deprecation. As
one of them frankly explained, "they like a pill none the better for
being sugar-coated." It is not necessary to remind them that there may
be younger (and possibly older) people who do. It is more to the point
to state that persons to whom religion is a pill--a bitter, nauseous
compound, to be bolted in sickness, and kept out of sight in
health--are not the persons for whom the author writes.
There is another class of objectors. They talk solemnly of Art and its
canons; they make a religion of it, having little other. One of these
remarks, that "a tract in the hands of the Venus di Medici would be an
impertinence." I quite agree with him. But why need he ignore the
fact that the Venus is also the outcome of a religion? To the ancient
sculptor, it was a goddess, not a woman, that grew under his hands; it
was Devotion, working together with Genius, that produced the two or
three statues which the world agrees to admire. So the few great poems
of the world are religious poems. Why, then, should not the great
novel of the world be a religious novel? Some day, be sure, a genius
sweeter than Hawthorne's, more genial than Dickens', and subtler than
Thackeray's, will arise to give it to us. Let me humbly help to
prepare the way for him! Meanwhile, be it also understood that the
persons to whom Art is a sufficing end, instead of a noble means, are
not the persons for whom I write.
I do write for the "gentle reader" who enjoys religion in novels, as
elsewhere. Be thus much said for his liking, even from the art side.
There are two classes of novels--the descriptive and the analytical;
one pictures real life, the other passions and motives. Religion has
its rightful place in both, because it is an important part of real
life, and controls both passions and motives. Finally (for the subject
is much too wide for a preface), the modern novel being so potent a
power,--for evil on the one hand, for social and civil reform on the
other,--it is fair to suppose that it may do good service for religion.
In conclusion, I have to make two acknowledgments. The first to an
unknown coadjutor, a hand that is doubtless mouldering into dust. Some
years ago, a yellow, time-worn manuscript, purporting to be a veritable
family history, fell into my hands. I am indebted to it for the main
outline of my story. The second is to MISS FREEBORNE,--the only
sculptor of our day, so far as I know, who has consecrated her genius
to Christian Art. From her studio I have quietly abstracted the
sculpture which lends its white grace to these pages. I should also
have seized upon the slender figure of her St. Agnes, and the bowed
head of her Martyr, had they been available to my purpose.
NEW YORK, July, 1874.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
PART FIRST.
A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.
I.--Proverbs and the Interpretation
II.--Studying to Answer
III.--Pattern of Old Fidelity
IV.--A Goodly Heritage
V.--Waste Places
VI.--The Day of Temptation
VII.--A Bitter Draught
VIII.--As a Dream when one Awaketh
IX.--The Blot Cleaves
PART SECOND.
THE FRUIT OF THE WAY.
I.--Through a Mist
II.--Strengthened out of Zion
III.--Seeing, but Understanding Not
IV.--Patient Waiting
V.--Under the Oaks
VI.--Of Clay
VII.--Hidden Riches
VIII.--The Wind Changes
IX.--The First Links of a Chain
X.--Feeling His Way
XI.--Sleepless Nights Appointed
XII.--A Consultation
XIII.--Dinner-Table Talk
PART THIRD.
THE IN-GATHERING.
I.--Unfoldings
II.--The Foundations Fail
III.--Building Anew
IV.--A Sermon
V.--Partings
VI.--With a Double Heart
VII.--Overburdened
VIII.--A Business Letter
IX.--Smoother Than Butter
X.--A Wicked Device
XI.--A Clue
XII.--Too Late
XIII.--Escaped
XIV.--The Way Stopped
PART FOURTH.
A NEW FIELD.
I.--Alive in Famine
II.--New Acquaintances
III.--Farview
IV.--A Word in Due Season
V.--Intercepted
VI.--An Aimless Stroll
VII.--Ordered Steps
VIII.--Though He Slay
IX.--Mistakes
X.--Like a Thief in the Night
XI.--After Many Days
PART FIFTH.
A BETTER HARVEST.
I.--A Cloud for a Covering
II.--Swift Feet
III.--Fatality or Temptation
IV.--Blind
V.--More Mystery
VI.--A Clue
VII.--The Set Time
VIII.--Gift and Giver
IX.--Faithful unto Death
HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS.
INTRODUCTION.
Very beautiful was the long vista of the elm-arched street. So
irresistibly did it woo the eye to linger among its gray columns and
green arches, or wander adown its fair, temple-like perspective to the
hazy vanishing point, that the wayfarer might easily forget to observe
what sort of dwellings were ranged along its sides. Nor did they seek
to force themselves upon his notice. They were all plain, substantial
structures, with no obtrusive marks of ostentation or of meanness about
them; and they all stood a little back from the street, leaving room
for a trim grass-plot, or a thicket of flowering shrubs, between them
and the passer-by. They would impress him, collectively, as genuine,
well-to-do homes, free alike from the struggles of poverty and the
temptations of wealth, without troubling him to recognize them
individually, or diverting his gaze from the over-arching elms that
were so much better worth his looking at.
Such, at least, would be the fact, until he came to a certain corner;
where a large square structure of stuccoed brick, coming boldly forward
to the pavement, and planting its heavy steps thereon, would be sure to
arrest his glance, and, perhaps, faintly stir his curiosity. It was
too large for a private building, and too unpretending for a public
one,--what was it? If he had put the inquiry into audible words, he
would have been told that it was the Medical College. And if his
interlocutor had chanced to be a white-haired, genial-faced old man,
long ago flung aside from the stream of active life, and, consequently,
with time on his hands for a little chat with a stranger,--he would,
doubtless, have woven into his answer the popular witticism;--
"Everything here, sir, is arranged just as it should be. The divinity
school is on the road to the poorhouse; the law-school adjoins the
jail; and the medical college--this building before you, sir--is hard
by the cemetery;--you can see the monuments rising above the hedge
yonder."
But the young man now coming up the street, through the pleasant play
of sunshine and shadow beneath the elms, would neither have asked the
question, nor smiled at the answer. He knew the stuccoed building
well, as a three years' occupant thereof must needs do; and he had
heard and repeated the witticism too many times to leave it the
faintest sparkle. It was doubtful, too, whether he gave a thought to
the loveliness of the elm-arched vista that stretched before
him,--partly by reason of his familiarity therewith, partly on account
of a preoccupied mind, and still more, perhaps, because his bright,
brisk, energetic temperament was not of the sort which is quickest to
feel subtile charm, and recognize the delicate outline, of the spirit
of beauty. He came on rapidly, with an elastic step and a cheery
whistle, and, as he neared the college, he cast a quick glance at one
of its upper windows. What he saw there would have been a pretty
enough sight to most people,--merely a tiny brown bird hopping to and
fro on the window-sill, and turning its small head briskly from side to
side in its search for infinitesimal crumbs,--but it brought a shadow
to his broad, frank brow.
"Not yet up," he muttered, "or that wren wouldn't be trotting up and
down there so complacently! To be sure, he may have gone out, but it
isn't likely."
Neither for the look nor the thought did he pause, but strode straight
up two flights of stairs, his firm tread resounding loudly through the
empty, uncarpeted halls, and knocked at the door of a front room.
There was no response. He knocked again, with a somewhat impatient
hand, tried the door and found it locked, waited a moment, beat a third
emphatic rat-tat-too upon the panel, without eliciting other reply than
a faint and dreary echo from the attic above; and, finally, turned on
his heel, and walked down-stairs. At the head of the second flight, a
thought seemed to strike him; after a moment of hesitation, he turned
and knocked at a door close at hand. Scarcely waiting for the prompt
"Come in!" he opened it, with the question,--"Have you seen Arling this
morning?"
The occupant of the room was a broad-shouldered young man, sitting at a
table covered with books and papers, and deeply absorbed in study. He
only half turned his head, showing a regular, clear-cut profile, as he
answered,--
"No. I left him so late last night that I overslept this morning, and
have thought of nothing but making up lost time. And really, Trubie, a
man might be excused for forgetting his best friend--if he had one--in
examination week. But, is Arling any worse?"
"That's what I should like to know, Roath," returned Trubie, planting
himself a little more firmly on the threshold, but taking no notice of
the chair that the other had carelessly pushed toward him. "At any
rate, he's out."
Roath started, and turned completely round, giving a view of a
square-featured, somewhat moody, but still handsome, face. "Out!" he
repeated, looking both amazed and startled.
"So it would seem. The door is locked, and I rapped and rattled loud
enough to wake the dead."
"Oh," said Roath, with a prolonged falling inflection. And after a
moment's consideration, he turned back to his books, as if there were
no more to be said.
Trubie lingered. Not, evidently, from any special liking for Roath's
society, but because he was undecided what to do next. "I don't
understand it, Roath," he said slowly. "You know Arling was to have
kept his room to-day, by way of gaining strength, and guarding against
a relapse. And we were to have gone over 'Barnes' together this
morning, so as to be all primed for Professor Beers to-morrow. What
_can_ he have done with himself?"
"Perhaps," said Roath, absently, with his eyes on his book, "some of
the others may have seen him."
Trubie took the hint--if such it was meant to be--and withdrew. He
spent the next half hour in knocking at sundry doors, and repeating,
with slight variation, the questions and remarks wherewith he had
favored Roath. No one had seen Arling; no one knew anything about him.
All seemed surprised to learn that he had gone out; but all were
laboriously cramming for the examinations in progress, and the surprise
made but a faint and transient ripple on the surface of their troubled
minds. Trubie's persistency impressed them much more strongly; they
wondered that he had leisure to bestow upon any anxiety not connected
with those dreaded examinations, any fear save that of failing to
secure the right to sign himself, "Frank Trubie, M.D."
Nor--to represent him fairly--was the young man himself wholly
insensible of his absurdity. "Well!" said he, at last, "I can't afford
to spend my morning in this way. I must go back to my room, and set to
work. When Arling comes in, tell him I've been here." And away he
went through the dancing elm-shadows, more quickly than he had come.
Two hours passed. Then Roath closed his books, gathered up his papers,
and took his way to the examination room, amid the groups of assembling
students. Many eyes followed him, some with admiration, some with
envy,--few or none, it was plain to see, with affection.
"No question but that he'll pass!" said one. "He's all brain,--I'd be
content with half as much."
"And his memory!" exclaimed another. "It appears to be constructed on
the principle of a rat-trap; ingress is easy, egress--not provided for!"
"No one can keep step with him but Arling," remarked a third; "if _he_
gets well enough, there will be a close race between them."
"I bet on Arling," said a fourth,--a somewhat slender young man, with
an easy, almost careless air, but a thoughtful face,--Mark Tracey by
name.
"Eh! why?" asked the first speaker.
"Because, as you said just now, Roath is all brain. Whereas Arling,
while he does not want for brain, has also a heart and a conscience.
And in medicine, as in everything else, that wonderful trio are too
strong for brain alone."
"Moralizing, as usual," returned the other with a light laugh.
"Not at all. It is plain common-sense. The history of the world shows
it. Perhaps there is no better type of pure intellect than Satan. And
Michael the archangel does very well for a representative of love,
duty, and intellect, combined. You remember which beat?"
"It is not possible, Tracey, that you believe that fable!"
"Grant that it is a fable," replied Tracey, lifting his eyebrows;--"it
nevertheless stands for the concrete wisdom of the ages which preceded
it."
The last words were spoken on the threshold of the examination room,
and, of necessity, closed the discussion.
Roath's examination, on this day, did not disappoint the general
expectation. Although somewhat paler than ordinary, he was thoroughly
self-possessed; his answers were clear and to the point; not once did
his memory play him false; scarcely once did he hesitate for a word.
He gave evidence not only of close study, but of careful analysis, and
profound, sagacious thought. But he looked worn when it was over, as
if the mental strain had been severe; and seemed scarcely to hear the
comments and congratulations showered upon him.
Into the midst of these burst Trubie, with the old question, "Have you
seen anything of Arling?" and hardly waiting for the general "No" which
answered it, upstairs he rushed, three steps at a time, to the room of
his friend. The stream of talk had scarcely resumed its flow, ere he
was back again, with a hurried step, and a perturbed face.
"It's odd about Arling," he began, abruptly. "I can't get any answer,
and there's nothing stirring in the room. But I looked into the
keyhole, and the key is certainly inside."
Some few of the students, startled by his words, and the deep gravity
of his look, gathered around him to discuss the matter, when a stout,
gray-haired professor came out from the examination room.
"Good day, Mr. Trubie," said he, as he passed the group. "I hope your
patient is doing well."
"I--I don't know, sir," faltered Trubie; "I have not seen him since
yesterday, at dusk. And he is unaccountably missing this morning;--at
least, I thought he must be out when I went to his room, at eight
o'clock, and couldn't get in. But I have just been up again, and--and
the door is certainly locked on the inside."
Being already in possession of the main facts of the case,--namely,
that Alec Arling, one of the class of medical students now undergoing
examination for their degree, had been suffering for some days from
severe and increasing intestinal trouble, and had been advised by the
faculty to keep his room for a day or two, under the care of his
friend, Frank Trubie;--the professor now, by means of a few rapid
questions, elicited the additional facts, that Trubie had been suddenly
called away, on the previous evening, by family affliction, to his home
in a near suburb, and had spent the night there, and that Edmund Roath,
who had volunteered to keep a little watch over the sick-room during
his absence, had remained with Arling till past midnight, engaged in
comparing notes of clinical lectures, and in psychological talk (with
which matters Arling _would_ busy himself, in spite of remonstrance),
and had then left him, recommending him to go to sleep at once, and had
heard the door duly locked on his exit. Roath further stated that, in
consequence of this protracted sitting, and previous hard work, he had
slept late this morning; and, taking it for granted that Trubie,
according to promise, was already back at his post, he had seated
himself at his books, immediately upon rising. Very shortly after,
Trubie had appeared, and informed him that Arling had gone out, whereat
he had been considerably surprised,--not that the young man was unable
to leave his room, but because it was inexpedient to do so.
Nevertheless, he frankly acknowledged that his mind was too much
preoccupied to give more than a passing thought to the matter,
especially as he knew well that any remissness on his part was sure to
be amply atoned for by Trubie,--he and Arling being, as everybody knew,
the Damon and Pythias of the class.
The professor was a man of few words, quick conclusions, and prompt
action. "There is but one way of getting at the bottom of the matter,"
said he, at the end of this rapid statement. "Let somebody bring a
crowbar, and pry open the door."
Scarce sooner said than done. The door yielded easily to the rude
implement, in Trubie's impetuous hands, and was followed by a rush of
the assembled students toward the opening,--though, even in this moment
of eager curiosity, the instinct of subordination allowed the professor
to in first. He went straight to the bed, where was seen a human form,
lying on its side, in an easy attitude of slumber. He bent for a
moment above this form, while a sudden silence fell upon the startled
spectators,--he touched the brow, lifted the hand, and then, turning
slowly round, said, in deep, serious tones;--
"He is dead."
Trubie let fall the crowbar, darted forward, and caught the hand of his
dead friend, with a kind of indignant incredulity. But the icy touch,
the marble pallor, the lifeless weight, brought instant conviction. He
stood as if stunned.
The professor had turned from the bed to the table, where a glass, a
spoon, and four or five phials, stood within easy reach of the dead
man's hand. He held the spoon to his nostrils, and then examined the
phials, holding them up to the light. In one, labelled "_Mag. Sol.
Morph.,_" he seemed to find what he sought.
"Mr. Trubie," said he, turning round, with the open phial in his hand,
"did your friend ever say anything to you, that indicated a disposition
to suicide?"
The question roused the young man from his stupor, although it was a
moment or two ere he seemed to comprehend its purport fully. "Never,
sir!" he exclaimed, indignantly, a hot flush rising to his brow,--"Alec
Arling would have scorned to do such a thing! He was neither a fool
nor a coward, sir! Besides, there was no earthly reason why he should
do it."
The professor shook his head. "He seems to have done it,
nevertheless," said he, thoughtfully. "To be sure," he added, after a
moment, "it is barely possible that he took it by mistake."
"Most likely, that is the real state of the case," remarked Roath, who
was standing on the other side of the table, calmly and gravely
observant of the scene.
In temperaments like Trubie's, the transition from grief to anger is
often curiously direct; the one is the natural outlet of the other; and
in this instance, the sound of Roath's voice seemed to afford the
bereaved and horrified young man the object of indignation that he so
sorely needed. Springing quickly forward, and clenching his fist, he
confronted the speaker with a convulsive rage and excitement in strong
contrast with Roath's grave composure.
"You know better!" he shouted. "It was neither a suicide nor a
mistake. You killed him!"
Roath gave a violent start, and seemed about to speak, but his lips
only trembled nervously. He was evidently confounded, almost
bewildered, by the suddenness and fierceness of the accusation.
Trubie went on with scarce a moment's pause, and with, still hotter
indignation, "You were last in his room--you acknowledge it. And you
hated him."
Roath had regained his self-command,--which, to do him justice, he had
but for an instant lost. "If you were not beside yourself with grief,"
said he, coldly, "there could be but one answer to such a charge as
that. As it is--"
"'As it is,' I repeat it," interrupted Trubie, with bitter scorn. "I
repeat it, and am ready to maintain it, always--anywhere--anyhow!"
Roath drew himself up. "I, too, am ready,"--he began, haughtily, but
the professor interposed. "Mr. Roath," said he, with dignity, "I
command you to be silent. Mr. Trubie,"--laying his hand on the
shoulder of the agitated young man, and speaking in a tone of grave
rebuke,--"much may be forgiven to the first excitement of sorrow and
horror, but this is going too far. Such an accusation is not to be
made lightly."
"Lightly!" repeated the frantic Trubie;--"he hated Alec, I tell you!
He couldn't forgive him for rivalling him--aye, and beating him,
too--everywhere; in scholarship, in popularity, in"--he hesitated for
an instant,--"in love."
Roath's face grew dark; a frown traced a deep, vertical line between
his brows; he set his teeth, and made a quick stride forward. But a
dozen hands seized him, a dozen others laid hold of Trubie, and both
were half forced, half led away to their rooms; while the faculty of
the college, hastily called together, gathered around the corpse, to
examine more minutely into the cause of death.
A coroner's jury was duly summoned. It examined the body, weighed the
evidence, and being about equally divided in regard to the question of
suicide, finally agreed upon "Accidental Death by Poison," as, upon the
whole, the safer and less objectionable verdict. There seemed to be no
good reason to suspect murder, nor any ground whatever for implicating
Roath, or anybody else, as a perpetrator thereof.
Trubie, to be sure, persisted in his accusation; but it was with a
vehemence and a dogmatism so unlike his wonted careless good nature, as
to suggest the idea that his mind had been temporarily thrown off its
balance by the shock of his friend's death. This idea gained color
from the fact that all which he could offer, in support of so grave a
charge, was the statement that he had long seen or suspected, in Roath
a secret hatred of Arling, and a willingness to do him covert mischief.
He had even mentioned the suspicion to his friend; but Arling--being of
the most candid and generous, as well as unsuspecting temper, unable to
conceive of any but an open, honorable enemy--had refused to entertain
it for a moment. Trubie also solemnly affirmed that his passionate
accusation of Roath, by the side of the newly-discovered corpse, was
the involuntary result of an intuition so sudden, so clear, and so
powerful, that, though little given to look for supernatural agencies
in human affairs, he could not rid himself of the conviction that it
was the direct inspiration of his dead friend. But it may readily be
imagined how much weight a statement of this sort was likely to have
with men of plain minds and sturdy understanding, searching among the
external phenomena of the event for grounds upon which to base a
reasonable verdict.
On the other hand, the theory of accidental poisoning was supported,
negatively, by the lack of apparent cause for self-destruction; and
positively, by the fact that on the dead man's table, side by side with
the potent narcotic before mentioned, stood a phial of exactly the same
size, and with equally colorless contents. Of this Arling had been
accustomed to take two or three spoonfuls, mixed with a few drops of a
third preparation of exceeding bitter flavor. A careless hand might
have mistaken the one phial for the other. The taste of the morphine,
so swallowed, would be much disguised; while the dose was sufficient,
under the circumstances, to produce death. It will be seen, therefore,
that the verdict rendered was the only one upon which a coroner's jury
could well have been expected to agree.
The body was next solemnly laid in a vault, to await the disposal of
the parents, who lived in a western state; and the widening circles of
excitement, horror, curiosity, and regret, of which it had been the
unconscious centre, rapidly subsided, or were effaced by the growing
interests of the now imminent closing examination.
Even Trubie, though he flatly refused to acquiesce in the coroner's
verdict, was forced tacitly to accept its results. He took refuge in a
complete personal proscription of Roath; he neither spoke to him nor
looked at him; he treated him precisely as if he did not exist. To a
person of Roath's cold, hard, steely temper, and obtuse sensibilities,
this demeanor was, perhaps, the most tolerable of which the
circumstances admitted. It spared him the necessity of being either
conciliatory or resentful; he was well content to ignore Trubie as
completely as Trubie ignored him.
He soon found, however, that he had greatly underestimated the moral
force of an abhorrence deeply rooted in immitigable distrust. Though
largely given to psychological studies, and profoundly learned, for his
years, in the intricacies and tendencies of the human mind, he was
astonished to find how soon the atmosphere grew heavy around him, how
quickly Trubie's dogged dislike communicated itself, more or less
strongly, to others; while the increased cordiality of a few, though
kindly intended to offset it, only served to point him out more clearly
as one set apart, for the time, from life's ordinary course and level,
by the force of an unenviable, if undeserved, notoriety. Not that he
ever appeared to be conscious of either of these manifestations, or of
their ultimate effect. Nature had given him a moral and intellectual
fibre so tough, and he had trained himself to a control so perfect,
that the keenest observer could not detect the least variation from his
usual composed, concentrated, somewhat moody demeanor. Whatever of
suffering, or of sin, lay at the bottom of his heart, not a shadow
thereof was seen in his face.
It might well be, however, that he was glad when the examination was
over, his degree obtained, and himself left free to depart by any one
of the many paths which life opened before him.
Yet he was in no suspicious haste to be gone. His departure was fixed
for an early hour on the following morning. Meanwhile, at dusk, he
went out for his habitual solitary stroll. Never had he invited
companionship, and was it thrust upon him. He had no intimate friend.
Though he had been not only admired, but respected, by many, for his
intellectual gifts, and for a certain firm, even texture of character,
and dispassionateness of judgment, that often looked like virtue,
whether such in reality or not, he was beloved by none.
Where he went, what he thought, is not to the purpose of our narrative.
His walk was long, however; he did not return until dusk had deepened
into clear and starry, but moonless night. As he came up through the
great, dim elm-arches, with their solemn resemblance to a vast
cathedral nave, a strange tremor seized him. A complete sceptic in
regard to all superstitions and forebodings, he yet felt his nerves
shaking with an undefined fear; he could not rid himself of the
impression that something unprecedented and sinister was at that moment
taking place. Reaching the college, he ascended the steps with a
strange mixture of eagerness and reluctance; and immediately became
aware of a subdued but excited murmur of voices in the upper hall. At
the same moment, Mark Tracey came rushing down the stairs, carpet-bag
in hand.
"What's up?" asked Roath, in a voice that trembled in spite of himself.
"I don't rightly know," responded Tracey, hurriedly,--"I am so late for
the train, that I couldn't stop to hear. Something about a diamond
that Trubie has found in Arling's glass--the one from which the poor
fellow drank his death-draught, I believe. Good-by!" And away he went.
Had he waited but for an instant, he would have been startled and
spellbound by the deadly whiteness of Roath's face. Through all the
glimmering indistinctness of the dimly-lighted hall, his features were
clearly discernible, by reason of that marble pallor. For the moment,
he seemed to lose sense and consciousness; he would have fallen, except
for the friendly support of the wall against which he leaned.
But it was only for a moment. The man's hard energy of character, his
iron will, his rigid self-control, though they had gone down before the
suddenness and severity of the shock, quickly rose again. With a
mighty effort, he rallied his broken forces; back into his face came
the look of purpose, the sense of power, the sternness of immitigable
resolve; and this with so rapid and almost imperceptible a change, that
it seemed as if the granite man must have stood there from the first,
and the weak man not at all. While Tracey's receding footsteps still
echoed faintly from without, going swiftly in the direction of the
city's principal thoroughfare,--while the murmur of voices from above
was still at its eager, wondering height,--he had turned, noiselessly
descended the steps, and was gliding down through the sombre
elm-arches, swift and stealthy as a phantom. The street was shadowy at
best, but he chose the darker side; it was wellnigh deserted, at that
hour, but he soon turned into a still less frequented one, and then
struck into a more assured and less noiseless, as well as swifter, pace.
As he went, he drew a ring from his finger, and glancing hastily round,
to make sure that he was unobserved, he flung it far into the dusky
shadow of a garden thicket. Only the day before, a friend had said to
him,--"Roath, do you know that the stone is gone from your ring?" and
he had answered,--"Yes; and I am sorry to have lost it, for it was my
father's." And he had proceeded to point out the antique setting, and
to describe the peculiar shape and tint of the gem which it had
inclosed. He gnashed his teeth as he recalled the short, but momentous
conversation. But for that, he would not have fled.
The garden into which he had flung the ring adjoined a small cottage;
and, at one of the open windows, a gray-haired dame sat in a
high-backed chair, listening to the clear, musical voice of an
invisible reader. This fragment of a sentence floated out to him on
the dim night air,--"_He shall be holden with the cords of--_"
Even at that moment, the words struck him sharply. Involuntarily he
slackened his pace, and half-turned to catch the remainder of the
sentence, but it was inaudible. The uncertainty before him, the terror
behind, were, for the time, almost forgotten in a certain chill
curiosity. "Holden with the cords--holden with the cords," he repeated
to himself, as he hurried on,--"I wonder what book she was reading! I
should really like to hear the end of that sentence!"
Still keeping up his swift pace and vigilant glance, he nevertheless
sank into a partial abstraction. Some disconnected sentences, breaking
at intervals from his lips, served to show the current of his thoughts.
"Set it down, once for all," he muttered, "that crime--absolute crime,
of which the law can take hold--is a mistake.--Into the best-laid
scheme, the one most carefully framed and skilfully executed,
Chance--many would say, Providence (_can_ there be a Providence after
all?)--drops some trivial, fortuitous circumstance, which disconcerts
or betrays everything.--The question is, could it have been
foreseen?--I have worn that ring for sixteen years.--No! no! it is too
subtile and too intricate a matter to think about now. I have more
pressing subjects of reflection.--Only, set it down, for future use,
that the essential thing is to keep clear of crime."
"_Holden with the cords!_" echoed suddenly and pertinaciously through
his memory, as if by way of defiant answer to the conclusion that he
had reached. He set his teeth, and dashed more swiftly onward.
Ere long, he reached the railway depot. In a large, underground space,
half-filled with smoke and steam, a train stood on the track, the
engine fretting and snorting like a steed impatient to be off, and the
bell ringing out a hasty summons, curiously typifying the sharp call to
leap on to some favorable train of circumstances, and be borne away to
fortune or to ruin, which life often gives us, at certain fateful
moments of its rapid career. Roath sprang to the rear platform, and,
on the instant, the train moved.
Swiftly it left the depot behind: decayed fences, rickety outhouses,
heaps of rubbish and offal, quickly receded into a dingy perspective of
backside city life; scattered coal-yards, and freight and
engine-houses, succeeded; and then, the cool, moist air coming in at
the windows, and a swift-gliding panorama of what looked like a
terrestrial sky and stars, told him that he was being borne rapidly
along the causeway that traversed the broad bay,--in the tranquil
waters of which the fair night-heavens were faithfully mirrored.
Hastily running his eye over his fifty or sixty fellow-passengers, and
finding no familiar face, he settled himself back in his seat with a
long-drawn breath of relief. He remembered that he was on an express
train, with twenty miles between him and the next station; he could
count upon a safe half hour, at least, for the working out of the
difficult problem before him. To that problem he at once addressed
himself, with the whole force of his intellect and will;--though ever
and anon, that perplexing fragment of a sentence would float
distractingly through his mind, saying itself over and over to the
accompaniment of the sharp click of the rails,--"Holden with the
cords--Holden with the cords!"
From that night, for many years, Edmund Roath disappeared as completely
from the sight and search of all who had known him, as if the train
wherein he sat had suddenly flung itself headlong from that narrow
causeway, and those deep, silent, star-mirroring waters, closing above
him, had steadfastly refused to give up their dead. In brief space of
time, his very name, as well as the circumstances that had made it
notorious, was forgotten by those who had been most diligent in passing
it from mouth to mouth. Seldom was it recalled even by the few who had
known him best, and had yielded the heartiest admiration to his rare
intellectual gifts. Having never taken any real hold of any human
heart, it was but natural that he should pass behind the first
intervening cloud, and leave no vacancy.
Did he thereby escape the worst consequences of his sin?
PART FIRST.
A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.
I.
"PROVERBS, AND THE INTERPRETATION."
The road was straight, level, and monotonous. It seemed to stretch on
for miles, walled in, on either hand, by the rank and profuse foliage
of the South. Great cotton woods and water-oaks, walnuts, cypresses,
larches, and junipers, stood side by side, with their brawny arms
interlaced, and their trunks hidden in a dense and varied undergrowth;
while jessamines and wild grapevines climbed up to meet the sunshine at
their tops, and pendent moss hung their boughs with swaying drapery of
gray-green leaves and filaments.
What lay beyond these walls of verdure was only to be guessed at from
occasional and indistinct glimpses. Here, a transient view of corn or
vegetable rows, and a sound of voices, gave token of the vicinity of a
small plantation or market garden. There, a scarcity of deciduous
trees and a predominance of evergreens, a more lush and succulent
character of undergrowth, and a dark gleam of stagnant water, betrayed
the proximity of an extensive morass. Frequently, the eye lost itself
in the complicated vistas of thick pine-barrens, stretching far away to
right and left. And, ever and anon, a sudden break in the long line of
verdure, and the sight of a diverging wheel-track, quickly lost amid
overhanging boughs, served to show in what direction some large rice or
cotton estate lay hidden in the circumjacent forest.
It scarcely needs to be added that the road was pleasantly cool and
shadowy in the late September afternoon. Even at midday, its track
would present but few and scant patches of sunshine, alternating with
dense masses of shadow or spots of flickering light and shade. Now,
therefore, with the sun hanging red and low in the western horizon,
scarce a fitful orange gleam fell athwart the path of the only
traveller in sight,--a young man, of thoughtful face and stalwart
figure, striding on at a firm, even pace, with a portmanteau strapped
across his shoulder. Both the face and the portmanteau seemed to
indicate that his walk was not for pleasure merely, but tended to some
definite, anticipated goal; while the keen, observant glance with which
he noted, not only every object of interest along his route, but the
character of the soil beneath and the foliage overhead, showed that his
road was as unfamiliar as it had been, for the most part, solitary.
Since he left the outskirts of the city of Savalla behind, more than
two hours ago, he had seen but three human faces. First, an old negro
woman, wrinkled and white-haired, had ducked her decrepit form to him
in what would have been, but for the stiffness of her joints, a most
deferential courtesy. Later on, a teamster, of the same dependent and
obsequious race, had doffed to him the ragged remnant of a palm-leaf
hat, and uttered a civil, "Good ebenin', Massa." Lastly, a lank,
listless, unkempt, sallow-skinned personage, in a white covered wagon,
snapping a long-lashed whip at a nondescript team, and belonging to the
curious class known as "crackers," had suddenly nodded to him, after a
prolonged, and, at first, contemptuous stare, as if finally convinced
of his claim to the civility.
For some time past, the road had led through a monotonous pine barren,
and the traveller had fallen into a fit of thought. Raising his eyes,
at last, from the path on which they had been fixed in abstraction, he
saw that the long vista before him was once more enlivened by a moving
object. His keen, far sight, trained in western wilds, easily made it
out to be a half-obsolete kind of chaise, moving in the same direction
as himself, but moving so slowly that he gained on it at every step.
In a few moments, he was close behind it, quietly observing its
superannuated style and condition, as well as the skinny little horse
that furnished its motive power. Hearing the sound of his quick, firm
tread, its occupant lifted his eyes from the tattered volume over which
he was poring, and turned to look at him.
He himself, in a very different way, was well worthy of observation.
He was small and spare, probably not more than sixty years of age, but
looking much older. He had that parched and wizened look, oftenest the
work of circumstances rather than years, which makes it difficult to
realize that the possessor was ever young. His hair and complexion had
once been light; the one was now gray, the other sallow, except for a
faint suggestion of red at the tip of an otherwise handsome nose. His
breath exhaled a perceptible odor of strong drink, surrounding him as
with an atmosphere of inflammable gas. His dress was made up of divers
ill-fitting garments that had doubtless accrued to him from cast-off
wardrobes; not one of them bearing any relation to the other, but all
being in an advanced stage of seediness well suited to the wearer.
Something of the same fusing of special incongruities into general
fitness also characterized his manner; wherein the mean and furtive air
of the shiftless old vagabond was curiously blended with the pathetic
dignity of the decayed gentleman.
He eyed the young foot traveller narrowly for a moment, though with a
sidelong rather than a straightforward glance; then, bringing his
willing horse to a stand by a jerk of the reins, and a sonorous "Whoa!"
he lifted his hat and gravely accosted him:--
"_Manus manum lavat_. Men were meant to help each other. Have a ride,
sir?"
The stranger hesitated, perhaps trying to reconcile the address and the
speaker, perhaps with a natural enough doubt as to the character of the
companionship thus offered. "Thank you," said he, at last, "but I
doubt if it be worth while."
"'Good and Quickly seldom meet,'" responded the other, sententiously.
"Besides," he added, seeing that the traveller was puzzled to
understand the drift of his saw, "Pegasus--I call him Pegasus because
he's _not_ winged--is 'like a singed cat, better than he looks.'
Moreover, _Compagnon bien parlant vaut en chemin chariot branlant_.
Which may be freely translated, 'Good company shortens the road as much
as a swift horse.'"
"Oh! I meant no disrespect to your equipage, I assure you," returned
the young man, smiling. "Only, I supposed that I must be near my
journey's end. Is it far to Berganton?"
"That depends. 'The last straw breaks the camel's back.' It is three
miles, more or less. But I should have said, from your face, that you
would want to stop this side of that."
"Do I look so tired? Indeed I am not."
"Um--no, I should say not. But faces show something besides
weariness,--'like father, like son,' you know. If your looks are to be
trusted, there's an old mansion about a quarter of a mile farther on,
whose door ought to open to you of its own accord--if it can open at
all."
The young man smiled and shook his head. "I am sorry that my looks
should belie me," said he, "but I have no claim upon the said mansion's
hospitality."
"Umph! 'tis a wise child that knows its own father. Tush, tush, man!"
he added, hastily, seeing the young man's cheek flush, "I meant no
harm; proverbs run from my tongue like water from a Dutch roof.
Besides, _Nao ha palavra maldita se naõ fora mal entendida_,--that is
to say, 'No word is ill-spoken which is not ill-taken.' But come!
come! jump in! I'll carry you to Berganton, since that's your goal,
and welcome. The night is drawing on apace; you'll be glad of my
pilotage before we get there."
The young man glanced down the darkening road, from which the last ray
of sunlight had vanished, and seemed still to hesitate; but finally
sprang lightly into the chaise, and the horse jogged on.
"Proverbs," continued the old man, treating his three last sentences as
mere parentheses, "have been the study of my life. I know Lord
Chesterfield bans them as vulgar, but is he wiser than Solomon? or
better authority than Cicero and Scaliger and Erasmus and Bacon and
Bentley? Bah! the whole gist of his writings might be compressed into
two or three of the maxims that he affects to despise.
'Fair-and-Softly goes far in a day,' will live when his 'Letters' are
forgotten. And a good reason why. Proverbs are the royal road to
wisdom. They're the crystallized experience of the ages. They
epitomize the minds and manners of the people that brought them forth.
Who but a 'smooth, fause' Lowland Scot, for instance, would have said
'Rot him awa' wi' butter an' eggs?' Who but a marauding Hielander
would have declared, 'It's a bare moor that ane goes o'er and gets na a
coo?' Who but poor priest-ridden, king-ridden Spain would have said,
_Fraile que pide par Dios, pide por dos_, 'The friar that begs for God,
begs for two;' _Quien la vaca del rey come flaca, gorda la paga_, 'He
who eats the king's cow lean, pays for it fat;'--but I ought to beg
your pardon, perhaps you know Spanish?"
"Not very well," good-naturedly replied the young man, taking pity on
his companion's inveterate habit of translation, and the delight which
it plainly afforded him.
"Well enough, I suppose, to know that it's a mine of wealth to the
proverb-hunter," rejoined the old man graciously. "Here, now, is a
good one, of a different character,--_Adonde vas, mal? Adonde mas
hay_, 'Whither goest thou, misfortune? To where there is more?' And
here is a pertinent question for people who live well without visible
resources,--_Los que cabras no tienen, y cabritos venden, de donde les
vienen?_ 'They who keep no goats, and yet sell kids, where do they get
them?' But, after all, for right sharp and serviceable proverbs,
commend me to the Danish. Here is an old collection that I've lately
picked up, printed at Copenhagen, in 1761;---just let me read you two
or three."
He opened the dingy volume aforementioned, and proceeded to read,
translate, and comment, with infinite zest. "_Ingen kommer i Skaden,
uden han selv hielper til_, 'No man gets into trouble without his own
help'--(a moral which no one can point better than your humble
servant); _Naar det regner Voelling, saa har Stodderen ingen Skee_,
'When it rains porridge, the beggar has no spoon'--(there's no
contenting discontented people); _Ingen Ko kaldes broget uden hun haver
en Flek_, 'A cow is not called dappled unless she has a spot'--(most
gossip has some small foundation); _Hvo som vil gjöre et stort Spring,
skal gaae vel tilbage_, 'He that would leap high must take a long
run'--(else we should have bishops and judges without gray hairs); _Det
kommer igien, sagde Manden, han gav sin So Floesk_, 'It will come back
again, said the man, when he gave his sow pork:'--don't you see how the
patient, shrewd, humorous character of the Danes peeps through them all?
"Yet, if some proverbs are national, others are cosmopolitan, and fit
all generations, and all countries. For instance, there's the Greek
saw, Archè êmisu pantós,--see how it comes down through every language
under the sun, till, at last, it settles into terse English rhyme,
'Well begun
Is half done.'
Or, take that common saying, 'To carry coals to Newcastle,' which seems
to have originated in the East. At least, we find it first in the
Persian of Saadi, 'To carry pepper to Hindostan;' then the Hebrews have
it, 'To carry oil to the City of Olives;' the Greeks, 'owls to Athens;'
the Latins, 'wood to the forest;' the French, 'water to the river;' the
Dutch, 'firs to Norway;' the Danish--Hallo! Pegasus! what are you
about?"
The horse, being left to his own guidance while his master was riding
his favorite hobby, had taken occasion to shoot off from the main road
into an apparently little-used track, cut through a thick pine-barren
at the left. He had made several lengths before his driver, taken at a
disadvantage, could pull him up.
"Pegasus is of the opinion that 'the longest way round is the surest
way home,'" remarked the old man, apologetically, as he scanned the
narrow, tree-lined track, with a view to the possibility of turning
safely around. "Or," he added, with a glance of sly humor at the
traveller, "perhaps he thinks, as I did just now, that Bergan Hall is
your natural destination."
"Bergan Hall," repeated the young man, in a tone of extreme
surprise,--"is this the way to Bergan Hall? I thought you came to the
village first, from Savalla."
"So you did, once," rejoined the old man, looking surprised, in his
turn; "but that must have been before you were born, if your face
doesn't belie your age. The road used to make a long elbow, to get
round that swamp which you crossed a mile back. But it was
straightened thirty years ago at least,--_Autre temps, autre
chemin_,--a different time, a different road. And so you are going to
Bergan Hall? Well, thanks to luck and Pegasus, you're in the right
way."
"But I must not take you out of yours," responded the young man,
good-naturedly. And he had jumped out of the chaise before its owner
was well aware of his intention.
"_Canis festinans coecos parit catulos_," muttered the old man, in a
tone of chagrin. "In other words, 'Look before you leap.' I'd as soon
have gone this way as the other. My place lies between the Hall and
the village, and the choice of roads isn't worth shucks,--at least, in
comparison with a pleasant chat. However, you're out, and I suppose
it's no use to ask you to get in again, since the Hall is but a few
rods away. Keep straight ahead till you come to the old avenue, then
turn to the left. Good day, _il n'y a si bons compagnons qui ne se
separent_,--the best friends must part."
"Yes--to meet again," said the young man, pleasantly.
"Very true; _les beaux esprits se rencontrent_," returned the old man,
slowly and cautiously backing his crazy vehicle around. And with
another "Good day," and a parting gesture, he quickly disappeared among
the fast-falling shadows.
The young man stood looking after him for a moment, with a smile half
of amusement, half, of pity, upon his lips. But his features soon
settled into something more than their accustomed gravity, and suddenly
facing about, he pursued his way.