_THE HOME-COMING OF CORNELIUS McVEIGH._
Cornelius McVeigh sat in his private office, thinking. A telegram lay
open before him on the desk, and its contents had all to do with the
brown study into which he had fallen. Presently his senior clerk
appeared in answer to a summons he had given a moment before.
"John, I'm going home for a holiday," he said.
Young John Keene's face brightened perceptibly at the announcement.
"It's the right thing to do, Corney, and the trip will do you a world
of good," he replied, with a familiarity which business rules could not
overcome.
"I must go at once. You see, I've a telegram. Perhaps you would care
to read it," Cornelius McVeigh continued, moodily.
Young John took up the missive and read it aloud: "Come home at once.
Mother seriously ill.--Dodona." He looked up to find his employer's
eyes searching his face anxiously.
"You will go at once, Corney?" he said, quietly, but with a note of
challenge.
"The train leaves at noon. Help me to pack up, John," the other
answered.
The Tourist Express stopped at The Narrows for half an hour just at
lunch time. The Narrows was a pretty place. The peninsula jutting
from either way, separated only by a shallow strait, was spanned by the
railroad bridge. The station formed a centre at one end to a thickly
settled district of summer cottages, and quite close by stood two
rather pretentious hotels. East and west the glistening surface of the
lakes, dotted with islands, spread out like two great sheets of chased
silver. Out beyond, the white trail of the sandy Monk Road zigzagged
until it was lost in the trees. 'Twas a half-hour well spent to lounge
about the platform and take in the grandeur of the landscape.
The usual crowd of gaily dressed humanity was waiting for the train,
surging about it as the passengers alighted.
Cornelius McVeigh stepped from the parlor car and looked at his watch
irritably. Thirty minutes seemed an age to his impatient mind, and the
richly upholstered car was too confining for him to think properly. To
the outward eye he was the Cornelius McVeigh of the city, tall, of
military bearing and faultlessly attired, who gave his fellow-beings
the privilege of calling at his office between the hours of ten and
four each business day, that they might lay before his highly trained
faculties their little monetary affairs, and also the fee which his
wide reputation for successful manipulating could demand. He moved
only until he was free of the people, then paused whilst his gaze
shifted from his late companions to the station and on to the dim,
sunny, leafy country beyond. Disappointment lurked in the corners of
his eyes and gradually spread over his entire countenance. Suddenly he
realized that it was exceedingly warm on the unsheltered platform. He
wished to think quietly, so he shifted his raincoat to his other arm
and sought a shaded place against the railing. His mind was struggling
in a vortex of ancient history, and this was the picture which arose
from the strife. A very commonplace, bare-legged lad, with curly,
uncombed hair and face so freckled that a few yards' distance merged
them into one complete shade of reddish brown. He surveyed the
neighboring bridge, and it came into his mental vision unconsciously.
The long, lean girders he had once trod with the careless ease of a
Blondin. Farther out, the rotting tops of the piles of the old
foot-bridge had been his seat from which he caught the crafty pickerel.
Beyond, the opening in the shore reeds marked the passage to the secret
feeding-ground of the black bass. He remembered it perfectly. A
fleeting sarcastic smile dwelt on his deeply-lined features as he
watched a number of boats, filled with noisy, gesticulating campers,
who fished in the open water where no fish lived. A small lad,
certainly a native of the place, dressed in knee trousers and a shirt
which let in the air in places, was holding high carnival with the
nerves of the onlookers. He was performing daring feats on the
trestle-work of the bridge. Suddenly, accidentally, or maybe
purposely, the expected catastrophe occurred, and he plunged head
foremost into the running water twenty feet below. A chorus of
feminine shrieks greeted the termination of his exploits, but his
grinning face as he reappeared, treading water and rubbing his eyes,
turned their consternation into laughter. Then, with a final howl of
boyish delight, he struck out for the nearest pier.
Cornelius McVeigh awoke from his reverie as the express began to move.
He swung aboard and proceeded to gather his baggage together. He had
scarcely finished when the train slowed up at the end of his journey.
He stepped out with a feeling of expectation. Home at last! The
thought was predominant, and he let it sway him with a selfish
disregard to other influences. Everything had changed during his
twenty years of absence; and the strangeness broke in upon him as if in
condemnation. Here again was the chattering, light-hearted throng, and
their presence only added additional pangs. Not a familiar face to
greet him. Even the fields and woodlands had a different aspect. All
the success of the past decade, which had given wealth and a recognized
place in the world of business, could not wipe out the impression of a
youth of dreamy idleness and simplicity. Where he had hunted rabbits
and slept under a tent of tattered carpet during the warm summer nights
stood a gaudily-painted hotel, flanked with wide verandahs and terraced
lawns. And all about were people, in hammocks, on chairs or rustic
seats, or wandering about enjoying the cool freshness of the lake
breezes. He hurried along the wide newly-cut road which led from the
station. At the high wire gate, erected so recently that the sods from
the post-holes were yet green, he stopped. The successive changes of
the place were so startling to him that he wished to contemplate them
more slowly. It was an ideal spot and filled the soul with pleasurable
anticipation. The children played on the grass, and the hotel
employees sang as they dawdled by in pursuit of their duties.
Everything bespoke luxury and ease. In the entrance doorway of the
hotel stood a stout man, probably the proprietor. He was looking from
under his hand in a speculative way at the stranger by his gate.
Cornelius saw these things mechanically. Then, as his eyes passed from
one point to another, his mother's tavern came within the circle of his
vision. He looked no farther. There it stood, the oddest, drollest
structure that ever marred so perfect a landscape. Its weather-beaten
shingles curled to the sky. Its cracked chimneys and protruding gable
leaned towards the roadway, and every board was rusted to a natural
paintless hue. The pump stood apart, the trough green with moss and
the handle pointing outwards threateningly, like a grim sentry guarding
against the curious passers-by. A grove of trees generously shaded the
rear porch, and beyond them, behind the high fence, he knew, was the
garden. The log barn, with its plastered chinks, had not altered a
particle, and the cow might have been the same one he had milked, so
like her she appeared as she munched at the trailing wisps of hay
hanging from the loft. The outspoken cackle of hens also added to the
rustic environments. It filled his heart with gladness to see the old
place, but it was not complete. The quaintest figure of all was
missing--his mother, tall and white-headed, standing on the verandah
watching down the road for his return. Something was hanging to the
soiled brass knob of the front door, and as he approached he saw that
it was a streamer of black crepe. His heart, which for twenty long
years had thrilled only to the hard-won successes of a self-made man,
beat with a sudden passionate fear, and a tear stole out upon his
cheek. A new-born awkwardness grappled with him as he stumbled along
the roadway. Somehow he saw a pair of dirty, sun-scorched feet encased
in his shining leather shoes. The languid eyes of the hotel guests
followed him, and some wondered as to the nature of his errand.
Arriving at the door, he knocked lightly. An old woman, with
dishevelled grey hair and shoulders enveloped in a bright homespun
shawl, answered his summons and shrilly demanded what he wanted.
"Is it Mrs. Conors?" he asked, scrutinizing her face earnestly. She
turned with a look of open-mouthed wonder upon him, and hesitated
before speaking, so he continued:
"Have you forgotten Corney?" He trembled with a vague fear, and the
old woman's failing memory smote him painfully.
"Be ye Corney McVeigh? A-comin' home to see yer poor dead mammy, an'
ye the ounly boy she had? But surely Corney wouldn't have sich foine
clothes. I can scarcely believe ye," she muttered, doubtingly.
"Dead! Mother dead!" he ejaculated, passing his hand across his
forehead. He swayed a moment as if struck, and then he answered, with
forced calmness:
"Yes, Mrs. Conors, I am Corney, and I want to see my mother. I've been
coming home these many years, but something always turned up to spoil
my plans. I knew the money I sent her every month was sufficient to
keep her in comfort, but I didn't think it would be like this--not like
this!"
Corney McVeigh stepped across the ancient threshold and gazed long and
searchingly at the face in the darkened parlor; a face seamed and thin
with toil and worry, yet infinitely sweet and motherlike to the
world-lost man who choked back the tears as he felt again that almost
forgotten child-love.
Mrs. Conors broke the silence.
"I put her ould spinning-wheel there in the corner, where she could see
it 'fore she went. Those socks on the table was her last work fer ye,
Corney. She said to keep yer father's pictur' an' hers togither in the
album. I was also tould to warn ye 'gainst sleepin' in the draught,
'cause ye were always weak about the lungs, an' yer father died o' thet
complaint. She thought maybe ye wouldn't be wantin' the ould house, so
if the hotel man offered ye a good figure ye could sell it. The cow
and the chicks were to go to me, an'--well, bless me heart, if he
hasn't fainted!"
Mrs. Conors ceased her explanations and called to the occupants of the
rear room, whose conversation came in to her in low monotones. "Mrs.
Dodona! Jennie! it's Corney, and the lad's fainted."
The blindness, for that was all that Corney experienced, passed off in
a few minutes, and when his eyes could notice he saw that they had
carried him to the little room which had once been his own bed-chamber.
Two women were placing cool cloths on his head. When he revived, one
stepped quietly out. The other remained. She was young and decidedly
pretty, but her face showed plainly the effects of recent grief.
Cornelius McVeigh noticed her appearance particularly because it was
peculiarly familiar to him. The harsh shock of his bereavement had
passed, leaving him weakened but calm.
"Corney, do you remember me?" the girl asked him, gently.
"Jennie," he answered, hesitatingly, as if it was an effort for him to
collect his thoughts.
"We have lost our mother--ours," she said, tremulously, and lowered her
head, weeping.
He hastily arose, and his arm clasped her shoulder with brotherly
affection. It seemed to him the only way to comfort her. She did not
resist him, and they sorrowed together.
Cornelius McVeigh did not hasten away from the scene of his great
sorrow. To tell the truth, he had lost for the time being his craving
for the bustling of the city and the subdued activity of his office.
In the place of the latter came hours of quiet, apathetic reverie while
he lingered beneath the roof-tree of home. He modified his dress and
waylaid sundry travellers who passed the door in lumbering farm wagons.
Ofttimes he clambered aboard and went a-visiting, and in exchange for
his city stories received tales of the Monk Road and his mother that
were as balm to his wounded heart.
Jennie was also loath to leave the peaceful spot. Her grandparent, who
found a new joy in living because of his affection for her, came to the
neighboring hotel and hired a suite of rooms for an indefinite period.
He proved a worthy comrade in idleness for the jaded business man, and
the three of them, Jennie, Cornelius McVeigh and Mr. Hyden, were always
together.
Jennie had been an apt pupil, and the few years of education which her
grandparent had provided for her had transformed her from an
uncultivated country girl into an accomplished young woman. Nor was
she lacking in comeliness. Ofttimes the eyes of Cornelius McVeigh
followed her with a strange light glistening in their depths.
The boy and girl love of years gone by, so prematurely blighted and so
long dormant, was struggling again to the surface, and who knows but
another wedding, the last of so many which have been recorded in the
previous chapters, may yet be an accomplished fact? But that involves
another story, and it has not the presence of Nancy McVeigh.