Gwinnan, upon recovering consciousness, showed no retrospective interest
in the scene at the depot. He remarked imperatively to the physician whom
he found in attendance that it was necessary for him to leave during
the afternoon,—in fact, as soon as possible,—to hold court in a distant
county. He added, for the instruction of the doctor, that the clerk could
open court, and had no doubt done so on Monday and Tuesday, and would
be obliged to repeat this on Wednesday, without the presence of the
presiding judge, but Thursday was the last day for which the statute had
provided the alternative. He evidently expected that if the physician had
any flimsy objections he would withdraw them before this grave necessity,
understanding that this was no time for the indulgence of professional
whimseys.
There was something so arrogantly disregardful of any other claims upon
his attention, so belittling of merely corporeal considerations, that the
physician would have been a little less than medical had he been able
to repress a certain sense of domination as he answered, “Well, that
happened more than two weeks ago, judge, and I reckon court was adjourned
over to the next term.”
Gwinnan became aware with a sort of amaze that the hands he lifted did
not seem his own; that his head was light and giddy, or dully aching;
that he was fretful and helpless; that no manner of respect was paid to
his views. He was hardly pleased by the exchange of identity with this
ill-adjusted, listless, forlorn being; the less when he finally grew able
to stand upon his feet again, and was informed that for the next month
or so he must do nothing but seek to interest and entertain the invalid,
to see that he forbore to dwell on business, to seek to occupy his
attention with passing events, to divert him with trifles.
It might have seemed even to others an arduous task to amuse with
incidents a man whose every waking moment was occupied by principles.
So completely had his rarefied, judicial ambition, his pride of office,
his solicitous reverence of its dignity, attenuated his personality that
he cared little for Gwinnan as a man; he respected him as a judge. He
had held himself sedulously to his aspirations; as it were on his knees,
he had served his vocation day and night. It was to him as essential an
organic constituent of his being as the lungs; he could ill live without
it, even for a time. Perhaps he might not have made the effort had
not the physician warned him that he might never be fit for business,
never again sit upon the bench, should he overexert himself now, before
recovering from the effect of those terrible blows upon the skull. He
became suddenly tractable, wistful, and turned mournfully to the search
of light entertainment. He assented with a dreary docility to the
prescription of a change of air and scene. He accepted without demur,
with a dull sense of endurance, the plan briskly devised for him to spend
a week or two in Nashville, and if he did not recuperate rapidly, to go
thence South for the winter. He was not given to scanning his own mental
poses and adjusting them to some theory of symmetry; he could but feel,
however, as if he were already dead, stalking among scenes in which he
had no interest, half-heartedly mingling with men whose every instinct
was as far removed from the spirit that swayed him as if some essential
condition of existence divided them. It was with a truly post-mortem
indifference that he listened to the talk of his friends who sought him
out during his stay in Nashville,—very interesting talk, doubtless, but
purposeless, inefficacious; they cited neither case nor section. He
preferred to sit alone and idle before the blazing coal fire in his own
room,—expressionless with the stereotyped hotel furniture; now and then
he roused himself, with a conscientious start, when he found his mind
revolving like a moth around some _scintilla juris_ which had a special
attraction for him.
He had experienced a sense of reluctant relinquishment to find how the
weeks had fled during his illness. Winter had advanced; the Cumberland
River was full of floating ice; the town had the shrunken, deserted,
torpid aspect common to every southern city when the snow is on the
ground. No one was abroad without absolute necessity except the English
sparrow, prosperous exile. In the hope of varying the tedium, one
evening, Gwinnan sat down in one of the arm-chairs drawn close to the
balustrade of the corridor overlooking the rotunda. It was a coigne of
vantage from which all the life of the hotel was visible. Below, at the
desk, the in-coming travelers were registering their names; the click of
billiards was a cheerful incident of the atmosphere, with the rising of
the fumes of many a cigar. On the opposite corridor the clatter of dishes
could be heard from the dining-room, and occasionally there emerged
gentlemen and toothpicks. The rumble of the elevator sounded ceaselessly,
and now and then fluttering flounces issued from its door which was
visible down a cross-hall.
Behind Gwinnan the great windows opened upon the snowy street. He could
see the white roofs opposite gleam dimly against the nebulous sky.
Carriage-lamps sometimes flashed past, yellow, lucent with jeweled
effects. An electric light hard by flamed with a fibrous radiance, and
empurpled the black night, and conjured circles, mystically white,
far-reaching into the snow. The plate-glass gave a reflection of his
long lank figure and the red velvet arm-chair, and of the innumerable
children of the place, racing about, unrestrained, in white frocks, much
bedizened. There was a dog among them, a poodle, in his white frock too,
accoutered also with a sharp, shrill cry, and swiftly gamboling despite
much fat. He had as independent an aspect as if he knew that all the
legislators crowded into all the caucuses in the city could not compass
a dog-law that would interfere with his pretty liberty, or place a tax
on his frizzy head. The sovereign people would have none of it. And so
the obnoxious law stands repealed, and the dog-star is in the ascendant.
Now and then he came and sat at Gwinnan’s feet, with a lolling tongue and
panting sides.
There had been a caucus in the reading-room of the hotel, and presently
the doors opening upon the corridor began to disgorge knots of men, some
of whom walked off together, others stood in discussion. Now and then one
was seized by a lobbyist, lying in wait. Gwinnan was aware of Harshaw’s
presence before he saw him: a liquid, gurgling, resonant laugh, and then
the floater, accompanied by a colleague into whose arm he had hooked his
own, came through the door. His hat was thrust on the back of his yellow
head; he stroked his yellow beard with a gesture of self-satisfaction;
his face was broad and animated, and pink with prosperity.
Fortune was favoring Mr. Harshaw, and few men have ever basked in her
smiles so appreciatively. He had the reputation of being very influential
in the House. His coöperation was eagerly sought. In truth, as a
wire-puller he had developed marked dexterity, and there were precious
few things that Mr. Harshaw could not accomplish in a caucus. He did a
little “log-rolling,” but he was chary of the interchange of favors,
carrying his point usually by persistence and pugnacity, and he possessed
tremendous staying power as a debater. He had a certain barbaric delight
in oppression; having become possessed of the opportunity, he used it
often when neither he nor his constituents had anything to gain. He took
advantage of his ascendency to pay off many old grudges, some of them
of a purely arbitrary construction and æsthetic nature. He was in some
sort aware that his colleagues were ashamed of his rough manners, his
bullying, his coarse onslaughts, in which, being of the same political
party, they were often constrained to appear as his supporters. He
continually alluded to himself as if he were of peculiarly humble origin,
representing himself as being _of_ the People, _from_ the People, and FOR
the People, and forcing the conclusion that the other members from his
region were bloated aristocrats. Nevertheless, whoever would go to the
State Senate next session, it seemed safe to say that the demagogue had
assured his own nomination; for merit had a fine chance to be modest, as
behooves it, while Mr. Harshaw was shaping the future by manipulating the
present.
And now suddenly he was not quite sure that he wanted the nomination.
In these days, while he divided his time between the beautiful Capitol
building and one of the hotels of the town, he meditated much upon Mink’s
assault upon Judge Gwinnan in the depot of Glaston. Not in the interest
of his client, however; even the most solicitous of counsel could not be
expected to occupy his attention with the fate of the wayward Mink, who
had passed beyond his aid. Mink’s deed did not in truth seem to Harshaw
so very much amiss. Of course he recognized its iniquity, being one of
those cognizable by the law, but he also perceived in it the finger of
Providence,—laid somewhat heavily, it must be confessed, on Gwinnan. He
speculated deeply, despite his other absorptions, on who would probably
be elected to supply Gwinnan’s place, in case of the death of the wounded
incumbent, and he reflected that he himself as a lawyer was highly
esteemed in that circuit, for he had a large practice throughout the
region, and that moreover, by a certain fortuitous circumstance, he was
eligible for the position; although his law office was in Shaftesville,
he lived on his farm which was several miles distant, just within the
boundaries of Kildeer County, one of the judicial circuits over which
Gwinnan presided. Apart from his repute at the bar, he was well known to
the people at large through certain popular measures he had advocated.
He devoted himself to these with renewed ardor. He never allowed himself
to view with a vacillating mind any course, however obviously salutary,
when he had once discovered with a keen instinct that it was unlikely to
secure the approval of the masses. Nevertheless, he applied his tact with
such success that this foregone conclusion was not readily apparent, and
he was continually beset for his influence. He had a secret gratulation
that he was held in special veneration by the lobbyists. He could ill
maintain the aspect of unwilling captive, when he was waylaid and
button-holed, and his attention eagerly entreated for certain measures.
As an anxious-faced man, who had evidently been awaiting him, stepped
forward now, glancing with a casual apology at his friend, who walked on,
Harshaw’s reluctant pause, his frown, his important bored sufferance,
were as fine histrionically as if he were playing at being a statesman on
a stage,—which, indeed, he was.
He listened with a divided mind to the outpouring of the lobbyist, his
opaque blue eyes fixed in seeming deliberation upon the chandelier
hanging down into the rotunda below, his exceedingly red lips pursed up
in a pucker of dubitation. Now and then he patted the toe of one boot on
the floor meditatively. Occasionally he looked his interlocutor full in
the face, asking a question, presumably a poser; then his triumphant,
resonant, burly laugh would vibrate above the dancing of the over-dressed
children, and the riotous barking of the dog, and the tinkling waltzes
played by a band of musicians ranged about the fountain in the rotunda.
His entertainment in his own self-importance and posings was so absorbing
that the lobbyists and the advocates of many measures were often at a
loss to know how best to reach Mr. Harshaw’s desire to serve his country;
for he did not love money, and his integrity, as far as it was concerned,
was above suspicion.
All at once genuine interest usurped these feignings on his face. His
eye fell on Judge Gwinnan walking along the corridor, and leaning upon
a stout cane. He looked very thin, very pale, taller than before, and
somehow his face was more youthful with the wistfulness of illness upon
it, his hair clipped close, and the eyes hollow and luminous. He moved
slowly, and with little spirit.
Harshaw stepped briskly forward, with a curt “Excuse me” to the lobbyist,
taking no reproach for leaving him with his mouth open, for it seemed his
normal condition.
“Why, judge,” Harshaw exclaimed, with his bluff familiarity, “you look
bloomin’!” He was about to stretch out his hand, but desisted, noticing
that Gwinnan held his hat in one hand, and leaned upon his stick with the
other. He took the judge by the elbow, as he walked a few steps with him.
A dim image of the pair paced along in the plate-glass windows, as if
their doubles were stalking without in the snow in scenes of which they
were unconscious. “I had no idea you were pulling together so fast,” he
continued, scanning the face which was almost spectral in its attenuation
and pallor, in close contrast to his own fat floridity of countenance,
his red lips, his gleaming white teeth, his mane of yellow hair, and his
dense yellow beard. His wide, black soft hat stuck on the back of his
head accented his high color. “But I declare, it’s worth while for a man
to get hit over the head to find out how important he is, and how he is
esteemed. I never knew more profound sympathy and indignation than the
affair excited. As to myself, I felt it especially, as I had taken so
much stock in that rascally client of mine.”
Gwinnan made no reply. His face was turned toward Harshaw with a certain
unresponsiveness, an inscrutable questioning, a cadaverous gravity. His
hollow eyes were very bright and large. Somehow they put Harshaw out of
countenance. Something there was in their expression beyond his skill to
decipher. He became a trifle embarrassed, and yet he could not have said
why. He went on at random. He had observed that a number of people were
remarking them. There was nothing uncommon in the peripatetic method that
the interview had taken, but suddenly he found it odd that Gwinnan had
not paused.
“That fellow, Mink Lorey, is a most extraordinary and unexpected kind
of scamp,” Harshaw proceeded uneasily, making talk. “To my certain
knowledge, he cared so little about the girl that he refused to see her
when she came to visit him in jail. But the idea that another man admired
her seemed to set him wild.”
Gwinnan stopped short.
“What girl?” he asked, in his soft, inexpressive drawl.
“The girl that testified,—Alethea Sayles,” said Harshaw, relieved that
Gwinnan had spoken, and striving for his old bluff assurance, but still
conscious that he had lost his tact. “She was pretty, very pretty indeed,
and you were not alone in having the good taste to notice it. The rest of
us didn’t have to pay for it with a broken head, though, eh, judge? Ha!
ha!”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Mr. Harshaw,” said Gwinnan, leaning against one of the great pillars,
the reflection in the plate-glass duplicating the posture on the snowy
sidewalk, as if that other self, liberated and in isolated independence,
busied in different scenes, now meditated, and now spoke and now lifted
a fiery glance, “I will take this opportunity to tell you that I believe
you to be an egregious liar, and I know you for an arrant hypocrite.”
“Sir!” cried Harshaw, starting back, tingling from the words as if they
were blows. He made an instinctive gesture toward his pistol pocket;
it was empty. He was acutely conscious of the spectators who pressed a
little nearer, noticing the excitement.
Gwinnan’s voice had a singular carrying quality, and every deliberate,
low-toned word was distinct.
“I repudiate your professions of friendship. I despise your protestations
of sympathy. If your threats at the court-house door in Shaftesville had
been earlier repeated to me, ludicrously impotent as they are, you should
never have approached me again. Now,”—his voice broke suddenly, in his
feebleness and excitement, and was thin and tremulous and shrill,—“keep
out of my way, or I will beat you with this stick like a dog!”
Gwinnan had lifted the stick, and shook it threateningly in his trembling
hand. Harshaw, with his own reasons for declining to give the first blow,
could only shrink and wince in anticipation. The stick did not descend
on him, however, for Gwinnan turned, and, leaning on it, made his way
down the corridor among the wondering men, who slowly opened an aisle for
him in their midst.