Talbot took the proprietor's arm and led him to a carriage in waiting. Then he took him to Pine street, and introduced him, in the most deferential manner, to the broker who held half of New York at his disposal, and knew the city as he knew his alphabet.
The broker took the pair of house-hunters to a private room, and unfolded a map of the city before them. On this he traced, with a well-kept finger-nail, a series of lines,—like those fanciful isothermal definitions that embrace the regions of perennial summer on the range of the Northern Pacific Railroad,—within which social respectability made its home. Within certain avenues and certain streets, he explained that it was a respectable thing to live. Outside of these arbitrary boundaries, nobody who made any pretense to respectability should buy a house. The remainder of the city, was for the vulgar—craftsmen, petty shopkeepers, salaried men, and the shabby-genteel. He insisted that a wealthy man, making an entrance upon New York life, should be careful to locate himself somewhere upon the charmed territory which he defined. He felt in duty bound to say this to Mr. Belcher, as he was a stranger; and Mr. Belcher was, of course, grateful for the information.
Then he armed Mr. Talbot, as Mr. Belcher's city friend and helper, with a bundle of permits, with which they set off upon their quest.
They visited a dozen houses in the course of the afternoon, carefully chosen in their succession by Mr. Talbot, who was as sure of Mr. Belcher's tastes as he was of his own. One street was too quiet, one was too dark; one house was too small, and one was too tame; one house had no stable, another had too small a stable. At last, they came out upon Fifth avenue, and drove up to a double front, with a stable almost as ample and as richly appointed as the house itself. It had been built, and occupied for a year or two, by an exploded millionaire, and was an elephant upon the hands of his creditors. Robert Belcher was happy at once. The marvelous mirrors, the plate glass, the gilded cornices, the grand staircase, the glittering chandeliers, the evidences of lavish expenditure in every fixture, and in all the finish, excited him like wine.
"Now you talk!" said he to the smiling factor; and as he went to the window, and saw the life of the street, rolling by in costly carriages, or sweeping the sidewalks with shining silks and mellow velvets, he felt that he was at home. Here he could see and be seen. Here his splendors could be advertised. Here he could find an expression for his wealth, by the side of which his establishment at Sevenoaks seemed too mean to be thought of without humiliation and disgust. Here was a house that gratified his sensuous nature through and through, and appealed irresistibly to his egregious vanity. He did not know that the grand and gaudy establishment bore the name of "Palgrave's Folly," and, probably, it would have made no difference with him if he had. It suited him, and would, in his hands, become Belcher's Glory.
The sum demanded for the place, though very large, did not cover its original cost, and in this fact Mr. Belcher took great comfort. To enjoy fifty thousand dollars, which somebody else had made, was a charming consideration with him, and one that did much to reconcile him to an expenditure far beyond his original purpose.
When he had finished his examination of the house, he returned to his hotel, as business hours were past, and he could make no further headway that day in his negotiations. The more he thought of the house, the more uneasy he became. Somebody might have seen him looking at it, and so reached the broker first, and snatched it from his grasp. He did not know that it had been in the market for two years, waiting for just such a man as himself.
Talbot was fully aware of the state of Mr. Belcher's mind, and knew that if he did not reach him early the next morning, the proprietor would arrive at the broker's before him. Accordingly, when Mr. Belcher finished his breakfast that morning, he found his factor waiting for him, with the information that the broker would not be in his office for an hour and a-half, and that there was time to look further, if further search were desirable. He hoped that Mr. Belcher would not be in a hurry, or take any step that he would ultimately regret. Mr. Belcher assured him that he knew what he wanted when he saw it, and had no fears about the matter, except that somebody might anticipate him.
"You have determined, then, to buy the house at the price?" said Talbot.
"Yes; I shall just shut my eyes and swallow the whole thing."
"Would you like to get it cheaper?"
"Of course!"
"Then, perhaps you had better leave the talking to me," said Talbot. "These fellows all have a price that they ask, and a smaller one that they will take."
"That's one of the tricks, eh?"
"Yes."
"Then go ahead."
They had a long talk about business, and then Talbot went out, and, after an extended interview with the broker, sent a messenger for Mr. Belcher. When that gentleman came in, he found that Talbot had bought the house for ten thousand dollars less than the price originally demanded. Mr. Belcher deposited a handsome sum as a guaranty of his good faith, and ordered the papers to be made out at once.
After their return to the hotel, Mr. Talbot sat down to a table, and went through a long calculation.
"It will cost you, Mr. Belcher," said the factor, deliberately, "at least twenty-five thousand dollars to furnish that house satisfactorily."
Mr. Belcher gave a long whistle.
"At least twenty-five thousand dollars, and I doubt whether you get off for less than thirty thousand."
"Well, I'm in for it, and I'm going through," said Mr. Belcher.
"Very well," responded Talbot, "now let's go to the best furnisher we can find. I happen to know the man who is at the top of the style, and I suppose the best thing—as you and I don't know much about the matter—is to let him have his own way, and hold him responsible for the results."
"All right," said Belcher; "show me the man."
They found the arbiter of style in his counting-room. Mr. Talbot approached him first, and held a long private conversation with him. Mr. Belcher, in his self-complacency, waited, fancying that Talbot was representing his own importance and the desirableness of so rare a customer, and endeavoring to secure reasonable prices on a large bill. In reality, he was arranging to get a commission out of the job for himself.
If it be objected to Mr. Talbot's mode of giving assistance to his country friends, that it savored of mercenariness, amounting to villainy, it is to be said, on his behalf, that he was simply practicing the morals that Mr. Belcher had taught him. Mr. Belcher had not failed to debauch or debase the moral standard of every man over whom he had any direct influence. If Talbot had practiced his little game upon any other man, Mr. Belcher would have patted his shoulder and told him he was a "jewel." So much of Mr. Belcher's wealth had been won by sharp and more than doubtful practices, that that wealth itself stood before the world as a premium on rascality, and thus became, far and wide, a demoralizing influence upon the feverishly ambitious and the young. Besides, Mr. Talbot quieted what little conscience he had in the matter by the consideration that his commissions were drawn, not from Mr. Belcher, but from the profits which others would make out of him, and the further consideration that it was no more than right for him to get the money back that he had spent, and was spending, for his principal's benefit.
Mr. Belcher was introduced, and the arbiter of style conversed learnedly of Tuscan, Pompeiian, Elizabethan, Louis Quatorze, buhl, marqueterie, &.c., &c., till the head of the proprietor, to whom all these words were strangers, and all his talk Greek, was thrown into a hopeless muddle.
Mr. Belcher listened to him as long as he could do so with patience, and then brought him to a conclusion by a slap upon his knee.
"Come, now!" said he, "you understand your business, and I understand mine. If you were to take up guns and gutta-percha, I could probably talk your head off, but I don't know anything about these things. What I want is something right. Do the whole thing up brown. Do you understand that?"
The arbiter of style smiled pityingly, and admitted that he comprehended his customer.
It was at last arranged that the latter should make a study of the house, and furnish it according to his best ability, within a specified sum of expenditure and a specified period of time; and then the proprietor took his leave.
Mr. Belcher had accomplished a large amount of business within two days, but he had worked according to his habit. The dinner party remained, and this was the most difficult business that he had ever undertaken, yet he had a strong desire to see how it was done. He learned quickly what he undertook, and he had already "discounted," to use his own word, a certain amount of mortification connected with the affair.
CHAPTER IX.
MRS. TALBOT GIVES HER LITTLE DINNER PARTY, AND MR. BELCHER MAKES AN EXCEEDINGLY PLEASANT ACQUAINTANCE.
Mrs. Talbot had a very dear friend. She had been her dear friend ever since the two had roomed together at boarding-school. Sometimes she had questioned whether in reality Mrs. Helen Dillingham was her dear friend, or whether the particular friendship was all on the other side; but Mrs. Dillingham had somehow so manipulated the relation as always to appear to be the favored party. When, therefore, the dinner was determined upon, Mrs. Dillingham's card of invitation was the first one addressed. She was a widow and alone. She complemented Mr. Belcher, who was also alone.
Exactly the position Mrs. Dillingham occupied in society, it would be hard to define. Everybody invited her, and yet everybody, without any definite reason, considered her a little "off color." She was beautiful, she was accomplished, she talked wonderfully well, she was au fait in art, literature, society. She was superficially religious, and she formed the theater of the struggle of a black angel and a white one, neither of whom ever won a complete victory, or held whatever advantage he gained for any considerable length of time. Nothing could be finer than Mrs. Dillingham in her fine moods; nothing coarser when the black angel was enjoying one of his victories, and the white angel had sat down to breathe. It was the impression given in these latter moments that fixed upon her the suspicion that she was not quite what she ought to be. The flowers bloomed where she walked, but there was dust on them. The cup she handed to her friends was pure to the eye, but it had a muddy taste. She was a whole woman in sympathy, power, beauty, and sensibility, and yet one felt that somewhere within she harbored a devil—a refined devil in its play, a gross one when it had the woman at unresisting advantage.
Next came the Schoonmakers, an elderly gentleman and his wife, who dined out a great deal, and lived on the ancient respectability of their family. They talked much about "the old New Yorkers," and of the inroads and devastations of the parvenu. They were thoroughly posted on old family estates and mansions, the intermarriages of the Dutch aristocracy, and the subject of heraldry. Mr. Schoonmaker made a hobby of old Bibles, and Mrs. Schoonmaker of old lace. The two hobbies combined gave a mingled air of erudition and gentility to the pair that was quite impressive, while their unquestionably good descent was a source of social capital to all of humbler origin who were fortunate enough to draw them to their tables.
Next came the Tunbridges. Mr. Tunbridge was the president of a bank, and Mrs. Tunbridge was the president of Mr. Tunbridge—a large, billowy woman, who "brought him his money," according to the speech of the town. Mr. Tunbridge had managed his trust with great skill, and was glad at any time, and at any social sacrifice, to be brought into contact with men who carried large deposit accounts.
Next in order were Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish. Mr. Cavendish was a lawyer—a hook-nosed, hawk-eyed man, who knew a little more about everything than anybody else did, and was celebrated in the city for successfully managing the most intractable cases, and securing the most princely fees. If a rich criminal were brought into straits before the law, he always sent for Mr. Cavendish. If the unprincipled managers of a great corporation wished to ascertain just how closely before the wind they could sail without being swamped, they consulted Mr. Cavendish. He was everywhere accounted a great lawyer by those who estimated acuteness to be above astuteness, strategy better than an open and fair fight, and success more to be desired than justice.
It would weary the reader to go through with a description of Mrs. Talbot's dinner party in advance. They were such people as Mr. and Mrs. Talbot naturally drew around them. The minister was invited, partly as a matter of course, and partly to occupy Mr. Schoonmaker on the subject of Bibles. The doctor was invited because Mrs. Talbot was fond of him, and because he always took "such an interest in the family."
When Mr. Belcher arrived at Talbot's beautiful but quiet house, the guests had all assembled, and, clothing their faces with that veneer of smile which hungry people who are about to dine at another man's expense feel compelled to wear in the presence of their host, they were chatting over the news of the day.
It is probable that the great city was never the scene of a personal introduction that gave more quiet amusement to an assemblage of guests than that of the presentation of Mr. Belcher. That gentleman's first impression as he entered the room was that Talbot had invited a company of clergymen to meet him. His look of surprise as he took a survey of the assembly was that of a knave who found himself for the first time in good company; but as he looked from the gentlemen to the ladies, in their gay costumes and display of costly jewelry, he concluded that they could not be the wives of clergymen. The quiet self-possession of the group, and the consciousness that he was not en régle in the matter of dress, oppressed him; but he was bold, and he knew that they knew that he was worth a million of dollars.
The "stiff upper lip" was placed at its stiffest in the midst of his florid expanse of face, as, standing still, in the center of the room, he greeted one after another to whom he was presented, in a way peculiarly his own.
He had never been in the habit of lifting his hat, in courtesy to man or woman. Even the touching its brim with his fingers had degenerated into a motion that began with a flourish toward it, and ended with a suave extension of his palm toward the object of his obeisance. On this occasion he quite forgot that he had left his hat in the hall, and so, assuming that it still crowned his head, he went through with eight or ten hand flourishes that changed the dignified and self-contained assembly into a merry company of men and women, who would not have been willing to tell Mr. Belcher what they were laughing at.
The last person to whom he was introduced was Mrs. Dillingham, the lady who stood nearest to him—so near that the hand flourish seemed absurd even to him, and half died in the impulse to make it. Mrs. Dillingham, in her black and her magnificent diamonds, went down almost upon the floor in the demonstration of her admiring and reverential courtesy, and pronounced the name of Mr. Belcher with a musical distinctness of enunciation that arrested and charmed the ears of all who heard it. It seemed as if every letter were swimming in a vehicle compounded of respect, veneration, and affection. The consonants flowed shining and smooth like gold-fish through a globe of crystal illuminated by the sun. The tone in which she spoke the name seemed to rob it of all vulgar associations, and to inaugurate it as the key-note of a fine social symphony.
Mr. Belcher was charmed, and placed by it at his ease. It wrought upon him and upon the company the effect which she designed. She was determined he should not only show at his best, but that he should be conscious of the favor she had won for him.
Before dinner was announced, Mr. Talbot made a little speech to his guests, ostensibly to give them the good news that Mr. Belcher had purchased the mansion, built and formerly occupied by Mr. Palgrave, but really to explain that he had caught him in town on business, and taken him at the disadvantage of distance from his evening dress, though, of course, he did not say it in such and so many words. The speech was unnecessary. Mrs. Dillingham had told the whole story in her own unapproachable way.
When dinner was announced Mr. Belcher was requested to lead Mrs. Talbot to her seat, and was himself placed between his hostess and Mrs. Dillingham. Mrs. Talbot was a stately, beautiful woman, and bore off her elegant toilet like a queen. In her walk into the dining-room, her shapely arm rested upon the proprietor's, and her brilliant eyes looked into his with an expression that flattered to its utmost all the fool there was in him. There was a little rivalry between the "dear friends;" but the unrestricted widow was more than a match for the circumspect and guarded wife, and Mr. Belcher was delighted to find himself seated side by side with the former.
He had not talked five minutes with Mrs. Dillingham before he knew her. The exquisite varnish that covered her person and her manners not only revealed, but made beautiful, the gnarled and stained wood beneath. Underneath the polish he saw the element that allied her with himself. There was no subject upon which she could not lead or accompany him with brilliant talk, yet he felt that there was a coarse under-current of sympathy by which he could lead her, or she could lead him—where?
The courtly manners of the table, the orderly courses that came and went as if the domestic administration were some automatic machine, and the exquisite appointments of the board, all exercised a powerful moral influence upon him; and though they did not wholly suppress him, they toned him down, so that he really talked well. He had a fund of small wit and drollery that was sufficient, at least, for a single dinner; and, as it was quaint and fresh, the guests were not only amused, but pleased. In the first place, much could be forgiven to the man who owned Palgrave's Folly. No small consideration was due to one who, in a quiet country town, had accumulated a million dollars. A person who had the power to reward attention with grand dinners and splendid receptions was certainly not a person to be treated lightly.
Mr. Tunbridge undertook to talk finance with him, but retired under the laugh raised by Mr. Belcher's statement that he had been so busy making money that he had had no time to consider questions of finance. Mr. Schoonmaker and the minister were deep in Bibles, and on referring some question to Mr. Belcher concerning "The Breeches Bible," received in reply the statement that he had never arrived any nearer a Breeches Bible than a pocket handkerchief with the Lord's Prayer on it. Mr. Cavendish simply sat and criticised the rest. He had never seen anybody yet who knew anything about finance. The Chamber of Commerce was a set of old women, the Secretary of the Treasury was an ass, and the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means was a person he should be unwilling to take as an office-boy. As for him, he never could see the fun of old Bibles. If he wanted a Bible he would get a new one.
Each man had his shot, until the conversation fell from the general to the particular, and at last Mr. Belcher found himself engaged in the most delightful conversation of his life with the facile woman at his side. He could make no approach to her from any quarter without being promptly met. She was quite as much at home, and quite as graceful, in bandying badinage as in expatiating upon the loveliness of country life and the ritual of her church.
Mr. Talbot did not urge wine upon his principal, for he saw that he was excited and off his guard; and when, at length, the banquet came to its conclusion, the proprietor declined to remain with the gentlemen and the supplementary wine and cigars, but took coffee in the drawing-room with the ladies. Mrs. Dillingham's eye was on Mrs. Talbot, and when she saw her start toward them from her seat, she took Mr. Belcher's arm for a tour among the artistic treasures of the house.
"My dear Kate," said Mrs. Dillingham, "give me the privilege of showing Mr. Belcher some of your beautiful things."
"Oh, certainly," responded Mrs. Talbot, her face flushing, "and don't forget yourself, my child, among the rest."
Mrs. Dillingham pressed Mr. Belcher's arm, an action which said: "Oh, the jealous creature!"
They went from painting to painting, and sculpture to sculpture, and then, over a cabinet of bric-à-brac, she quietly led the conversation to Mr. Belcher's prospective occupation of the Palgrave mansion. She had nothing in the world to do. She should be so happy to assist poor Mrs. Belcher in the adjustment of her housekeeping. It would be a real pleasure to her to arrange the furniture, and do anything to help that quiet country lady in inaugurating the splendors of city life. She knew all the caterers, all the confectioners, all the modistes, all the city ways, and all the people worth knowing. She was willing to become, for Mrs. Belcher's sake, city-directory, commissionaire, adviser, director, everything. She would take it as a great kindness if she could be permitted to make herself useful.
All this was honey to the proprietor. How Mrs. Dillingham would shine in his splendid mansion! How she would illuminate his landau! How she would save his quiet wife, not to say himself, from the gaucheries of which both would be guilty until the ways of the polite world could be learned! How delightful it would be to have a sympathetic friend whose intelligent and considerate advice would be always ready!
When the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room, and disturbed the confidential tête-à-tête of these new friends, Mrs. Dillingham declared it was time to go, and Mr. Belcher insisted on seeing her home in his own carriage.
The dinner party broke up with universal hand-shakings. Mr. Belcher was congratulated on his magnificent purchase and prospects. They would all be happy to make Mrs. Belcher's acquaintance, and she really must lose no time in letting them know when she would be ready to receive visitors.
Mr. Belcher saw Mrs. Dillingham home. He held her pretty hands at parting, as if he were an affectionate older brother who was about to sail on a voyage around the world. At last he hurriedly relinquished her to the man-servant who had answered her summons, then ran down the steps and drove to his hotel.
Mounting to his rooms, he lit every burner in his parlor, and then surveyed himself in the mirror.
"Where did she find it, old boy? Eh? Where did she find it? Was it the figure? Was it the face? Hang the swallow tails! Must you, sir, come to such a humiliation? How are the mighty fallen! The lion of Sevenoaks in the skin of an ass! But it must be. Ah! Mrs. Belcher—Mrs. Belcher—Mrs. Belcher! You are good, but you are lumpy. You were pretty once, but you are no Mrs. Dillingham. By the gods! Wouldn't she swim around my house like a queen! Far in azure depths of space, I behold a star! Its light shines for me. It doesn't? It must not? Who says that? Did you address that remark to me, sir? By the way, how do you think you got along? Did you make a fool of yourself, or did you make a fool of somebody? Honors are easy. Let Robert Belcher alone! Is Toll making money a little too fast? What do you think? Perhaps you will settle that question by and by. You will keep him while you can use him. Then Toll, my boy, you can drift. In the meantime, splendor! and in the meantime let Sevenoaks howl, and learn to let Robert Belcher alone."
From these dizzy heights of elation Mr. Belcher descended to his bed and his heavy dreams, and the next morning found him whirling away at the rate of thirty miles an hour, but not northward. Whither was he going?
CHAPTER X.
WHICH TELLS HOW A LAWYER SPENT HIS VACATION IN CAMP, AND TOOK HOME A SPECIMEN OF GAME THAT HE HAD NEVER BEFORE FOUND IN THE WOODS.
It was a bright moonlight night when Mike Conlin and Jim started off from Sevenoaks for home, leaving Mr. Balfour and his boy to follow. The old horse had a heavy load, and it was not until an hour past midnight that Mike's house was reached. There Jim made the new clothes, comprising a complete outfit for his boarders at Number Ten, into a convenient package, and swinging it over his shoulders, started for his distant cabin on foot. Mike, after resting himself and his horse, was to follow in the morning with the tools and stores, so as to arrive at the river at as early an hour as Mr. Balfour could complete the journey from Sevenoaks, with his lighter load and swifter horses.
Jim Fenton, who had lain still for several days, and was full of his schemes for Mr. Balfour and his protégés in camp, and warm with his memories of Miss Butterworth, simply gloried in his moonlight tramp. The accumulated vitality of his days of idleness was quite enough to make all the fatigues before him light and pleasant. At nine o'clock the next morning he stood by the side of his boat again. The great stillness of the woods, responding in vivid color to the first kisses of the frost, half intoxicated him. No world-wide wanderer, returning after many years to the home of his childhood, could have felt more exulting gladness than he, as he shoved his boat from the bank and pushed up the shining stream in the face of the sun.
Benedict and Harry had not been idle during his absence. A deer had been shot and dressed; trout had been caught and saved alive; a cave had been dug for the preservation of vegetables; and when Jim shouted, far down the stream, to announce his approach, there were three happy persons on shore, waiting to welcome him—Turk being the third, and apparently oblivious of the fact that he was not as much a human being as any of the party. Turk added the "tiger" to Harry's three cheers, and Jim was as glad as a boy when his boat touched the shore, and he received the affectionate greetings of the party.
A choice meal was nearly in readiness for him, but not a mouthful would he taste until he had unfolded his treasures, and displayed to the astonished eyes of Mr. Benedict and the lad the comfortable clothing he had brought for them.
"Take 'em to Number Ten and put 'em on," said Jim. "I'm a goin' to eat with big folks to-day, if clo'es can make 'em. Them's yer stockin's and them's yer boots, and them's yer indigoes and them's yer clo'es."
Jim's idea of the word "indigoes" was, that it drew its meaning partly from the color of the articles designated, and partly from their office. They were blue undergoes—in other words, blue flannel shirts.
Jim sat down and waited. He saw that, while Harry was hilarious over his good fortune, Mr. Benedict was very silent and humble. It was twenty minutes before Harry reappeared; and when he came bounding toward Jim, even Turk did not know him. Jim embraced him, and could not help feeling that he had acquired a certain amount of property in the lad.
When Mr. Benedict came forth from the little cabin, and found Jim chaffing and petting his boy, he was much embarrassed. He could not speak, but walked directly past the pair, and went out upon the bank of the river, with his eyes averted.
Jim comprehended it all. Leaving Harry, he went up to his guest, and placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Will ye furgive me, Mr. Benedict? I didn't go fur to make it hard fur ye."
"Jim," said Mr. Benedict, struggling to retain his composure, "I can never repay your overwhelming kindness, and the fact oppresses me."
"Well," said Jim, "I s'pose I don't make 'lowance enough fur the difference in folks. Ye think ye oughter pay fur this sort o' thing, an' I don't want no pay. I git comfort enough outen it, anyway."
Benedict turned, took and warmly pressed Jim's hand, and then they went back to their dinner. After they had eaten, and Jim had sat down to his pipe, he told his guests that they were to have visitors that night—a man from the city and his little boy—and that they would spend a fortnight with them. The news alarmed Mr. Benedict, for his nerves were still weak, and it was a long time before he could be reconciled to the thought of intrusion upon his solitude; but Jim reassured him by his enthusiastic accounts of Mr. Balfour, and Harry was overjoyed with the thought of having a companion in the strange lad.
"I thought I'd come home an' git ye ready," said Jim; "fur I knowed ye'd feel bad to meet a gentleman in yer old poor-house fixin's. Burn 'em or bury 'em as soon as I'm gone. I don't never want to see them things agin."
Jim went off again down the river, and Mr. Benedict and Harry busied themselves in cleaning the camp, and preparing Number Ten for the reception of Mr. Balfour and his boy, having previously determined to take up their abode with Jim for the winter. The latter had a hard afternoon. He was tired with his night's tramp, and languid with loss of sleep. When he arrived at the landing he found Mr. Balfour waiting. He had passed Mike Conlin on the way, and even while they were talking the Irishman came in sight. After half-an-hour of busy labor, the goods and passengers were bestowed, Mike was paid for the transportation, and the closing journeys of the day were begun.
When Jim had made half of the weary row up the river, he ran into a little cove to rest and wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Then he informed Mr. Balfour that he was not alone in the camp, and, in his own inimitable way, having first enjoined the strictest secrecy, he told the story of Mr. Benedict and his boy.
"Benedict will hunt and fish with ye better nor I can," said he, "an' he's a better man nor I be any way; but I'm at yer sarvice, and ye shall have the best time in the woods that I can give ye."
Then he enlarged upon the accomplishments of Benedict's boy.
"He favors yer boy a little," said Jim, eyeing the lad closely. "Dress 'em alike, and they wouldn't be a bad pair o' brothers."
Jim did not recognize the germs of change that existed in his accidental remark, but he noticed that a shade of pain passed over the lawyer's face.
"Where is the other little feller that ye used to brag over, Mr. Balfour?" inquired Jim.
"He's gone, Jim; I lost him. He died a year ago."
Jim had no words with which to meet intelligence of this character, so he did not try to utter any; but, after a minute of silence, he said: "That's what floors me. Them dies that's got everything, and them lives that's got nothin'—lives through thick and thin. It seems sort o' strange to me that the Lord runs everything so kind o' car'less like, when there ain't nobody to bring it to his mind."
Mr. Balfour made no response, and Jim resumed his oars. But for the moon, it would have been quite dark when Number Nine was reached, but, once there, the fatigues of the journey were forgotten. It was Thede Balfour's first visit to the woods, and he was wild with excitement. Mr. Benedict and Harry gave the strangers a cordial greeting. The night was frosty and crisp, and Jim drew his boat out of the water, and permitted his stores to remain in it through the night. A hearty supper prepared them all for sleep, and Jim led his city friends to Number Ten, to enjoy their camp by themselves. A camp-fire, recently lighted, awaited them, and, with its flames illuminating the weird scenes around them, they went to sleep.
The next day was Sunday. To the devoutly disposed, there is no silence that seems so deeply hallowed as that which pervades the forest on that holy day. No steamer plows the river; no screaming, rushing train profanes the stillness; the beasts that prowl, and the birds that fly, seem gentler than on other days; and the wilderness, with its pillars and arches, and aisles, becomes a sanctuary. Prayers that no ears can hear but those of the Eternal; psalms that win no responses except from the echoes; worship that rises from hearts unencumbered by care, and undistracted by pageantry and dress—all these are possible in the woods; and the great Being to whom the temples of the world are reared cannot have failed to find, in ten thousand instances, the purest offerings in lonely camps and cabins.
They had a delightful and bountiful breakfast, and, at its close, they divided themselves naturally into a double group. The two boys and Turk went off by themselves to watch the living things around them, while the men remained together by the camp-fire.
Mr. Balfour drew out a little pocket-Testament, and was soon absorbed in reading. Jim watched him, as a hungry dog watches a man at his meal, and at last, having grown more and more uneasy, he said:
"Give us some o' that, Mr. Balfour."
Mr. Balfour looked up and smiled, and then read to him the parable of the talents.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout it," said Jim, at the conclusion, "but it seems to me the man was a little rough on the feller with one talent. 'Twas a mighty small capital to start with, an' he didn't give 'im any chance to try it over; but what bothers me the most is about the man's trav'lin' into a fur country. They hadn't no chance to talk with 'im about it, and git his notions. It stan's to reason that the feller with one talent would think his master was stingy, and be riled over it."
"You must remember, Jim, that all he needed was to ask for wisdom in order to receive it," said Mr. Benedict.
"No; the man that traveled into a fur country stan's for the Almighty, and he'd got out o' the way. He'd jest gi'n these fellers his capital, and quit, and left 'em to go it alone. They couldn't go arter 'im, and he couldn't 'a' hearn a word they said. He did what he thought was all right, and didn't want to be bothered. I never think about prayin' till I git into a tight place. It stan's to reason that the Lord don't want people comin' to him to do things that they can do theirselves. I shouldn't pray for breath; I sh'd jest h'ist the winder. If I wanted a bucket o' water, I sh'd go for it. If a man's got common sense, and a pair o' hands, he hain't no business to be botherin' other folks till he gits into what he can't git out of. When he's squeezed, then in course he'll squeal. It seems to me that it makes a sort of a spooney of a man to be always askin' for what he can git if he tries. If the feller that only had one talent had brushed round, he could 'a' made a spec on it, an' had somethin' to show fur it, but he jest hid it. I don't stan' up for 'im. I think he was meaner nor pusly not to make the best on't, but he didn't need to pray for sense, for the man didn't want 'im to use no more nor his nateral stock, an' he knowed if he used that he'd be all right."
"But we are told to pray, Jim," said Mr. Balfour, "and assured that it is pleasant to the Lord to receive our petitions. We are even told to pray for our daily bread."
"Well, it can't mean jest that, fur the feller that don't work for't don't git it, an' he hadn't oughter git it. If he don't lift his hands, but jest sets with his mouth open, he gits mostly flies. The old birds, with a nest full o' howlin' young ones, might go on, I s'pose, pickin' up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an' feedin' 'em, but they don't. They jest poke 'em out o' the nest, an' larn 'em to fly an' pick up their own livin'; an' that's what makes birds on 'em. They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest to poke 'em out, and let 'em slide. I don't see many prayin' folks, an' I don't see many folks any way; but I have a consait that a feller can pray so much an' do so little, that he won't be nobody. He'll jest grow weaker an' weaker all the time."
"I don't see," said Mr. Balfour, laughing, and turning to Mr. Benedict, "but we've had the exposition of our Scripture."
The former had always delighted to hear Jim talk, and never lost an opportunity to set him going; but he did not know that Jim's exposition of the parable had a personal motive. Mr. Benedict knew that it had, and was very serious over it. His nature was weak in many respects. His will was weak; he had no combativeness; he had a wish to lean. He had been baffled and buffeted in the world. He had gone down into the darkness, praying all the way; and now that he had come out of it, and had so little society; now that his young life was all behind him, and so few earthly hopes beckoned him on, he turned with a heart morbidly religious to what seemed to him the only source of comfort open to him. Jim had watched him with pain. He had seen him, from day to day, spending his hours alone, and felt that prayer formed almost the staple of his life. He had seen him willing to work, but knew that his heart was not in it. He was not willing to go back into the world, and assert his place among men. The poverty, disease, and disgrace of his former life dwelt in his memory, and he shrank from the conflicts and competitions which would be necessary to enable him to work out better results for himself.
Jim thoroughly believed that Benedict was religiously diseased, and that he never could become a man again until he had ceased to live so exclusively in the spiritual world. He contrived all possible ways to keep him employed. He put responsibility upon him. He stimulated him with considerations of the welfare of Harry. He disturbed him in his retirement. He contrived fatigues that would induce sound sleep. To use his own language, he had tried to cure him of "loppin'," but with very unsatisfactory results.
Benedict comprehended Jim's lesson, and it made an impression upon him; but to break himself of his habit of thought and life was as difficult as the breaking of morbid habits always is. He knew that he was a weak man, and saw that he had never fully developed that which was manliest within him. He saw plainly, too, that his prayers would not develop it, and that nothing but a faithful, bold, manly use of his powers could accomplish the result. He knew that he had a better brain, and a brain better furnished, than that of Robert Belcher, yet he had known to his sorrow, and well-nigh to his destruction, that Robert Belcher could wind him around his finger. Prayer had never saved him from this, and nothing could save him but a development of his own manhood. Was he too old for hope? Could he break away from the delights of his weakness, and grow into something stronger and better? Could he so change the attitude of his soul that it should cease to be exigent and receptive, and become a positive, self-poised, and active force? He sighed when these questions came to him, but he felt that Jim had helped him in many practical ways, and could help him still further.
A stranger, looking upon the group, would have found it a curious and interesting study. Mr. Balfour was a tall, lithe man, with not a redundant ounce of flesh on him. He was as straight as an arrow, bore on his shoulders a fine head that gave evidence in its contour of equal benevolence and force, and was a practical, fearless, straightforward, true man. He enjoyed humor, and though he had a happy way of evoking it from others, possessed or exhibited very little himself. Jim was better than a theater to him. He spent so much of his time in the conflicts of his profession, that in his vacations he simply opened heart and mind to entertainment. A shrewd, frank, unsophisticated nature was a constant feast to him, and though he was a keen sportsman, the woods would have had few attractions without Jim.
Mr. Benedict regarded him with profound respect, as a man who possessed the precise qualities which had been denied to himself—self-assertion, combativeness, strong will, and "push." Even through Benedict's ample beard, a good reader of the human face would have detected the weak chin, while admiring the splendid brow, silken curls, and handsome eyes above it. He was a thoroughly gentle man, and, curiously enough, attracted the interest of Mr. Balfour in consequence of his gentleness. The instinct of defense and protection to everything weak and dependent was strong within the lawyer; and Benedict affected him like a woman. It was easy for the two to become friends, and as Mr. Balfour grew familiar with the real excellences of his new acquaintance, with his intelligence in certain directions, and his wonderful mechanical ingenuity, he conceived just as high a degree of respect for him as he could entertain for one who was entirely unfurnished with those weapons with which the battles of life are fought.
It was a great delight to Jim to see his two friends get along so well together, particularly as he had pressing employment on his hands, in preparing for the winter. So, after the first day, Benedict became Mr. Balfour's guide during the fortnight which he passed in the woods.
The bright light of Monday morning was the signal for the beginning of their sport, and Thede, who had never thrown a fly, was awake at the first day-light; and before Jim had the breakfast of venison and cakes ready, he had strung his tackle and leaned his rod against the cabin in readiness for his enterprise. They had a day of satisfactory fishing, and brought home half-a-hundred spotted beauties that would have delighted the eyes of any angler in the world; and when their golden flesh stood open and broiling before the fire, or hissed and sputtered in the frying-pan, watched by the hungry and admiring eyes of the fishermen, they were attractive enough to be the food of the gods. And when, at last, the group gathered around the rude board, with appetites that seemed measureless, and devoured the dainties prepared for them, the pleasures of the day were crowned.
But all this was comparatively tame sport to Mr. Balfour. He had come for larger game, and waited only for the nightfall to deepen into darkness to start upon his hunt for deer. The moon had passed her full, and would not rise until after the ordinary bed-time. The boys were anxious to be witnesses of the sport, and it was finally concluded, that for once, at least, they should be indulged in their desire.
The voice of a hound was never heard in the woods, and even the "still hunting" practiced by the Indian was never resorted to until after the streams were frozen.
Jim had been busy during the day in picking up pine knots, and digging out old stumps whose roots were charged with pitch. These he had collected and split up into small pieces, so that everything should be in readiness for the "float." As soon as the supper was finished, he brought a little iron "Jack," mounted upon a standard, and proceeded to fix this upright in the bow of the boat. Behind this he placed a square of sheet iron, so that a deer, dazzled by the light of the blazing pine, would see nothing behind it, while the occupants of the boat could see everything ahead without being blinded by the light, of which they could see nothing. Then he fixed a knob of tallow upon the forward sight of Mr. Balfour's gun, so that, projecting in front of the sheet iron screen, it would be plainly visible and render necessary only the raising of the breech to the point of half-hiding the tallow, in order to procure as perfect a range as if it were broad daylight.
All these preparations were familiar to Mr. Balfour, and, loading his heavy shot-gun with a powerful charge, he waited impatiently for the darkness.
At nine o'clock, Jim said it was time to start, and, lighting his torch, he took his seat in the stern of the boat, and bade Mr. Balfour take his place in the bow, where a board, placed across the boat, made him a comfortable seat. The boys, warmly wrapped, took their places together in the middle of the boat, and, clasping one another's hands and shivering with excitement, bade good-night to Mr. Benedict, who pushed them from the shore.
The night was still, and Jim's powerful paddle urged the little craft up the stream with a push so steady, strong, and noiseless, that its passengers might well have imagined that the unseen river-spirits had it in tow. The torch cast its long glare into the darkness on either bank, and made shadows so weird and changeful that the boys imagined they saw every form of wild beast and flight of strange bird with which pictures had made them familiar. Owls hooted in the distance. A wild-cat screamed like a frightened child. A partridge, waked from its perch by a flash of the torch, whirred off into the woods.
At length, after paddling up the stream for a mile, they heard the genuine crash of a startled animal. Jim stopped and listened. Then came the spiteful stroke of a deer's forefeet upon the leaves, and a whistle so sharp, strong and vital, that it thrilled every ear that heard it. It was a question, a protest, a defiance all in one; but not a sign of the animal could be seen. He was back in the cover, wary and watching, and was not to be tempted nearer by the light.
Jim knew the buck, and knew that any delay on his account would be useless.
"I knowed 'im when I hearn 'im whistle, an' he knowed me. He's been shot at from this boat more nor twenty times. 'Not any pine-knots on my plate,' says he. 'I seen 'em afore, an' you can pass.' I used to git kind o' mad at 'im, an' promise to foller 'im, but he's so 'cute, I sort o' like 'im. He 'muses me."
While Jim waited and talked in a low tone, the buck was evidently examining the light and the craft, at his leisure and at a distance. Then he gave another lusty whistle that was half snort, and bounded off into the woods by leaps that struck every foot upon the ground at the same instant, and soon passed beyond hearing.
"Well, the old feller's gone," said Jim, "an' now I know a patch o' lily-pads up the river where I guess we can find a beast that hasn't had a public edication."
The tension upon the nerves of the boys was relieved, and they whispered between themselves about what they had seen, or thought they had seen.
All became still, as Jim turned his boat up the stream again. After proceeding for ten or fifteen minutes in perfect silence, Jim whispered:
"Skin yer eyes, now, Mr. Balfour; we're comin' to a lick."
Jim steered his boat around a little bend, and in a moment it was running in shallow water, among grass and rushes. The bottom of the stream was plainly visible, and Mr. Balfour saw that they had left the river, and were pushing up the debouchure of a sluggish little affluent. They brushed along among the grass for twenty or thirty rods, when, at the same instant, every eye detected a figure in the distance. Two blazing, quiet, curious eyes were watching them. Jim had an instinct which assured him that the deer was fascinated by the light, and so he pushed toward him silently, then stopped, and held his boat perfectly still. This was the signal for Mr. Balfour, and in an instant the woods were startled by a discharge that deafened the silence.
There was a violent splash in the water, a scramble up the bank, a bound or two toward the woods, a pitiful bleat, and then all was still.
"We've got 'im," said Jim. "He's took jest one buckshot through his heart. Ye didn't touch his head nor his legs. He jest run till the blood leaked out and he gi'n it up. Now, boys, you set here, and sing hallelujer till we bring 'im in."
The nose of the little craft was run against the bank, and Mr. Balfour, seizing the torch, sprang on shore, and Jim followed him into the woods. They soon found track of the game by the blood that dabbled the bushes, and stumbled upon the beautiful creature stone dead—fallen prone, with his legs doubled under him. Jim swung him across his shoulders, and, tottering behind Mr. Balfour, bore him back to the boat. Placing him in the bottom, the two men resumed their seats, and Jim, after carefully working himself out of the inlet into the river, settled down to a long, swift stroke that bore them back to the camp just as the moon began to show herself above the trees.
It was a night long to be remembered by the boys, a fitting inauguration of the lawyer's vacation, and an introduction to woodcraft from which, in after years, the neophytes won rare stores of refreshment and health.
Mr. Benedict received them with hearty congratulations, and the perfect sleep of the night only sharpened their desire for further depredations upon the game that lived around them, in the water and on the land.
As the days passed on, they caught trout until they were tired of the sport; they floated for deer at night; they took weary tramps in all directions, and at evening, around the camp-fires, rehearsed their experiences.
During all this period, Mr. Balfour was watching Harry Benedict. The contrast between the lad and his own son was as marked as that between the lad's father and himself, but the positions were reversed. Harry led, contrived, executed. He was positive, facile, amiable, and the boys were as happy together as their parents were. Jim had noticed the remarkable interest that Mr. Balfour took in the boy, and had begun to suspect that he entertained intentions which would deprive the camp of one of its chief sources of pleasure.
One day when the lawyer and his guide were quietly eating their lunch in the forest, Mr. Balfour went to work, in his quiet, lawyer-like way, to ascertain the details of Benedict's history; and he heard them all. When he heard who had benefited by his guide's inventions, and learned just how matters stood with regard to the Belcher rifle, he became, for the first time since he had been in the woods, thoroughly excited. He had a law-case before him as full of the elements of romance as any that he had ever been engaged in. A defrauded inventor, living in the forest in poverty, having escaped from the insane ward of an alms-house, and the real owner of patent rights that were a mine of wealth to the man who believed that death had blotted out all the evidences of his villainy—this was quite enough to excite his professional interest, even had he been unacquainted with the man defrauded. But the position of this uncomplaining, dependent man, who could not fight his own battles, made an irresistible appeal to his sense of justice and his manhood.
The moment, however, that the lawyer proposed to assist in righting the wrong, Mr. Benedict became dangerously excited. He could tell his story, but the thought of going out into the world again, and, particularly of engaging in a conflict with Robert Belcher, was one that he could not entertain. He was happier in the woods than he had been for many years. The life was gradually strengthening him. He hoped the time would come when he could get something for his boy, but, for the present, he could engage in no struggle for reclaiming and maintaining his rights. He believed that an attempt to do it would again drive him to distraction, and that, somehow, Mr. Belcher would get the advantage of him. His fear of the great proprietor had become morbidly acute, and Mr. Balfour could make no headway against it. It was prudent to let the matter drop for a while.
Then Mr. Balfour opened his heart in regard to the boy. He told Benedict of the loss with which he had already acquainted Jim, of the loneliness of his remaining son, of the help that Harry could afford him, the need in which the lad stood of careful education, and the accomplishments he could win among better opportunities and higher society. He would take the boy, and treat him, up to the time of his majority, as his own. If Mr. Benedict could ever return the money expended for him, he could have the privilege of doing so, but it would never be regarded as a debt. Once every year the lawyer would bring the lad to the woods, so that he should not forget his father, and if the time should ever come when it seemed practicable to do so, a suit would be instituted that would give him the rights so cruelly withheld from his natural protector.
The proposition was one which taxed to its utmost Mr. Benedict's power of self-control. He loved his boy better than he loved himself. He hoped that, in some way, life would be pleasanter and more successful to the lad than it had been to him. He did not wish him to grow up illiterate and in the woods; but how he was to live without him he could not tell. The plucking out of an eye would have given him less pain than the parting with his boy, though he felt from the first that the lad would go.
Nothing could be determined without consulting Jim, and as the conversation had destroyed the desire for further sport, they packed their fishing-tackle and returned to camp.
"The boy was'n't got up for my 'commodation," said Jim, when the proposition was placed before him. "I seen the thing comin' for a week, an' I've brung my mind to't. We hain't got no right to keep 'im up here, if he can do better. Turk ain't bad company fur them as likes dogs, but he ain't improvin'. I took the boy away from Tom Buffum 'cause I could do better by 'im nor he could, and when a man comes along that can do better by 'im nor I can, he's welcome to wade in. I hain't no right to spile a little feller's life 'cause I like his company. I don't think much of a feller that would cheat a man out of a jews-harp 'cause he liked to fool with it. Arter all, this sendin' the boy off is jest turnin' 'im out to pastur' to grow, an' takin' 'im in in the fall. He may git his head up so high t'we can't git the halter on 'im again, but he'll be worth more to somebody that can, nor if we kep 'im in the stable. I sh'll hate to say good-bye t' the little feller, but I sh'll vote to have 'im go, unanimous."
Mr. Benedict was not a man who had will enough to withstand the rational and personal considerations that were brought to bear upon him, and then the two boys were brought into the consultation. Thede was overjoyed with the prospect of having for a home companion the boy to whom he had become so greatly attached, and poor Harry was torn by a conflict of inclinations. To leave Jim and his father behind was a great sorrow; and he was half angry with himself to think that he could find any pleasure in the prospect of a removal. But the love of change, natural to a boy, and the desire to see the wonders of the great city, with accounts of which Thede had excited his imagination, overcame his inclination to remain in the camp. The year of separation would be very short, he thought, so that, after all, it was only a temporary matter. The moment the project of going away took possession of him, his regrets died, and the exit from the woods seemed to him like a journey into dreamland, from which he should return in the morning.
How to get the lad through Sevenoaks, where he would be sure to be recognised, and so reveal the hiding-place of his father, became at once a puzzling question. Mr. Balfour had arranged with the man who brought him into the woods to return in a fortnight and take him out, and as he was a man who had known the Benedicts it would not be safe to trust to his silence.
It was finally arranged that Jim should start off at once with Harry, and engage Mike Conlin to go through Sevenoaks with him in the night, and deliver him at the railroad at about the hour when the regular stage would arrive with Mr. Balfour. The people of Sevenoaks were not travelers, and it would be a rare chance that should bring one of them through to that point. The preparations were therefore made at once, and the next evening poor Benedict was called upon to part with his boy. It was a bitter struggle, but it was accomplished, and, excited by the strange life that was opening before him, the boy entered the boat with Jim, and waved his adieus to the group that had gathered upon the bank to see them off.
Poor Turk, who had apparently understood all that had passed in the conversations of the previous day, and become fully aware of the bereavement that he was about to suffer, stood upon the shore and howled and whined as they receded into the distance. Then he went up to Thede, and licked his hand, as if he would say; "Don't leave me as the other boy has done; if you do, I shall be inconsolable."
Jim effected his purpose, and returned before light the next morning, and on the following day he took Mr. Balfour and Thede down the river, and delivered them to the man whom he found waiting for them. The programme was carried out in all its details, and two days afterward the two boys were sitting side by side in the railway-car that was hurrying them toward the great city.
CHAPTER XI.
WHICH RECORDS MR. BELCHER'S CONNECTION WITH A GREAT SPECULATION AND BRINGS TO A CLOSE HIS RESIDENCE IN SEVENOAKS.
Whither was he going? He had a little fortune in his pockets—more money than prudent men are in the habit of carrying with them—and a scheme in his mind. After the purchase of Palgrave's Folly, and the inauguration of a scale of family expenditure far surpassing all his previous experience, Mr. Belcher began to feel poor, and to realize the necessity of extending his enterprise. To do him justice, he felt that he had surpassed the proprieties of domestic life in taking so important a step as that of changing his residence without consulting Mrs. Belcher. He did not wish to meet her at once; so it was easy for him, when he left New York, to take a wide diversion on his way home.
For several months the reports of the great oil discoveries of Pennsylvania had been floating through the press. Stories of enormous fortunes acquired in a single week, and even in a single day, were rife; and they had excited his greed with a strange power. He had witnessed, too, the effect of these stories upon the minds of the humble people of Sevenoaks. They were uneasy in their poverty, and were in the habit of reading with avidity all the accounts that emanated from the new center of speculation. The monsters of the sea had long been chased into the ice, and the whalers had returned with scantier fares year after year; but here was light for the world. The solid ground itself was echoing with the cry: "Here she blows!" and "There she blows!" and the long harpoons went down to its vitals, and were fairly lifted out by the pressure of the treasure that impatiently waited for deliverance.
Mr. Belcher had long desired to have a hand in this new business. To see a great speculation pass by without yielding him any return was very painful to him. During his brief stay in New York he had been approached by speculators from the new field of promise; and had been able by his quick wit and ready business instinct to ascertain just the way in which money was made and was to be made. He dismissed them all, for he had the means in his hands of starting nearer the sources of profit than themselves, and to be not only one of the "bottom ring," but to be the bottom man. No moderate profit and no legitimate income would satisfy him. He would gather the investments of the multitude into his own capacious pockets, or he would have nothing to do with the matter. He would sweep the board, fairly or foully, or he would not play.
As he traveled along westward, he found that the company was made up of men whose tickets took them to his own destination. Most of them were quiet, with ears open to the few talkers who had already been there, and were returning. Mr. Belcher listened to them, laughed at them, scoffed at their schemes, and laid up carefully all that they said. Before he arrived at Corry he had acquired a tolerable knowledge of the oil-fields, and determined upon his scheme of operations.
As he drew nearer the great center of excitement, he came more into contact with the masses who had gathered there, crazed with the spirit of speculation. Men were around him whose clothes were shining with bitumen. The air was loaded with the smell of petroleum. Derricks were thrown up on every side; drills were at work piercing the earth; villages were starting among stumps still fresh at the top, as if their trees were cut but yesterday; rough men in high boots were ranging the country; the depots were glutted with portable Steam-engines and all sorts of mining machinery, and there was but one subject of conversation. Some new well had begun to flow with hundreds of barrels of petroleum per diem. Some new man had made a fortune. Farmers, who had barely been able to get a living from their sterile acres, had become millionaires. The whole region was alive with fortune-hunters, from every quarter of the country. Millions of dollars were in the pockets of men who were ready to purchase. Seedy, crazy, visionary fellows were working as middle-men, to talk up schemes, and win their bread, with as much more as they could lay their hands on. The very air was charged with the contagion of speculation, and men seemed ready to believe anything and do anything. It appeared, indeed, as if a man had only to buy, to double his money in a day; and half the insane multitude believed it.
Mr. Belcher kept himself quiet, and defended himself from the influences around him by adopting and holding his scoffing mood. He believed nothing. He was there simply to see what asses men could make of themselves; but he kept his ears open. The wretched hotel at which he at last found accommodations was thronged with fortune-seekers, among whom he moved self-possessed and quite at home. On the second day his mood began to tell on those around him. There were men there who knew about him and his great wealth—men who had been impressed with his sagacity. He studied them carefully, gave no one his confidence, and quietly laid his plans. On the evening of the third day he returned to the hotel, and announced that he had had the good fortune to purchase a piece of property that he proposed to operate and improve on his own account.
Then he was approached with propositions for forming a company. He had paid fifty thousand dollars for a farm—paid the money—and before morning he had sold half of it for what he gave for the whole, and formed a company with the nominal capital of half a million of dollars, a moiety of the stock being his own at no cost to him whatever. The arrangements were all made for the issue of stock and the commencement of operations, and when, three days afterward, he started from Titusville on his way home, he had in his satchel blank certificates of stock, all signed by the officers of the Continental Petroleum Company, to be limited in its issue to the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He never expected to see the land again. He did not expect that the enterprise would be of the slightest value to those who should invest in it. He expected to do just what others were doing—to sell his stock and pocket the proceeds, while investors pocketed their losses. It was all an acute business operation with him; and he intended to take advantage of the excitement of the time to "clean out" Sevenoaks and all the region round about his country home, while his confreres operated in their own localities. He chuckled over his plans as if he contemplated some great, good deed that would be of incalculable benefit to his neighbors. He suffered no qualm of conscience, no revolt of personal honor, no spasm of sympathy or pity.
As soon as he set out upon his journey homeward he began to think of his New York purchase. He had taken a bold step, and he wished that he had said something to Mrs. Belcher about his plans, but he had been so much in the habit of managing everything in his business without consulting her, that it did not occur to him before he started from home that any matter of his was not exclusively his own. He would just as soon have thought of taking Phipps into his confidence, or of deferring to his wishes in any project, as of extending those courtesies to his wife. There was another consideration which weighed somewhat heavily upon his mind. He was not entirely sure that he would not be ashamed of Mrs. Belcher in the grand home which he had provided for himself. He respected her, and had loved her in his poor, sensual fashion, some changeful years in the past; he had regarded her as a good mother, and, at least, as an inoffensive wife; but she was not Mrs. Dillingham. She would not be at home in the society of which he had caught a glimpse, or among the splendors to which he would be obliged to introduce her. Even Talbot, the man who was getting rich upon the products of his enterprise, had a more impressive wife than he. And thus, with much reflection, this strange, easy-natured brute without a conscience, wrought up his soul into self-pity. In some way he had been defrauded. It never could have been intended that a man capable of winning so many of his heart's desires as he had proved himself to be, should be tied to a woman incapable of illuminating and honoring his position. If he only had a wife of whose person he could be proud! If he only had a wife whose queenly presence and manners would give significance to the splendors of the Palgrave mansion!
There was no way left for him, however, but to make the best of his circumstances, and put a brave face upon the matter. Accordingly, the next morning after his arrival, he told, with such display of enthusiasm as he could assume, the story of his purchase. The children were all attention, and made no hesitation to express their delight with the change that lay before them. Mrs. Belcher grew pale, choked over her breakfast, and was obliged to leave the table. At the close of the meal, Mr. Belcher followed her to her room, and found her with dry eyes and an angry face.
"Robert, you have determined to kill me," she said, almost fiercely.
"Oh, no, Sarah; not quite so bad as that."
"How could you take a step which you knew would give me a life-long pain? Have I not suffered enough? Is it not enough that I have ceased practically to have a husband?—that I have given up all society, and been driven in upon my children? Am I to have no will, no consideration, no part or lot in my own life?"
"Put it through, Sarah; you have the floor, and I'm ready to take it all now."
"And it is all for show," she went on, "and is disgusting. There is not a soul in the city that your wealth can bring to me that will give me society. I shall be a thousand times lonelier there than I have been here; and you compel me to go where I must receive people whom I shall despise, and who, for that reason, will dislike me. You propose to force me into a life that is worse than emptiness. I am more nearly content here than I can ever be anywhere else, and I shall never leave here without a cruel sense of sacrifice."
"Good for you, Sarah!" said Mr. Belcher. "You're more of a trump than I thought you were; and if it will do you any good to know that I think I've been a little rough with you, I don't mind telling you so. But the thing is done, and it can't be undone. You can have your own sort of life there as you do here, and I can have mine. I suppose I could go there and run the house alone; but it isn't exactly the thing for Mrs. Belcher's husband to do. People might talk, you know, and they wouldn't blame me."
"No; they would blame me, and I must go, whether I wish to go or not."
Mrs. Belcher had talked until she could weep, and brushing her eyes she walked to the window. Mr. Belcher sat still, casting furtive glances at her, and drumming with his fingers on his knees. When she could sufficiently command herself, she returned, and said:
"Robert, I have tried to be a good wife to you. I helped you in your first struggles, and then you were a comfort to me. But your wealth has changed you, and you know that for ten years I have had no husband. I have humored your caprices; I have been careful not to cross your will. I have taken your generous provision, and made myself and my children what you desired; but I am no more to you than a part of your establishment. I do not feel that my position is an honorable one. I wish to God that I had one hope that it would ever become so."
"Well, by-by, Sarah. You'll feel better about it."
Then Mr. Belcher stooped and kissed her forehead, and left her.
That little attention—that one shadow of recognition of the old relations, that faint show of feeling—went straight to her starving heart. And then, assuming blame for what seemed, at the moment of reaction, her unreasonable selfishness, she determined to say no more, and to take uncomplainingly whatever life her husband might provide for her.
As for Mr. Belcher, he went off to his library and his cigar with a wound in his heart. The interview with his wife, while it had excited in him a certain amount of pity for her, had deepened his pity for himself. She had ceased to be what she had once been to him; yet his experience in the city had proved that there were still women in the world who could excite in him the old passion, and move him to the old gallantries. It was clearly a case of incipient "incompatibility." It was "the mistake of a lifetime" just discovered, though she had borne his children and held his respect for fifteen years. He still felt the warmth of Mrs. Dillingham's hands within his own, the impression of her confiding clasp upon his arm, and the magnetic influence of her splendid presence. Reason as he would, he felt defrauded of his rights; and he wondered whether any combination of circumstances would ever permit him to achieve them. As this amounted to wondering whether Mrs. Belcher would die, he strove to banish the question from his mind; but it returned and returned again so pertinaciously that he was glad to order his horses and ride to his factory.
Before night it became noised through the village that the great proprietor had been to the oil regions. The fact was talked over among the people in the shops, in the street, in social groups that gathered at evening; and there was great curiosity to know what he had learned, and what opinions he had formed. Mr. Belcher knew how to play his cards, and having set the people talking, he filled out and sent to each of the wives of the five pastors of the village, as a gift, a certificate of five shares of the stock of the Continental Petroleum Company. Of course, they were greatly delighted, and, of course, twenty-four hours had not passed by when every man, woman and child in Sevenoaks was acquainted with the transaction. People began to revise their judgments of the man whom they had so severely condemned. After all, it was the way in which he had done things in former days, and though they had come to a vivid apprehension of the fact that he had done them for a purpose, which invariably terminated in himself, they could not see what there was to be gained by so munificent a gift. Was he not endeavoring, by self-sacrifice, to win back a portion of the consideration he had formerly enjoyed? Was it not a confession of wrong-doing, or wrong judgment? There were men who shook their heads, and "didn't know about it;" but the preponderance of feeling was on the side of the proprietor, who sat in his library and imagined just what was in progress around him,—nay, calculated upon it, as a chemist calculates the results of certain combinations in his laboratory. He knew the people a great deal better than they knew him, or even themselves.
Miss Butterworth called at the house of the Rev. Solomon Snow, who, immediately upon her entrance, took his seat in his arm-chair, and adjusted his bridge. The little woman was so combative and incisive that this always seemed a necessary precaution on the part of that gentleman.
"I want to see it!" said Miss Butterworth, without the slightest indication of the object of her curiosity.
Mrs. Snow rose without hesitation, and, going to a trunk In her bedroom, brought out her precious certificate of stock, and placed it in the hands of the tailoress.
It certainly was a certificate of stock, to the amount of five shares, in the Continental Petroleum Company, and Mr. Belcher's name was not among the signatures of the officers.
"Well, that beats me!" exclaimed Miss Butterworth. "What do you suppose the old snake wants now?"
"That's just what I say—just what I say," responded Mrs. Snow. Goodness knows, if it's worth anything, we need it; but what does he want?"
"You'll find out some time. Take my word for it, he has a large axe to grind."
"I think," said Mr. Snow judicially, "that it is quite possible that we have been unjust to Mr. Belcher. He is certainly a man of generous instincts, but with great eccentricities. Before condemning him in toto (here Mr. Snow opened his bridge to let out the charity that was rising within him, and closed it at once for fear Miss Butterworth would get in a protest), let us be sure that there is a possible selfish motive for this most unexpected munificence. When we ascertain the true state of the case, then we can take things as they air. Until we have arrived at the necessary knowledge, it becomes us to withhold all severe judgments. A generous deed has its reflex influence; and it may be that some good may come to Mr. Belcher from this, and help to mold his character to nobler issues. I sincerely hope it may, and that we shall realize dividends that will add permanently to our somewhat restricted sources of income."
Miss Butterworth sat during the speech, and trotted her knee. She had no faith in the paper, and she frankly said so.
"Don't be fooled," she said to Mrs. Snow. "By and by you will find out that it is all a trick. Don't expect anything. I tell you I know Robert Belcher, and I know he's a knave, if there ever was one. I can feel him—I can feel him now—chuckling over this business, for business it is."