THE VICTIM
Some poet has described love as a little glow and a little shiver; to
Sandy it was more like a ravaging fire in his heart, which lighted up
a world of such unutterable bliss that he cheerfully added fresh fuel
to the flames that were consuming him. The one absorbing necessity of
his existence was to see Ruth daily, and the amount of strategy,
forethought, and subtilty with which he accomplished it argued well
for his future ability at the bar.
In the long hours of the night Wisdom urged prudence; she presented
all the facts in the case, and convinced him of his folly. But with
the dawn he threw discretion to the winds, and rushed valiantly
forward, leading a forlorn hope under cover of a little Platonic flag
of truce.
With all the fervor and intensity of his nature he tried to fit
himself to Ruth's standards. Every unconscious suggestion that she let
fall, through word, or gesture, or expression, he took to heart and
profited by. With almost passionate earnestness he sought to be worthy
of her. Fighting, climbing, struggling upward, he closed his eyes to
the awful depth to which he would fall if his quest were vain.
Meanwhile his cheeks became hollow and he lost his appetite. The judge
attributed it to Martha Meech's death; for Sandy's genuine grief and
his continued kindness to the bereft neighbors confirmed an old
suspicion. Mrs. Hollis thought it was malaria, and dosed him
accordingly. It was Aunt Melvy who made note of his symptoms and
diagnosed his case correctly.
"He's sparkin' some gal, Miss Sue; dat's what ails him," she said one
evening as she knelt on the sitting-room hearth to kindle the first
fire of the season. "Dey ain't but two t'ings onder heaben dat'll keep
a man f'om eatin'. One's a woman, t' other is lack ob food."
Judge Hollis looked over his glasses and smiled.
"Who do you think the lady is, Melvy?"
Aunt Melvy wagged her head knowingly as she held a paper across the
fireplace to start the blaze.
"I ain't gwine tell no tales on Mist' Sandy. But yer can't fool dis
heah ole nigger. I mind de signs; I knows mo' 'bout de young folks in
dis heah town den dey t'ink I do. Fust t'ing you know, I'm gwine tell
on some ob 'em, too. I 'spect de doctor would put' near die ef he
knowed dat Miss Annette was a-havin' incandescent meetin's wif Carter
Nelson 'most ever' day."
"Is Sandy after Annette, too?"
"No, sonny, no!" said Aunt Melvy, to whom all men were "sonny" until
they died of old age. "Mist' Sandy he's aimin' at high game. He's
fix' his eyeball on de shore-'nough quality."
"Do you mean Ruth Nelson?" asked Mrs. Hollis, snapping her scissors
sharply. "He surely wouldn't be fool enough to think she would look at
him. Why, the Nelsons think they are the only aristocratic people that
ever lived in Clayton. If they had paid less attention to their
ancestors and more to their descendants, they might have had a better
showing."
"I nebber said it was Miss Rufe," said Aunt Melvy from the doorway;
"but den ag'in I don't say hit ain't."
"Well, I hope it's not," said the judge to his wife as he laid down
his paper; "though I must say she is as pretty and friendly a girl as
I ever saw. No matter how long she stays away, she is always glad to
see everybody when she comes back. Some of old Evan's geniality must
have come down to her."
"Geniality!" cried Mrs. Hollis. "It was mint-juleps and brandy and
soda. He was just as snobbish as the rest of them when he was sober.
If she has any good in her, it's from her mother's side of the house."
"I hope Sandy isn't interested there," went on the judge,
thoughtfully. "It would not do him any good, and would spoil his taste
for what he could get. How long has it been going on, Sue?"
"He's been acting foolish for a month, but it gets worse all the time.
He moons around the house, with his head in the clouds, and sits up
half the night hanging out of his window. He has raked out all those
silly old poetry-books of yours, and I find them strewn all over the
house. Here's one now; look at those pencil-marks all round the
margin!"
"Some of the marks were there before," said the judge, as he read the
title.
"Then there are more fools than one in the world. Here is where he has
turned down a leaf. Now just read that bosh and nonsense!"
The judge took the book from her hand and read with a reminiscent
smile:
"When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,
Weep o'er them in silence and close it again.
And, oh! if 't is pain to remember how far
From the pathway of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home."
The judge paused, with his eyes on the fire; then he said: "I think
I'll wait up for the boy to-night, Sue. I want to tell him the good
news myself. You haven't spoken of it?"
"No, indeed. I haven't seen him since breakfast. Melvy says he spends
his spare time on the river. That's what's giving him the malaria,
too, you mark my words."
It was after eleven when Sandy's step sounded on the porch. At the
judge's call he opened the sitting-room door and stood dazed by the
sudden light. The judge noticed that he was pale and dejected, and he
suppressed a smile over the imaginary troubles of youth.
"What's the matter? Are you sick?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"Come in to the fire; it's a bit chilly these nights."
Sandy dropped listlessly into a chair, with his back to the light.
"There are several things I want to talk over," continued the judge.
"One is about Ricks Wilson. He has behaved very badly ever since that
affair in August. Everybody who goes near the jail comes away with
reports of his threats against me. He seems to think I am holding his
trial over until January, when the fact is I have been trying to get
him released on your account. It is of no use, though; he will have to
wait his turn."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Sandy, without looking up.
"Then there's Carter Nelson encouraging him in his feeling against
me. It seems that Nelson wants the fellow to drive for him at the fall
trots, and he has given me no end of trouble about getting him off.
What an insolent fellow Nelson is! He talked very ugly in my office
yesterday, and made various threats about making me regret any
interference. I wouldn't have stood it from any one else; but Carter
is hardly responsible. I have watched him from the time he was born.
He came into the world with a mortal illness, and I doubt if he ever
had a well day in his life. He's a degenerate, Sandy; he's bearing the
sins of a long line of dissolute ancestors. We have to be patient with
men like that; we have to look on them as we do on the insane."
He waited for some response, but, getting none, pulled his chair in
confidential proximity and laid his hand on Sandy's knee. "However,
that's neither here nor there," he said. "I have a surprise for you. I
couldn't let you go to bed without telling you about it. It's about
your future, Sandy. I've been talking it over with Mr. Moseley, and he
is confident--"
Suddenly Sandy rose and stood by the table.
"Don't be making any more plans for me," he said desperately; "I've
made up me mind to enlist."
"Enlist! In the army?"
"Yes; I've got to get away. I must go so far that I can't come back;
and, judge--I want to go to-morrow!"
"Is it money matters?"
A long silence followed--of the kind that ripens confidence. Presently
Sandy lifted his haggard eyes: "It's nothing I'm ashamed of, judge; ye
must take me word for that. It's like taking the heart out of me body
to go, but I've made up me mind. Nothing on earth can change me
purpose; I enlist on the morrow."
The judge looked at him long and earnestly over his glasses, then he
asked in calm, judicial tones: "Is her answer final?"
Sandy started from his chair. How finite intelligence could have
discovered the innermost secret of his soul seemed little short of
miraculous. But the relief of being able to pour out his feelings
mastered all other considerations.
"Oh, sir, there was never a question. Like the angel she is, she let
me be near her so long as I held my peace; but, fool that I am, I
break me promise again and again. I can't keep silent when I see her.
The truth would burst from me lips if I was dumb."
"And you think you would be better if you were out of her sight?"
"Is a starving man better when he is away from food?" asked Sandy,
fiercely. "Heaven knows it's not of meself I'm thinking. It's breaking
her tender heart to see me misery staring her in the face, and I'll
put it out of her sight."
"Is it Ruth?" asked the judge.
Sandy assented with bowed head.
The judge got up and stood before the fire.
"Didn't you know," he began as kindly as he could put it, "that you
were not in her--that is, that she was not of your--"
Sandy lifted blazing eyes, hot with the passion of youth.
"If she'd been in heaven and I'd been in hell, I'd have stretched out
my arms to her still!"
Something in his eyes, in his voice, in his intensity, brought the
judge to his side.
"How long has this thing been going on?" he asked seriously.
"Four years!"
"Before you came here?"
"Yes."
"You followed her here?"
"Yes."
Whereupon the judge gave vent to the one profane word in his
vocabulary.
Then Sandy, having confided so far, made a clean breast of it,
breaking down at the end when he tried to describe Ruth's goodness
and the sorrow his misery had caused her.
When it was over the judge had hold of his hand and was bestowing
large, indiscriminate pats upon his head and shoulders.
"It's hard luck, Sandy; hard luck. But you must brace up, boy.
Everybody wants something in the world he can't get. We all go under,
sooner or later, with some wish ungratified. Now I've always wanted--"
he pressed his fingers on his lips for a moment, then went on--"the
one thing I've wanted was a son. It seemed to me there was nothing
else in the world would make up to me for that lack. I had money more
than enough, and health and friends; but I wanted a boy. When you came
I said to Sue: 'Let's keep him a while just to see how it would feel.'
It's been worth while, Sandy; you have done me credit. It almost
seemed as if the Lord didn't mean me to be disappointed, after all.
And to-day, when Mr. Moseley said you ought to have a year or two at
the big university, I said: 'Why not? He's just like my own. I'll send
him this year and next, and then he can come home and be a comfort to
me all the rest of my days.' That's what I was sitting up to tell you,
Sandy; but now--"
"And ye sha'n't be disappointed!" cried Sandy. "I'll go anywhere you
say, do anything you wish. Only you wouldn't be asking me to stay
here?"
"Not now, Sandy; not for a while."
"Never!--so long as she's here. I'll never bring me sorrow between her
and the sun again-so help me, Heaven! And if the Lord gives me
strength, I'll never see her face again, so long as I live!"
"Go to bed, boy; go to bed. You are tired out. We will ship you off to
the university next week."
"Can't I be going to-morrow? Friday, then? I'd never dare trust meself
over the week."
"Friday, then. But mind, no more prancing to-night; we must both go to
bed."
Neither of them did so, however. Sandy went to his room and sat in
his window, watching a tiny light that flickered, far across the
valley, in the last bend of the river before it left the town. His
muscles were tense, his nerves a-tingle, as he strained his eyes in
the darkness to keep watch of the beacon. It was the last glimpse of
home to a sailor who expected never to return.
Down in the sitting-room the judge was lost in the pages of a worn old
copy of Tom Moore. He fingered the pages with a tenderness of other
days, and lingered over the forgotten lines with a half-quizzical,
half-sad smile on his lips. For he had been a lover once, and Sandy's
romance stirred dead leaves in his heart that sent up a faint perfume
of memory.
"Yes," he mused half aloud; "I marked that one too:
"Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home."