FROM the earliest record of events, either sacred or profane, the genus Bos has been associated with the history of the landowner. The Ancient Egyptian saw in him certain traces of divinity, and honored it with proper recognition. The lamented Job, erstwhile poet of calamity, found time amid the recording of his numerous disasters to set down his venerable appreciation of the species; and the pagan Homer, while singing of gods and men, remembered to sing also the virtues of the noble bullock; and the painters, too, from Claude Lorraine to Rosa Bonheur, have deigned to consider the artistic importance of the domesticated kine; treating him first as a necessary adjunct to a landscape, and later as a central figure in the scene. He has had his part, say the records, not infrequently with the plans of men, virtuous and otherwise. A certain wily barbaric general used him well in a difficult emergency, and the patriarch Jacob used him in a shrewd physiological experiment, which he had probably learned at Padan-aram in his salad days; an experiment that added much to the worldly worth of the good father, but detracted not a little from his fame.
When the sun climbed up from behind the broad eastern hillside on the following morning it looked down upon Rufus Alshire, who, far more expeditious than itself, had already set himself to the affairs of the day; before the dawn he had brought the cattle from their beds in the cool pasture land, weighed them at his scales and turned them out in the road on their journey to the shipping station some ten miles away. The herd strayed leisurely along the highway. The giant Alshire rode through the drove, keeping the bullocks moving slowly; while following the herd barefoot in the dust, was one of his retainers, a half-witted youth, wearing an ancient straw hat, a shirt originally of the material called “hickory,” but now patched in variegated colors, and blue cloth trousers well worn and frayed. As the youth tramped along he sang in a high piping voice one of those simple little songs which the playing children sing, and by way of illustration danced up and down and whipped the dust with a long hickory switch. On his heart was no shadow of the cares of men, and for this reason, perhaps, under his torn shirt was two-thirds of the happiness of the world.
As the herd wandered along under the great oaks that lined the roadway and the rays of the morning sun crept down through the green leaves, making queer mottled spots on the sleek cattle and brilliant shifting patches on the dewy grass, one looking on could easily have come to believe that the world had turned back some several hundred years, and this was a grassy forest glade of merry England, and the herd, cattle of the gruff, gigantic Saxon who rode among them on his huge red horse, scowling under his black brows and cursing by St. Withold and St. Dunstan and the soul of Hengist the evil times of the Conqueror that forced him to drive his herd into the thick forest at daybreak in order to preserve it from the marauding cut-throats of a Norman baron; and he would have looked close for great stones half-bedded in the moss, lasting monuments to the weird and bloody rites of some stern Druid colony long dead; and then glanced up sharply to see if that patch of thicker green in the deeper woods were not indeed the coat of some gallant outlaw whose bosom was English, and who stood ready with his yew bow and his cloth-yard shaft to join the huge Saxon in his stubborn fight against the bloody followers of Duke William of Normandy; and when the herd had wandered by one would have leaned over in the road to see if there was not a brass collar soldered fast around the neck of the happy cowherd, graven in Saxon letters with this inscription: “Zaak, the son of Jonas, is thrall to Rufus of Alshire.”
The cheery sunshine under the dear arch of blue, with its homely noises of awakening life and its cool breath, ladened with the fresh odor wafted from meadows of clover springing up with sweet new blossom after the harvest, all so conducive to careless, joyous existence, failed utterly to remove any portion of the anxiety from the face of the grazier.
He sat listlessly in his saddle, with his gray eyes half-closed and the muscles of his face drawn down in furrows; the red roan, trained from his colt days, assumed the duties of his master, and moved carefully among the cattle; his equine intelligence appreciating that it was a part of his duty to the indolent master, to see that the drove kept moving slowly, and that no bullock stopped to crop the wet grass by the roadside, or fight with his fellow.
The watches of the night had brought to Rufus Alshire no solution of the matter with which he had struggled so persistently during the evening before. He was acting, it was true, upon his temporary plan, but that seemed but an incident in the main vexatious problem.
The giant was now entirely oblivious of his environment, and deep in his troublous matter he spoke aloud. “If I could only hold the title,” he muttered, and then, as if realizing the folly of his hope, he gripped the tree of his saddle with his hand and straightened his mighty foot suddenly in the stirrup. The leather snapped under the great weight, and the iron stirrup dropped into the road. The red roan stopped short, and the huge Alshire, pronouncing some severe malediction on his ponderous size, dismounted, picked up the stirrup and tied it to the strap. Then he slipped the bridle rein over his aim and, walking along beside the horse, began to examine the herd with the critical eye of an expert, and comment thereon with the artlessness of a child.
“Beef for the British.” he said, “and as good beef as John Bull ever put under his ribs. They are broad on the backs and deep in the brisket and heavy in the quarters, and every black calf of them made the beam kick sixteen hundred pounds.”
The grazier slapped his horse fondly on the neck. “They 'll please the Jews, won't they, boy?” The red roan pricked up his ears and rubbed his nose against his master's arm, as though this statement was quite in accord with his own private views of the matter. “They will ship well over the sea.” The giant laughed. “And by gad! if the rotten ships hold together the black brutes will get a blamed sight nearer to the Queen than most of the little snobs ambling around in the East.”
The herd of Rufus Alshire belonged to that species of beef cattle termed Polled-Angus, native to the lowlands of Scotland; a breed of comparatively recent importation. They were fine bullocks, full, round, and comely in form; hornless, trim of head and neck, and with coats as black as the fabled spirit of midnight. The law of natural selection had finally indicated this breed as best adapted to the conditions of the West Virginia grazier. It was hardy, easily maintained, and endured the rigor of the winter without distress, beside it was quick to mature and gained flesh rapidly, and then, too, the absence of horns rendered it easier to handle and far less dangerous.
The horn, a necessary and powerful weapon in the wild state, was in the state of domestication a useless incumbrance Hence nature, laboring for the convenience of men, thrust in and produced the Polled-Angus.
The business of the grazier had been progressive. The powerful landowner, who in the autumn purchased his cattle from the stockmen of the interior counties, had ever encouraged the cultivation of the breed. For many years the short horn Durham had been the great cattle of this inland country. It was an old race; old in England when the Scandinavian and the Dane swarmed over the river Tees. But the breed, though excellent, was rather slow to mature and not adapted to severe winters, and the breeder awakened to the needs of his market and casting about for an animal better adapted to his uses chanced upon the Hereford, first imported by the elder Clay of Kentucky. And the Hereford became the chief bovine of the grazier. He was old, too; old on the north side of the river Wye in the tenth century, and ancient of record, it is said, in the law of Howell the Good; but while a fine beef animal, he preserved one defect, the massive horn. Still he maintained his place, until on a certain autumn morning at a fat cattle show in Chicago, the good wife of a powerful Virginia grazier, on a quest for the ideal bullock, pointed down into the stock ring at the splendid Polled-Angus and said, “There he is, but he don't look human.” And there he was indeed, broad, and shiny black, and hornless as a man's palm—nature's answer to the breeder's dream.
The great tawny sun climbed high in the heavens; the heat of the day settled down over the living earth like an invisible mantle; the crisp freshness of the morning breeze had given place to the monotonous hot air of midday. The dust arose in clouds from under the feet of the herd, and the cattle themselves, warm and vexed with the irksome travel, were restless and difficult to control. The great Al-shire and his huge horse moved here and there through the drove, white with dust; while the happy thrall plodded along behind the herd, whistling merrily and turning from time to time to strike some lagging bullock, and shout with childish glee “Go along you fat feller; to-night you will ride on the steam-cars, and to-morrow the British will eat you.” And passing a slight inaccuracy in the matter of time, the witless Zaak was entirely correct. To him the steam-cars were marvels from wonderland, and the British was some far-away gigantic monster with a mighty, insatiate maw.
THE young man closed the door to the private writing-room of the club, and coming back to the table drew a chair up beside his companion and sat down.
“Rufus,” he said, “how did you get in so deep?”
“Well,” responded the grazier, looking down at the floor. “I am an ass, Jerry, just a natural ass. I was all right, doing well and living like a lord, until I endorsed for that lumber company. When it grew shaky, I tried to save myself by borrowing money and holding it up until the panic was over, but I could n't do it, and when the thing failed I had the notes to meet. I did n't want to be sued, so I borrowed the money. It was a big sum, almost as big as I was worth, but I thought that the men from whom I borrowed the money would not push me, and that probably I could pull through some way. I might have known that the crash would come, but it is natural, I judge, to postpone the evil day.”
“Have your creditors instituted legal proceedings?” asked the young man.
“Not yet,” replied Alshire. “On Thursday I was at the county seat looking after my taxes, and while there William Farras, who is a local manager for the oil company, took me aside and said that through some business transactions my notes had come into his hands, and added that he hoped that I was in a position to pay them, as he was hard up and would require a considerable sum of money at once. On the way home in the evening I had the conversation with the driller of which I have spoken; and his statement made the scheme as plain as day light. The company believes that the pool is under my land, and, wishing to secure the property, it has bought up my outstanding notes. The plan is to sue me at once, sell the land, and buy it in.”
The giant spoke slowly, the great muscles of his face set, and his eyes hard. He raised his ponderous clenched hand and brought it slowly down on his knee. “I shipped the cattle,” he added, “to prevent their being attached, and I have gone over the whole thing from end to end, and by every devil in hell I don't see any way to stop their game.”
Jerry Van Meter arose and went over to the window. He was mightily affected by the hopeless position of his friend, and in his breast his heart was heavy. The condition of things was reversed. From his very babyhood he had gone to the giant with his troubles, and the giant had always found some way out. Now the man had come to him, and he was helpless. He looked at the huge grazier sitting motionless with his face in his hands, and the tears gathered in his eyes. Van Meter knew too much of the world not to know that the man was ruined. Finally he turned to his companion.
“Rufus,” he said, “we will walk down to my office and see what can be done.”
It was merely a weakling move for delay. In his heart the young man knew that the matter was hopeless.
The two men arose and passed out of the club.
The life of Jerry Van Meter had been crowded with events quite as varied and rapid of incident as that of Sinbad the Sailor. His parents, who resided on a small farm near Rufus Alshire's estate, had died when the child Jerry was quite an infant, and the huge grazier had assumed the guardianship of the youth. Under his direction the boy had been educated, and finally installed as a bank clerk in one of the small towns. But the spirit of adventure was big in the breast of the youthful Jerry, and one morning he closed the ledger carefully and vanished into the Northwest. Here he pulled teeth for an itinerant dentist, drummed for a soap house, and travelled with a circus. But he had a fortunate star, not at all times obscured; and when the boom struck St. Paul, Jerry drifted in, bought far and wide, and carried out with him ten thousand dollars in gold, which he promptly dropped in a bucket-shop in Chicago. A letter to the good genius Alshire brought a check for one hundred dollars and nine pages of advice.
With this money in his pocket, Jerry passed over on to the Pacific coast. Here he mixed drinks in a bar-room, and officiated in the important capacity of night clerk to a restaurant, until his star came up again, and when it did, Jerry chanced on an abandoned claim that netted him seven thousand dollars. He returned to Alshire the one hundred dollars and the well-worn but badly-heeded letter of advice, and set out for the East. In St. Louis he became deeply interested in certain horse races, and ten days later he landed in the Virginias bronzed, bearded, and broke. The giant Alshire laughed at the escapades of this youth until his sides ached, gave him another check and the ancient letter of advice with various amendments, and the restless Mr. Van Meter dropped down into the metropolis of New York. Here his star gave evidences of constancy, and he became an insurance broker and a man of affairs.
The two men walked slowly down the steps of the club and across the busy thoroughfare. As they stepped up or the opposite curb they were startled by a sharp cry, and turning suddenly they saw a little man stumble and fall forward in the street directly in front of an approaching mail wagon. The great horses were almost upon him, bearing down in a long sweeping trot. The driver at the moment was not looking, but it was too late for him to prevent the impending accident even if he had been. The giant Alshire ran out into the street, caught the horses and threw his ponderous weight against the iron bits. The heavy Percherons reared and fell back on their haunches, the tongue of the wagon shot forward, grazing the giant's shoulder, and the wheels stopped for a moment almost against the body of the prostrate man. In that moment Van Meter dragged the hapless pedestrian from beneath the belly of the horses. The giant stepped quickly aside, and the horses, plunging forward heavily on the cobble stones, passed on down the street, while the half-dazed driver did not even look back to ascertain what had really occurred.
The little man wiped the dust from his hat with the sleeve of his coat and looked up at his deliverers.
“Well,” he said, “Randolph Mason came near to losing his clerk. I guess I stumbled on that infernal rail.”
A great light came into the face of Jerry Van Meter. He came up close to the little man and caught him by the shoulder. “Randolph Mason!” he said, “Is Randolph Mason in New York?”
“Yes,” responded the little man. “I am his clerk. Parks is my name. Mr. Mason is here, but——” Then he stopped short.
The now excited Van Meter shook the little man almost roughly by the shoulder.
“Good,” he cried, “good, we must see him at once.”
The clerk Parks looked down at his soiled clothes and the dust on his bruised hands.
“Gentlemen,” he said slowly, “it is against the strict order of the physicians, but, under the circumstances, I don't quite see how I am going to refuse.”
RANDOLPH MASON leaned forward and struck his hand heavily on the arm of his chair.
“Forty thousand,” he said sharply, “you owe that sum, sir?” His face looked old, sunken, and furrowed with heavy dark lines, but his eyes shone under his shaggy brows.
“Yes,” responded the grazier, “fully that much.”
“To secure that amount in cash,” continued Mason, “it will be necessary to deal with some bank or savings institution of which the president or some powerful director is an attorney-at-law. This condition will be found to obtain in almost any one of the small towns of the country, and if my directions are followed strictly, the plan can be carried out and the money secured in a very few hours. The plan is simple and easy. In the first place——”
“But,” said the giant Alshire, “I don't want other men's money. I don't want to commit a crime.”
The veins in the forehead of Randolph Mason grew black with anger.
“Commit a crime!” he cried. “No man who has followed my advice has ever committed a crime. Crime is a technical word. It is the law's name for certain acts which it is pleased to define and punish with a penalty. None but fools, dolts, and children commit crimes.”
“Well,” responded the grazier, “whether the plan you are about to propose is a crime or not, it is certainly a moral wrong, and I have no desire to rob a bank by committing even a moral wrong.”
Randolph Mason arose slowly and pointed his finger at the huge Alshire.
“The old story,” he sneered, “child afraid of a goblin. Moral wrong! A name used to frighten fools. There is no such thing. The law lays down the only standard by which the acts of the citizen are to be governed. What the law permits is right, else it would prohibit it. What the law prohibits is wrong, because it punishes it. This is the only lawful measure, the only measure bearing the stamp and the sanction of the State. All others are spurious, counterfeit, and void. The word moral is a pure metaphysical symbol, possessing no more intrinsic virtue than the radical sign.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Mason,” said Van Meter thrusting into the conversation, “but I am quite certain that you mistake the request of my friend. He is not attempting to secure any sum of money. He simply desires to retain the title to his land and prevent its sale, until he can determine the extent of its oil production.”
“For what length of time?” asked Mason.
“Well,” said the grazier, “I scarcely know. One year might be time enough, or even less than one year; while, on the other hand, it might require several years. You see, if I can prevent the land from being sold, and keep it in my name until the territory is developed, then if oil is found in paying quantities I can meet all these notes, and if the land is dry I am no worse off. At any rate, I want to hold on to the land and see.”
“Are there judgments of record against you?” inquired Mason.
“Not yet,” replied Alshire, “but Farras is preparing to sue on the notes and rush the sale through. Can I stop him; can I hold the sale off?” There was anxiety in the grazier's voice.
Randolph Mason began to walk to and fro across the room with an unsteady nervous stride.
“Easy,” he muttered, “easy as learning to lie.” Then he stopped by the table and looked flown sharply at the great Alshire.
“Have you two friends,” he asked, “nonresidents of your State, whom you can trust?”
“Yes,” responded the grazier, “Mr. Van Meter here in New York, and Morgan Gaston now in Ohio, they will both stand by me.”
“Then,” said Mason, “listen to me, and do as I advise, and the sale of your property will be as far distant years from to-day as it seems this afternoon. First make an oil lease for a long term, say thirty years, to your non-resident friend of Ohio, giving him all the oil privileges, but, for your own protection in case of the death of the lessee, incorporate in the instrument a clause permitting the lessor the right to annul the lease at any time by the payment of a small sum. Have the instrument show also that the entire compensation for the lease has been fully paid in advance. Then make another lease renting all your remaining property rights to your friend Mr. Van Meter of this city. Have this second lease for a similar term and of similar provisions to the first, and the entire compensation for it likewise paid in advance. Then you have but to record the instruments, employ an attorney, and sit down in the shadow of your house. The hair on your head will have thinned vastly before the litigation over your complicated affairs terminates in a final decree of sale.” Rufus Alshire leaned forward listening eagerly. “But won't Farras sue me,” he asked, “won't he attack the leases?”
“Certainly,” said Mason, “he will at once do one of two things; either he will bring an action at law on the notes, or he will attempt to embrace the whole matter in a chancery suit. If he sues at law, resist and attempt to fight through the superior courts. When he finally obtains a judgment at law in your State, he will be compelled to resort to a suit in chancery for the purpose of selling the land. In either event he must come finally into a court of chancery and include the holders of these leases as parties defendant to his action. When this is done, the non resident lessees are not to appear, and he will be able to obtain service on them only by an order of publication. You alone will fight this chancery suit through the lower and superior courts, and just before a sale of the land is ordered by the court of last resort, one of the non resident lessees mast appear, and by virtue of the statutory provision applying to such cases, file his bill of review and open up the whole matter, enjoin the sale, fight the case over again and again through the superior court. When this new litigation finally draws near to a close and the land is again ordered sold, the remaining non-resident must appear, bring his action in the Circuit Court of the United States, enjoin the sale, and proceed with his fight.
“By this time,” continued Mason, placing his bony hand on the giant's shoulder, “there will probably be gray streaks in your beard, and if you wish to run this litigation on into eternity, you will have only to produce some collateral heir.”
The huge Alshire looked up at the strange man beside him. “Is all this possible?” he asked in astonishment.
Randolph Mason did not at once answer; he walked stumblingly across the room to his chair and sat down by the table. His form was thin and gaunt, and along the border of his forehead the veins were purple and swollen. After a time he turned toward the powerful grazier, his face ugly with a sneer. “To the law,” he said, “all things are possible—even justice.”
ONE morning in the early winter the red roan horse, with his head over the high fence of his pasture, saw two men standing in the neighboring meadow contemplating in silence a gigantic derrick. One he immediately recognized as his master Rufus Alshire, and the other resembled in a very large degree a certain obnoxious person who on a memorable summer night had smeared his well kept mane with most disagreeable petroleum.
Presently the grazier spoke. “I judge that it will not now be necessary for Jerry to invoke the tedium of Federal tribunals, there seems to be grease enough here to pay everything and wind up the lawsuits.”
The driller looked up at the oil streaming down from the timbers of the derrick; then he made a mighty angular gesture with his bare right arm.
“By jolly!” he said, “there is money enough in that hole to pay off the national debt.”
CARPER did not recall that he had ever noticed the ugly details of the courtroom before,—the high, soiled ceiling, the rows of benches, worn, broken, empty as a fool's heart, the clerk's desk, and the presumptuous bench of the judge; the long tables, too, for the attorneys, heaped with papers, books, and dusty covers, a farrago of disorder—how ugly they were!
Carper looked up at the judge. The man's black silk robe fell away in sharp straight folds; he sat erect like a bronze cast, his face turned half toward the window in order that he might better read the paper before him. How power had changed this face! Carper remembered idly that, years before, the face of this man had been sweet, tender, lit with kindness. Now it was as hard as white ivory.
The attorneys at the table were talking in subdued whispers; Carper did not hear; he was wondering vaguely if the long slim fingers of the judge ever ached as his head was aching. The conjecture was unique.
It was difficult for Carper to realize his position. His clothing was certainly better than that of any other man in the court-room, He was quite certain that his face was the same powerful, clean-cut, immobile mask that it had been always. The world did not know, it did not even suspect. If one had asked the clerk yonder for a financial rating on Russell Carper, the clerk would have shrugged his shoulder and written six figures on the margin of his record.. Yet this was the end,—the end.
Over by the window stood a prisoner in the custody of the marshal. The man was poor, miserably poor; his clothes were clean, threadbare, ancient as the law. Carper knew the story. The man was a little shopkeeper; his wife was ill,—dying, the deputy said. There were children, too, hungry, naked, absurdly miserable, and the crime,—some petty revenue infraction. He would be presently required to pay his fine, and, failing that, would be locked up in a cell. It was the law, heartless as an image. Yet Carper wondered listlessly if one from beyond the world's rim on the quest of the good would not take this man, and leave the others, leave all the others—the judge with his blue-veined patriciate face, the clerks with their lank jaws, the attorneys, with their expression of abominable indifference, and himself. Well, the machinery of human justice was awry. Then he wondered at the condition that bred this surmise. How was it possible to reflect so indolently upon the condition of another when his own was perilous. Still, such speculations obtained with men, it is said, in great crises, and at the grave's edge.
Presently the judge laid down his papers and began to speak. Carper heard him as one speaking a long distance away. At first the words seemed indistinct and without meaning; then he caught them full, as one waking suddenly catches and understands the conversation of his fellow.
“Our commissioner's report,” the judge was saying, “shows that this receiver has now in his custody three hundred and seventeen thousand dollars belonging to the stockholders of the Massachusetts Iron Company. At a former term of this court an order was entered directing the receiver to distribute this fund in accordance with a previous decree. At that term this order was resisted upon the ground that the decree was not sufficiently explicit; which objection the court, upon consideration, overruled. Later, the payment was sought to be held back upon the ground that this order was improvidently awarded, and a motion made to revoke, which was also overruled. And still later innumerable technical objections have been offered by the attorney for the receiver, all of which this court considers insufficient and trivial.”
At this point one of the attorneys for Carper arose. “If your honor please,” he said, “we ask to be heard in defense of our client. We think that it can yet be shown that this order should not be enforced.” Then he sat down.
The blue veins in the face of the jurist grew darker. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “cannot now be heard. The time of this court has already been much consumed by unprofitable argument. On yesterday the stockholders of the Massachusetts Iron Company applied for a rule, requiring Russell Carper, receiver, to appear and make answer, if any he has, why he should not be attached and punished for contempt in disobeying the orders of this court. The rule I have ordered to issue returnable tomorrow morning at ten o'clock.”
The judge handed the paper down to the clerk, and directed the next case to be called. Then he leaned back in his chair with the huge unconcern of one well removed from the grip of his fellows.
It was the end. But to Carper it was all as unreal as the yesterday. He seemed to be out of the scene, and, for that, out of himself, an idle spectator. His attorneys were whispering gravely. They were telling him that the game was now played out. There was nothing more to do. He must direct his banker to pay over the money. Even these hired fighters did not suspect; they presumed the delay was favorable to some deal in stocks. The truth—only he, Carper, knew the truth. There was grim humor in the huge deception.
On the way out of the court-room Carper stopped and handed the clerk the only bill in his pockets. It would pay the fine of the shopkeeper. The whole thing was an immensely clever little comedy, and he wanted to see the sunshine come back into the shopkeeper's face.
CARPER had been given the long afternoon to arrange some scheme, to plan some way out, but he allowed it to slip by like any leisure day. His mind was indolent, absurdly indolent. In all the other crises of his life, it had been restless as a blown wave. This day it was sluggish. Realizing the end, it had folded its arms. It was difficult to appreciate that his career was ripped off like a rotten seam. That afternoon his broker had talked confidentially of a certain railroad venture. Men from the West had begged the use of his name in the organization of a trust embracing the copper mines of a State. He had been asked to contribute to a great charity. This night, the last night, in his library there was yet no sign of that ruin which sat by the hearthstone. The fire was warm; the surroundings wore luxurious; the shelves were filled with books; from the walls the stern faces of his forbears looked down, haughty, relentless as their lives had shown. It was difficult to realize that he was an embezzler and a bankrupt, suspended above a vacuous abyss by a line that the to-morrow would cut short.
For five years he had been the receiver of the Massachusetts Iron Company. In those five years he had bought and sold on the street with the abandon of a master. He had used the funds of this company as a workman would use a tool left lying in his shop. He had won great sums, and he had lost until the very earth seemed slipping away beneath him.
Then the slump in the stocks of a great railroad system caught him, and he had put in every dollar of this trust fund and watched it vanish like a vapor. Still, no one knew. Carper's reputation stood on the street flawless, perfect in outline, an empty shell—but no one knew.
When the stockholders of the Massachusetts Iron Company finally demanded a reorganization, he had employed the best legal talent and thrust in every delay of the law. The fight had gone on year after year, from court to court. Orders had been entered and dissolved; decrees had been made and reversed; hearings had been granted by superior courts, and rehearings, but the end, long delayed, came finally.
The stockholders had applied for a rule. It was the most summary proceeding known to the law. To-morrow he must pay the money, or go to prison a felon. The end loomed like the ragged outlines of a cliff.
To Carper this end seemed atrociously unjust. He had worked so hard, so hard: the best that was in him; the good days of his life had been given up to this labor It had been his boyhood dream to be a factor in great affairs,—the bitter labor of his youth, and, in part, the realization of his middle life. He had cut every other thing away with a hand that never once had trembled. It was his right to win, if there was any justice anywhere. But to-morrow was the end. To-morrow the court would strip him naked as a bone.
He had heard many a sleek pastor discourse glibly upon the eternal justice of Providence. Then he believed it cant with a smattering of truth. Now it was entirely clear that it was cant—but false; a pleasant lie like the housewife tale of fairies.
Carper took the cigar from between his teeth and dropped it on the hearth. The game of life was an ugly game. He confessed that he had lost interest in its play. Now that the thought suggested he saw that he had been losing interest all along. It was inertia he had been fighting—the plague of inertia, and for no gain at all. It was a world where, if one sat still, one wasted with monotony; and if one labored, it was only for the purpose of building ships to fly in the air, which, when they were all completed, sat stupidly on the earth or by hap toppled heavily upon the builder, crushing out his heart. He could not understand why men had sometimes said that life was good.
Carper had looked, he believed, into not a few chambers of the temple. The same hooded shape sat in each. If fame was given, the skull was pretty generally crushed with the crown. If wealth was given, the back was broken with the weight. If love was given,—yes, the heart was usually broken with it,—love!
Carper arose and went over to a cabinet in the wall, unlocked the door and took out a big photograph, which he brought over to the fire. It was the picture of a woman, young, beautiful, quivering with the power of life; the mass of dark hair was caught back from her forehead; the eyes were wide, clear, transparent; the nose was straight as the edges of a die, and the throat round, full, marvellously moulded. In the set of the head there was pride of lineage, and the relentless rigor of purity. It was a fine face looking out from a blameless life, strong, innocent, exacting as a child.
The man placed the picture on the mantelshelf, and sat down by the fire. That day was now seven years gone,—seven years! Yesterday was no farther back. Every detail was clear. The shock had stamped them on the lining of his heart. He had loved this woman as a man loves just one time. He was trusting his very life to her keeping; he was going to her for everything that woman could give; all of sweet fellowship, all of tender sympathy, all of love. She was the only woman in the world. The expression is a platitude, but the fact was as real to Carper as the green trees and the sunlight. One could no more have convinced this man that other women held some of the charms of life, than one could have convinced him that light was a liquid. His love had gained the power of a religion; it had gone, farther—-it had gained the majesty of a law.
Then the blow came. Carper had gone to this woman with a case of jewels, the profit of a venture. He remembered how happy she had been: how the light of trustfulness danced in her eyes; how she had carried the jewels to the window in order to see the great rubies change to blood-drops, then she had turned with a playful smile and asked him how he had made so great a sum, and he, like a miserable fool, had blurted out that it was a part of his gains in a deal on the street,—a deal in which he had ruined a little banking house by seizing the vantage of its ignorant mistake. It was the master blunder.
Carper remembered how the blood faded from this woman's face, leaving it ashen gray; how the dull ache of pain gathered in her eyes; how she had come over to him and dropped the jewels slowly into their case, and, without a word, had gone back and sat down by the window. And he knew that the woman of his love was gone out beyond the reach of his fingers. The leash of his love had slipped off and snapped back in his hands.
He remembered the effect upon himself as something entirely foreign to that which writers attribute to men under similar conditions. There was no benumbing horror; no desire to make any violent demonstration of feeling. There was merely a vague loss of strength, as though the bottom of the fountain of vital force had dropped out, and then he grew sick—physically sick. The material man was hurt first, and collapsed, much as it would have done if shot through the stomach with a shell. He felt none of that exaggerated emotion affected by the play-actor.
It was the commonplace sickness of a frightful physical blow.
When the nausea had passed, he had gone over to her and begged to know what it all meant, although he knew quite as well as she. The woman had looked at him with her wide eyes deadened with pain, and said that she had believed him ah honorable man, and had loved him for it, but that now she knew the truth, and she would never be wife to a dishonest man.
He had made his argument then, and it was good. The venture was perfectly legitimate, so recognized and treated by the business men of the land,—nay, more, it was so regarded by the law. These were the standards; there was no other. The customs of business and the law were the rules of right in the marketplaces. Their wisdom was unquestioned. It was the result of all the experience of the race, the conclusion of wise men, laboring with conditions as they were. Had she a right to say that these standards were wrong? He appealed to her sense of fairness. Was she better able to pass upon the right of this transaction than all the merchants learned in the customs of trade,—than all the jurists learned in the wisdom of the law? Was she better able?
Carper pointed out that she lived in an atmosphere of purity high above the din of the fight for life; a land of refined right, refined justice, refined honor, magnificent, but not the world. The world had no perfect code; it was no perfect place; it was not intended to be so, else it would have been so made. It was an indifferent place, governed by the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest, wherein men struggled for footing and the comforts of life. One must conform to conditions as they were, or go to the wall. It was folly, it was idiocy, it was madness to do otherwise.
Trade was like nature—pitiless. There was no measure of consideration for the weakling or the fool. The fight was bitter, remorseless, subject to dangerous shifts. If one was caught and broken, the blame was with the sorry scheme of things, and this a Divine Intelligence maintained, and men could not question that Divine Intelligence. This condition of the world might not be purest or happiest, but it was the condition of the world. It was God's way. Was it wise to call it evil?
Then he shifted. He bade her remember that she had promised to go through life with him. It was a contract she had no right to break. The position she was taking was a frightful contradiction. She was reprehending the customs of trade, and yet there was not a merchant in the market-place who would repudiate his contract. She was charging the law with failure to appreciate the highest shades of right, and yet she was about to do what the law, even in its grossness, recognized and punished as a wrong. She could not stand upon this ground, and do as she was doing. Even if he had done wrong, was she to punish him by doing wrong also? The vice of her position cried out. Her promise had been given. It was immutable. It was her affair to know her mind, to determine what she wanted to do. She had known him for years. In those years there had been ample time to investigate, to conclude, to decide. No one had abridged the freedom of her agency. She had finally become a party to this contract. Could she repudiate it now, like the common rogue in whom principle was wanting?
He bade her remember the gravity of this contract. It involved her life, his life, mayhap the lives of others. He had been shaping everything to this end. Had she the right to ruthlessly destroy all? What would she think of one who having contracted to accompany another into an unknown land should suddenly abandon him on the purlieus of the country? What would she think of one who had contracted to go with another into an unknown sea, and should, when that other had made his ship ready, abandon him at the water's edge? Was she doing better than these?
The woman had not answered at all; dark circles had gathered around her eyes, and the full muscles of her throat relaxed and sank.
Then Carper remembered how he had knelt down beside her and taken her hand in his own,—-her hand, limp, cold, a dead thing.
Besides, he had gone on, he loved her; she was the only woman in his heart. There could never be another. Day and night, and every day and night, his heart cried for her like a tortured child! There was nothing else in all the wide world to live for, to strive for. He had grown to associate her with every hope, every emotion, every ambition, of his life. How should he live on without her! What should he do with his empty days! Pride might carry him crippled through a few, but, there was a limit to the endurance of a man, and what then—what of his empty days then?
If he had been doing wrong, God could find some way to punish him outside of her love. Besides, if he was doing wrong, he needed her the more. He needed her to round out his life, to add honor and purity and right. God had sent her to do this work of good. Was she going to refuse merely because the world was not the sort of place which she believed it to be? Master of Life! the world would be abominably empty without her. He would go anywhere she wished; do anything, be anything, she wished. It was not the applause of men that he wanted in this life, nor the multitude of things. It was her hand on his own; her voice in his ears; her image in his heart forever. He could never get back again to his view-point.
She had loosed the mouth of something in his bosom that clamored for her. It would be content with no other. It would hush for no other. His heart was aching now with the cry. What a place of torture it would be tomorrow, and the next year, and the next.
The tears had rained down this woman's face, but she had shaken her head.
That day was now seven years gone—seven years! Yesterday was no farther back. Well, well! He had been only partly right. The woman's face in his heart he had walled up. The cry for her he had silenced with the opiates of greed. Still they were both there and alive. To-night the wall had slipped away and the anaesthetics were powerless. It was no matter. After all, had she done well? She had lived on, spotless, pure, alone; and he had lived on—to this. Had she done well? That question it was no right of his to answer.
Carper got up from his chair, took the picture from the mantel, broke it across the face and dropped the pieces into the fire. It was not necessary for the marshal's deputy to speculate about this picture.
Then he went over to the cabinet and took out a pack of letters, old, yellow, tied with a faded ribbon, and, selecting one at random, sat down in his chair to read it through. “Dear Heart,” it ran at the beginning, and at the end “I am unutterably lonely, and I love you.” Yes, he recalled the circumstances of its writing well. Then he replaced it with the others and laid them all gently on the fire. They should not be pleasant reading for the marshal.
He had come down into the world, with his heart shredded and every shred aching like a nerve, and from that day he had flown the black flag of piracy. Among all the buccaneers of the street, the hand of none had been heavier, and the brain of none had been keener than his own. From that day every man who had passed up a prisoner on to the deck of his galleon, had walked the plank. The muscles of his face grew tense with the thought.
Somewhere in the house a clock struck ten. Carper arose and walked backward and forward across the room. The spirit of fierce resistance was beginning to awaken. He would not be stripped like a weakling. He would fight, fight—but how? It was hopeless to dream of raising the money. That plan had been discarded long ago. Vain vaporing! There was no way remaining but Brutus's way—the road out into the vastness of eternity was open! The exit was easy. Why should he lag back? Surely he must go later on. For years the world had been a good place to get out of—for seven years.
The man opened a drawer at the bottom of the book-case and took out a weapon—an ancient duelling pistol of his grandfather. He carried the weapon to the table, wiped it carefully, and began to load it. When he had finished, he went over to close the door. On the threshold lay one of the evening papers of the city. Carper picked it up and brought it with him to the light. The headlines caught his attention. It was the story of a great bank defaulter who had gone free by reason of some defect in the law shrewdly pointed out by a lawyer, Randolph Mason.
He remembered the man as a remarkable legal misanthrope. He had heard of him in the Federal courts. Somewhere he had this man's address, jotted down one morning when the administrator of an estate walked out of the Federal court a confessed gigantic thief, but, by this man's counsel, beyond the reach of the law.
Carper looked through one of the files on his table—yes, here was the residence number. The man leaned over and rested his arm on the mantel-shelf. One might not do ill to go; there was time ample. One could come back to the thing of steel later on.
Carper turned suddenly, put on his coat and hat, and passed out into the street, closing the door and locking it carefully behind him. Then he called a cab, gave the number to the driver, and leaned back heavily against the cushion.