I am not as well satisfied with myself as I ought to be, having made such a sacrifice to duty. I begin to ask myself, Was it made to duty? After all, a little suspense would have done Phil Phinn good,—if anything can do him good. And are not the claims of friendship paramount to all other? Harry will be pained by needless anxiety. Can he believe that I would, without grave cause, lose any of the time we might yet have together? But a few hours will set all right.
Friday Night, April 19.
I am at home again. I take out the package which has been waiting for the day at Omocqua. Hoarding is always imprudence. If these letters of last week had gone on their day, they would have been faithful messengers. Now they go to tell you of a happiness which already is not mine,—of hopes and plans that you can never share.
Are these last pages yesterday's? A lifetime is between me and them. The book I pushed aside to write them lies there open, waiting to be recalled. Had it an interest for me only yesterday? The flowers on my table still hold their frail, transient beauty. No longer ago than when I gathered them, I could take pleasure in flowers!
I sit here and go through the history of these last two days, retracing every minutest incident. I begin again. I make some one little circumstance different, and with it all is changed. I pass into a happy dream; I find myself smiling. And then I remember that I cannot smile!
I was to write to you to-night. I should have written, if I had not promised. I must spend these hours with you. Every object here is so full ofpain! Everything is so exactly as it was; and yet nothing can ever be as it was to me again!
It seemed last evening that I suffered more from my disappointment than was reasonable. I wished for sleep to shorten the hours of waiting. But troubled dreams lengthened them instead. I was up at three; at four I was on the road. I had an hour over fields and cleared land; then came some miles through the woods. The forest-ride had not its usual charm. I was still haunted by the failure of yesterday. I could not bear the thought of being misjudged by Harry, even for a moment. I longed to be with him and explain. But would he find me absolved? I was glad to come out into light and cheerfulness at Quickster. It was six o'clock when I stood before the door of the Rapid Run. Barton came down to me, drew out his pocket-book, and took from it a folded paper.
"Here is something of yours."
I opened it and found written in pencil,—"Jackson House, Omocqua." The sight of that frank handwriting dispelled every doubt.
"When was he here?"
"He came in a little before one yesterday. He asked if you had been along. I thought not; you would have given me a call. He stayed round here about an hour, waiting for you. I told himthat you might have struck the road farther down,—at Ossian, perhaps. He took a horse of me, knowing you would ride."
"He was alone?"
"Yes. He told me Dr. Borrow was at Rentree; was to join him at Omocqua this morning, though."
In half an hour we were on our way again. I was eager still, but no longer impatient. There was no uncertainty in my mind now. Harry was at Omocqua. He was expecting me. As to blaming me, he had never thought of it. He would have imagined for me some better excuse than I had to give. Or rather, it had never occurred to him that I could need excuse. I should find him at the door on the lookout for me. His hand would be in mine before I could dismount. In the mean while the miles between us diminished rapidly. My horse enjoyed, as I did, every step of the happy road. His prompt, elastic tread showed it, and the alert ears which seemed not watchful against danger, but vigilant to catch all the sweet and animating sounds that cheered us forward.
Three miles from Quickster we came on the intended town of Ossian. I stopped a moment. Harry had probably lingered here yesterday, watching to see me emerge from that dusky wood-path. He had found no one to speak to. One inhabitantoutstayed the rest a year; but he has now been long gone, and his house is falling in.
Beyond Ossian the road was new to me. For about three miles it is good. Then the country becomes uneven, and soon after very hilly. It was slower work here; but Brownie and I took it pleasantly.
"How far is it to Omocqua?" I asked, as he was passing me, a man whom I had watched painfully descending in his little wagon the hill I was about to climb.
He drew up at once.
"Omocqua? You are for Omocqua? An hour, or a little more; though I am a good hour and a half from there. They had something of a fuss down there last night, perhaps you know."
"What about?"
"Well, a man from Tenpinville met a runaway boy of his who had been hiding round there. The fellow ran; his master hailed him, and when he wouldn't stop, out with a pistol and shot him flat."
"What was the man's name?"
"If I heard, I've lost it. I put up just outside the town. If I'd gone in to hear the talk, I might have got mixed up; and I'd no call."
The hour was a long one. I hardly wished it shorter, yet I tried to hasten. I urged my horse; but mastery is of the spirit, not of the hand or will.He had obeyed so well the unconscious impulse! and now, though he started forward under the spur of an inciting word, he soon forgot it, and mounted the slow hills and descended them again with drudging step and listless ears.
What a meeting! what a topic for the nineteenth of April! I imagined Harry's grief, his shame, his concentrated indignation. I remembered the flash of his eye, the flush of his cheek, when Dr. Borrow was telling of the approach of the slave-coffle from which they had rescued Orphy. And with this a keen apprehension seized me. Would Harry have been able to repress his remonstrance, his reprobation? The common man I had just met had not trusted the acquired prudence of half a century. Could Harry's warm young heart contain itself?
Why was I not there? A warning, a restraining word——. But would Harry have heard it? Could I have spoken it? Would he not have felt, must not I have felt with him, that this was one of those moments when to see wrong done without protesting is to share in it? And then rose before me the possible scenes:—the beautiful, glowing face, the noble, passionate words, the tumult, the clamor, the scoff, the threat, the—— Oh, no! surely the angels would have had charge concerning him!
When we reached the summit of the last hill, my horse stopped of himself, as if to let me receive well into my mind the first lovely aspect of the town below us, and thus connect a charm with its name which nearer knowledge should not be able to disturb.
I yielded to the influence of the scene the more easily that it was in such contrast with my perturbed feelings. We may court and cherish a fanciful or a superficial grief; but the bitterly tormented mind asks ease as the tortured body does, and takes eagerly the soothing draught from any hand. The landscape, still freshened by the night, and already brilliant with the day, spoke peace and hope. I accepted the promise. Descending the hill, I thought and reasoned cheerfully. I smiled that I should have fancied nothing could happen in Omocqua, when Harry was there, without his having a part in it. This took place last evening; he had not heard of it yet, perhaps. Or he had heard of it; but not until it was over, and there was nothing to be done. He was commonly silent under strong emotion. He would have heard this story as he had heard others of the sort, with resolved composure, finding in it new food for his inward purpose.
On the outskirts of the town I came to a little tavern, the one probably at which my acquaintanceof the road had lodged. I had almost stopped to ask the news, but thought better of it, and was going on, when a man sitting on a bench under a tree started up and ran after me, shouting. I stopped, and he came up out of breath.
"You thought we were shut, seeing us so still; but we're all on hand."
I explained, that I was going to the Jackson House, where a friend was to meet me.
"The Jackson House! That's head-quarters for news, just now. All right. You looked as if you wanted to stop."
"I thought of stopping for a moment. I heard on the road that there had been some sort of disturbance in your town yesterday. Is all quiet now?"
"For aught I know."
"I heard there was a boy shot here yesterday."
"A boy?"
"A runaway."
"One of our waiters brought down such a story last night. They are sharp after news of their own. I told him 'twas wholesome, if it turned out so. But this morning it comes that it was the man who was running him off that was shot. You'll hear all about it at the Jackson. If you come back this way, stop and give me a word. I can't leave."
There were a number of men on the piazza ofthe Jackson House. Most of them had the air of habitual loungers; a few were evidently travellers newly arrived. Not a figure that even from a distance I could take for Harry Dudley. Some trunks and valises were waiting to be carried in, but I saw nothing familiar. I recognized the landlord in a man who was leaning against a pillar, smoking. He did not come forward, or even raise his eyes, when I rode up. I bade him good-morning, addressing him by name. He came forward a little,—bowed in answer to my salutation, but did not speak.
"Is Mr. Dudley here?"
Brompton did not reply. He threw out two or three puffs of smoke, then took the cigar from his lips and flung it from him. He looked serious, and, I thought, displeased. My misgivings returned. Had Harry incurred ill-will by some generous imprudence? Had he left the house, perhaps? Was the landlord afraid of being involved in his guest's discredit?
He spoke at last, with effort.
"Is your name——?"
"Colvil."
He came down the steps and stood close to me, laying a hand on my horse's neck and stroking down his mane.
"Mr. Colvil, I don't know that anybody is toblame; but an accident has happened here. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you of it."
I dismounted. Brompton made several attempts at beginning, but stopped again.
"You had some trouble in your town yesterday," I said; "can that in any way concern Mr. Dudley?"
"Are you a near friend of his?"
"Yes."
"A relation?"
"No."
He went on with more assurance.
"Mr. Dudley was here about a month ago. He had a sick boy with him, whom he left here, in a manner under my care. He was to have taken him away to-day. He arrived yesterday afternoon and asked me to send for the boy. I sent for him. Mr. Dudley was expecting you yesterday afternoon, and walked over to the Jefferson to see if there was any mistake.
"The boy was his. It was all regular. He had him of Ruffin, who never does anything unhandsome. I knew all about it. Ruffin was here with a lot of all sorts he had been picking up round the country. He told me to keep the boy pretty close while I had him in charge; and I boarded him outside the town, with an old granny, who didn't know but he was really in hiding. But it was all right.He was a pet servant, spoiled till he grew saucy, and his master swapped him off,—but quietly, the family set so much by the boy. They were to think he'd been enticed away. But it must happen, that, exactly yesterday afternoon, one of the sons came riding up to this very house. He left his horse to the servant he brought with him; then comes up to the door and asks if Mr. Dudley is here; hears that he has walked out, and so walks out too. The first thing he meets, just out here on the square, is this boy, whom he had been fond of, and only over-kind to. The boy checks up, and then, like a fool, turns and runs. The young man calls to him to stop,—and then, to stop or he'd shoot. The boy only runs faster. Dudley was crossing the square, on his way back from the Jefferson, and came up at the moment. He told Orphy to stand still, and, stepping right between him and the levelled pistol, called to the other to hold on. But the man was so mad with rage at seeing his servant flout him and mind another, that he could not stop his hand. I was standing where you are now. I saw Dudley come up, with his even step, just as usual. I heard his voice, clear and cool. I did not look for mischief until I heard the crack of the pistol,—and there he was on the ground! I ran down to him. I was going to have him taken into the house, but he wanted to lie in the open air.We carried him round to the green behind the barn. There was an army-surgeon here, on his way West. He did what he could, but said it was only a question of hours. Dudley knew it. He wanted to keep on till morning, thinking you might come. He lasted till after daybreak. Will you go to him?"
I followed Brompton into the house, along the entry, across the yard, through the great barn. A road led from a gate on a side-street to a shed. Before us, on the other side of the road, was a green field with one great tree. The grass under the tree was flattened.
"Yes, it was there," said Brompton. "He asked to be laid under that tree. The sun was just setting over there. When evening came, we wanted to take him to the house; but no. We let him have his will. It was natural he should want to see the sky while he could."
Brompton led the way to the shed.
What struggles must have rent that strong young breast before the life was dislodged from it! How must the spirit which had known this earth only through innocent joys and sweet affections and lovely hopes,—how must it have clung to its dear mortal dwelling-place! how mourned its dividing ties! how claimed its work, unfinished, unbegun! This grief, this yearning, this reluctance would haveleft their story on the cold immovable face. With these, bodily torture would have done its part to alter and impair! I followed my guide, foreboding that the dumb anguish in my heart was to be displaced by a fiercer pain.
There was no pain in his presence. In death, as in life, he kept his own gift of blessing. The holy light still lay on the brow; about the lips hovered a smile, last ethereal trace of the ascended spirit. My soul lifted itself to his. I understood the peace that passeth understanding.
An angry voice brought me back to the world and its discords.
"Do you think you were worth it?"
I looked where Brompton was looking, and saw, seated near, on an overturned barrel, a figure which could be no other than that of Orphy. He sat impassive. Brompton's cruel words had not reached him. His misery was its own shield. His utter wretchedness precluded more. But he felt my look fixed upon him. He raised his eyes to me for a moment, then closed them again to shut himself in with his woe. And now his face quivered all over; his lips parted and closed rapidly,—not as forming articulate accents, but in the helpless forlornness that has no language in which to utter plaint or appeal. And yet on these trembling cheeks, about this inane mouth, still lingered someof the soft, playful lines I remembered on the pretty, varying face of little Airy Harvey!
On the way from the house I was conscious that a step followed us, stopping when we stopped, and going on again when we did; but I had not given thought to it until now, when I perceived a timid movement behind me, and felt a light touch laid on my arm. I turned, and met a pair of mournful, pleading eyes.
"Jasper!"
The old man stretched one trembling hand toward the dead, while the other clasped my wrist.—"It was not meant! It was not meant!"
"It was not," said Brompton.
"Do not bear anger!Hedid not."
"He did not," echoed Brompton.
Jasper, searching my face, saw there what changed his look of entreaty into one of compassion. He stroked my sleeve soothingly with his poor shrunken fingers.—"And yet there never was anything but love between you! Oh, think there is a sorer heart than yours this day!"
"Where is he?" I asked, fearing lest that most unhappy one might be near.
"Gone."—It was Brompton who answered.—"Gone, I believe. He was here until all was over. He locked himself into a room up-stairs. Dudley sent for him many times the night through, in theintervals of his pain. I took the messages to him. But he could neither bear to see the one he had killed, nor yet to go away, and have no chance of seeing him again. At daybreak Dudley got up, saying he had strength enough, and went as far as the barn on his way to the house. There the surgeon met him and led him back, pledging his word that the man should be brought, if it was by force. And it was almost by force, but he was brought. Dudley raised himself a little, when he came up, took his hand and clasped it close. 'Good-bye, Fred!'—in a pleasant voice, as if he were ready for a journey and must cheer up the friend he was to leave behind. And then he sank back, still holding the other's hand, and looking up at him with his kind eyes, not forgiving, but loving,—till the eyelids drooped and closed softly, and he passed into a quiet sleep. When we left him, he was breathing gently. We thought it was rest."
Jasper went humbly away, secure of his suit. Brompton, too, withdrew silently.
In those first moments I had left below my loss and my grief to follow the ascended; but now my human heart asked after the human friend.
On the rich, disordered hair were signs of the mortal agony: the soft, bright curls were loosened and dimmed. The pure forehead could not befairer than it was, yet the even, delicately finished eyebrows seemed more strongly marked. The brown eyelashes showed long and dark over the white cheek. The same noble serenity; the same gentle strength; only the resolute lines about the mouth were softened;—nothing now to resist or to dare!
Dr. Borrow would be here soon. I sat down on a block and waited. Dr. Borrow! I had thought his love for Harry tinctured with worldliness; but how honest and hearty it appeared to me now! I had loved in Harry Dudley what he was to be, what he was to do. Dr. Borrow had loved him for himself only, simply and sincerely. I remembered the Doctor's misgivings, his cautions to me. How negligently heard! Then it was only that he did not yet comprehend the high calling of the boy whom we equally loved. Now I almost felt as if I had a complicity in his fate,—as if the Doctor could demand account of me.
That Harry Dudley would give himself to a great cause had been my hope and faith; that he would spend himself on a chimera had been Doctor Borrow's dread. But which of us had looked forward to this utter waste? How reconcile it with Divine Omnipotence? with Supreme Justice? Was there not here frustration of a master-work? Was there not here a promise unfulfilled?
Careless footsteps and voices gave notice of the approach of men brought by curiosity. Seeing me, and judging me not one of themselves, they stop outside, confer a moment in lower tones, come in singly, look, and go out again.
Then new voices. A tall, stout man stalked heavily in. "And the boy was his own, after all," burst from him as he rejoined the others.
"The boy was not his own. He didn't buy him fairly to keep and work him. It was a sham sale. He meant to free him from the first, and the boy knew it. He was free by intention and in fact. He had all the mischief in him of a free negro."
"The man was a New-Englander, and saw it differently," answered the first voice.
"A man is not a fool because he is a New-Englander," replied the second. "I am from New England myself."
"I don't see much of the same about you. Are there more there like him or like you?"
"I tell you he has died as the fool dieth," the other answered sharply, coming carelessly in as he spoke. He was a mean-looking man, trimly dressed, in whom I could not but recognize the Yankee schoolmaster.
As he stooped down over the man he had contemned, some dormant inheritance of manhood revealed itself in his breast, some lingering trace ofricher blood stirred in his dull veins. He turned away, cast towards me a humble, deprecating look, and, still bending forward, went out on tiptoe.
Then, accompanied by a sweeping and a rustling, came a light step, but a decided, and, I felt, an indifferent one. A woman came in. She took account with imperious eyes of every object,—of me, of Orphy, of the coarse bench spread with hay, which served as bier,—and then walked confidently and coldly forward to the spectacle of death. When she had sight of the beautiful young face, she uttered a cry, then burst into passionate sobs, which she silenced as suddenly, turned, shook her fist at Orphy, and was gone.
"Dr. Borrow is come."
Come!To what a different appointment!
"He asked for you," persisted Brompton, seeing that I did not rise. "He is in the same room he had when they were here together. He mistrusted something, or he had heard something; he said no word until he was there. Then he asked me what he had got to be told, and I told him."
I made a sign that I would go. Brompton left me with a look which showed that he knew what a part I had before me.
Dr. Borrow was not a patient man. He was ruffled by a slight contrariety. This unimagined grief, how was it to be borne? With what wordswould he receive me? Would he even spare Harry Dudley himself, in the reproaches which his love would only make more bitter?
We three were to have met to-day. Washethe one to be wanting? he who was never wanting? He who had been the life, the joy, of those dearly remembered hours, was he to be the sorrow, the burden of these? I went to him again; again earth and its anxieties vanished from me. No, he would not be wanting to us.
When I touched the handle of the door, it was turned from the inside. Dr. Borrow seized my hand, clasping it, not in greeting, but like one who clings for succor. He searched my face with ardently questioning look, as if I might have brought him mercy or reprieve. He saw that I had not. A spasm passed over his face. His mouth opened to speak, with voiceless effort. He motioned me to lead where he was to go. We went down-stairs, and he followed me, as I had followed Brompton, along the entry, across the yard, through the barn. He glanced towards the tree and then took his way to the shed. I did not enter with him.
When he came back to me, he was very pale, but his expression was soft and tender as I had never known it. We went in again together, and stood there side by side.
Brompton spoke from without. "There is one thing I have not told you, Dr. Borrow."
The Doctor turned to him patiently.
"There was an inquest held early this morning."
Dr. Borrow lifted his hand to ward off more.
"Let me take my child and go!"
The Doctor looked towards Orphy. Again I had almost wronged him in my thought. "Come, my lad," he said, kindly; "you and I must take care of him home."
Orphy left his place of watch. He came and stood close beside the Doctor, devoting his allegiance; tears gathered in the eyes that the soul looked through once more; the mouth retook its own pathetic smile.
I knew that Harry Dudley must lie in Massachusetts ground, but I could not look my last so soon. Dr. Borrow saw my intention and prevented it. He took my hand affectionately, yet as holding me from him.
"Do not come. I am better off without you. I must battle this out alone."
Then, a moment after, as feeling he had amends to make,—
"You have known him a few weeks. Think what I have lost,—the child, the boy, the man! All my hopes were in him,—I did not myself know how wholly!"
And beyond this anguish lay other, that he would have put off till its time, but it pressed forward.
"Colvil, you are going home. You go to be consoled. What am I going to?"
On the side-street, the swift tread of horses and the roll of rapid wheels. A wagon stopped before the gate. What a joy Charles Shaler's coming was to have been to us!
He was prepared. He came forward erect and stern. He saluted us gravely in passing, went in and stood beside the bier. He remained gazing intently for a little time,—then, laying his hand lightly on the sacred forehead, raised his look to heaven. He came out composed as he had entered.
Shaler spoke apart with Brompton, and returned to us.
"You would leave this place as soon as possible?" he said to Dr. Borrow.
"Yes."
I had meant to combat the Doctor's desire that I should leave him,—not for my own sake, but because I thought he would need me; but I submitted now. Shaler would assume every care, and I saw that Dr. Borrow yielded himself up implicitly.
The moment came. We lifted him reverently, Orphy propping with his weak hands the arm thathad once lent him its strength. We carried him out into the sunshine he had loved, bright then as if it still shone for him. The wind ruffled the lifeless hair whose sparkling curls I had seen it caress so often.
It is over. Over with the last meeting, the last parting. Over with that career in which I was to have lived, oh, how much more than in my own! That brain cold! What vigorous thought, what generous enterprise benumbed within it! That heart still, whose beats should have stirred a nation's! The head for which I had dreamed so pure a glory has sunk uncrowned. The name dies away in space; not a whisper repeats it. Harry Dudley has passed from a world which will never know that it possessed and has lost him.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BYH. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
Transcriber's Note:A Table of Contents has been added by the transcriber. It was not present in the original book.Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.Inconsistent spellings and use of hyphens have been kept (e.g., "door-steps" and "doorsteps").
A Table of Contents has been added by the transcriber. It was not present in the original book.
Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent spellings and use of hyphens have been kept (e.g., "door-steps" and "doorsteps").