"Better to be driven out from among men, than to be disliked of children."
—Dana.
Pepeeta took her place in this hospitable household as an orphan child might have done. Just as a flower unfolding from a plant, or a bird building its nest in a tree is almost instantly "at home," so it was with Pepeeta.
When she was strong enough to work, she began to assume domestic cares and to discharge them in a quiet and beautiful way which brought a sweet relief to the full hands of the overburdened housewife. And her companionship was no less grateful to Dorothea than her help, for life in a frontier household in those pioneer days was none too full of animation and brightness, even for a quiet nature like hers. To Steven she soon became a companion; and Jacob, the father, yielded no less quickly and easily to the charms of this strange guest than did mother and child.
He was a man of earnest piety and of deep insight into human nature. He had, as Dorothea said, made shrewd guesses at Pepeeta's story before she told it, and had formed his own theories as to her nature and her errand.
"I tell thee, Dorothea, she is a lady," were the words in which he had uttered his conclusions to his wife, in one of their many conversations about the mysterious stranger.
"What makes thee think so?" she asked.
"Every feature of that delicate face tells its own history. These three years of contact with David and a different life could never have so completely wiped out the traces of the vulgar breeding of a gypsy camp and the low education of a rogue's society, unless there were good blood in those veins. Mark my word, there is a story about that life that would stir the heart if it were known."
"No wonder David loved her," said the wife.
"No wonder, indeed. But if it is as it seems, there is a mystery in their influence on each other that would confound the subtlest student of life."
"To what does thee refer?"
"Two such natures ought to have made each other better instead of worse by contact. You can predict what frost and sunlight, water and oil, seed and soil will do when they meet; but not men and women! Two bads sometimes make a good, and two goods sometimes make a bad."
"Thee thinks strange thoughts, Jacob, and I do not always follow thee, but even if it be wrong, I cannot help wishing that our dear David could have had her for his lawful wife," said Dorothea.
"The tale is not all told yet," responded her husband, opening his book and beginning to read.
With feelings like these in their hearts, they could not but extend to Pepeeta that sympathy which alone could soothe the sorrow of her soul. The sweet atmosphere of this home; the consciousness that she was among friends; the knowledge that they would do all they could to find the wanderer whom every one loved with such devotion, gave to Pepeeta's overwrought feelings an exquisite relief.
Her natural spirits and buoyant nature, repressed so long, began to reassert themselves, and soon burst forth in gladness. The change was slow, but sure, and by the time the spring days came and it was possible to get out into the open air, the color had come back to the pale face and the light to the dimmed eyes. She was like a flower transplanted from some dark corner into an open, sunny spot in a garden. But that which, more than all else, tended to develop within her graces still unfolded, was her constant contact with Steven. A subtle sympathy had been established between them from their very first meeting and they gradually became almost inseparable comrades. Their common love of outdoor life took them on long walks into the woods, from which they came burdened with the first blossoms of the springtime, or they would return from the river, laden with fish, for Steven insisted upon making Pepeeta his companion in every excursion; nor was it hard to persuade her to join him, she was so naturally a creature of the open air and sunlight.
Among the many happy days thus passed, one was especially memorable. Steven had told her much of a famous fishing place in the big Miami, several miles away, and had promised that if she would go with him on the next Saturday he would show it to her and also reveal a secret which no one knew but himself and in which she could not but take the greatest interest. The day dawned bright and clear, and while the dew was still on the grass they started.
One of Pepeeta's sources of enjoyment in these excursions was the constant prattle of the boy about that uncle whose long absence had served rather to increase than to diminish the idolatry of his heart. This morning, so like the one on which Pepeeta had seen David by the side of the brook when first they met, awakened all the fervor of her love and she could think of nothing else.
"You must point out to me all the places where you and your uncle have ever been together, little brother," she said to him, as they crossed the field where she had first caught sight of David at the plow.
"Why does thee care to know so much about him?" he asked, näively looking up into her face.
"Do you not know?" she inquired.
"No, I have asked father and mother, but they will not tell me."
"If I tell you, will you be true to me?"
"Won't I, though? I love thee. I would fight for thee, if I were not a Quaker's son! Perhaps I would fight for thee anyway."
"You will not need to fight for me, dearest. I could tell you a story about fighting that would make you wish never to fight again. Perhaps I will, sometime; but not now, for this must be a happy day and I do not want to sadden it by telling you too much about the shadows that cloud my life."
He looked up with a pained expression. "Has thee had troubles?" he asked.
"Great troubles, and they are not ended yet. I should be very wretched, but for you and your dear parents. You are but a child, and yet it would comfort me to tell you that I love your uncle with a love that can never die. And so when I ask you about him you will tell me everything you know, will you not? And remember that in doing so you are helping to make happy a poor heart that carries heavy burdens. There, that will do. I have told you more, perhaps, than I ought; but although you are young, I am sure that you are brave and true. And so, if there is any story about your uncle which you have never told me, let me hear it now. And if there is not, tell me one that you have told me over and over again."
"Did I ever tell thee how he saved a little lamb from drowning?"
"No! did he do that?"
"Yes, he did! Thee knows that when the snow melts, this little brook swells up into a great river and sometimes it happens so suddenly that even the grown people are scared. It did that day, and came just pouring out of those woods and through the meadow where our old Maisie was playing with two little lambs. One of them was bounding around her, and it slipped over the edge of the bank and fell into the bed of the creek. It wasn't a very high bank, you know; but the lamb was little, and it just stood bleating in the bed, and its mother stood bleating on the bank. Well, Uncle David heard them and started to see what was the matter, and though the rain had begun to fall, he ran across the field as hard as he could. But by the time he reached the place the flood caught up the little lamb and rolled it over and over like a ball. Uncle Dave didn't even wait to take off his coat, but plunged right into that water, boiling like a soap kettle, and swam out and grabbed that little lamb and hung to it until he landed down there on a high bank a quarter of a mile away. What does thee think of that, Pepeeta?"
Her eyes kindled; pride swelled in her heart, and her spirits rose with that wild feeling of joy with which women always hear of the bold deeds of those they love.
"How beautiful and noble he is," she cried.
"And strong!" added the boy, to whose youthful imagination physical prowess was still the greatest grace of life. And as he said it they reached a little rivulet so swollen by the spring rains as to be a formidable obstacle to their progress. Steven had not considered it in laying out their route and stood before it in dismay.
"How is thee ever going to get across?" he asked, and then under the impulse of a sudden inspiration rushed to the fence, took off the top rail and hurrying to the side of the brook flung it across for a bridge, with all the gallantry of a Sir Walter Raleigh.
But the spirits of his companion were too high to accept of aid! The strength of her lover had communicated itself to her, and with a light, free bound, she leaped to the other side.
The boy's first feeling was one of chagrin at having his offer so proudly scorned; but his second was that of boundless pride at a feat so worthy of the hero whose praises they had just been sounding. "Hurrah!" he cried, bounding after her and flinging his hat into the air.
"Thee is as good a jumper as a man," he exclaimed, regarding her with astonishment and admiration.
As they moved forward Nature wove her spells around them and they gave themselves utterly to her charms, pausing to look and listen, rapt in an ecstasy of communion and sympathy. Pepeeta's familiarity with the flowers was greater than Steven's, but she knew little about birds, and propounded many questions to the young naturalist whose knowledge of the inhabitants of field, forest and river seemed to be communicated by the objects themselves, rather than by human teachers.
"Hark! What is that bird, singing on the top of that tall stake?" she asked, pausing to listen, her hand lifted as if to invoke silence.
"That? Why, it's a meadow lark," said Steven.
"And there is another, 'way up in the top of that tall tree. Oh! how sweet and rich his song is. What is his name?"
"That's a red bird, and if thee listens thee can hear a brown thrasher over there in the woods."
They paused and drank in the rich music until each of these voices was silenced, and out of a copse of dense shade by the brookside there began to bubble a spring of melody so liquid, so clear, and withal of such beauty, that Pepeeta trembled with delight, hearing in that audible melody the unheard songs of the soul itself.
"What is it, Steven?" she asked in a whisper.
"Why, that is a cat bird! Doesn't thee know a cat bird? I cannot remember when I did not know what that song was! It is such a crazy bird! It has only two tunes and is like our teacher at school. She either praises or else scolds us. And that is the way with the cat bird. It is either talking love to its mate, or else abusing it! I don't like such people or such birds; I like those who have more tunes. Now thee has a lot of tunes, Pepeeta!"
This quaint reflection and delicate compliment broke the bird's spell and made Pepeeta laugh,—a laugh as musical and sweet as the song of the bird itself. It passed through the fringe of trees along the river bank, rippled across it over against the smooth face of a cliff and came back sweetly on the spring air.
"Oh! did you hear the echo?" Pepeeta exclaimed.
"That is what I brought thee here for!" he said. "Uncle David taught me how to make it answer and told me what it was. It frightened me at first. Let us get close up to the water and listen!"
He took her by the hand and drew her along.
"Is it here that you are to tell me the secret?" she asked.
"Oh, no," he said. "The echo tells its secrets! It is nothing but a blab any way. But I do not tell mine until the right time comes! Thee must wait."
They came out upon the edge of the river which makes a sweep around a sharp corner on the opposite side of which was "Echo Rock." There they stood and shouted and laughed as their voices came back upon the still air softened and etherealized.
Becoming tired of this sport at last, the boy picked up a flat stone from the river's edge and said, "Can thee skip a stone, Pepeeta? I never saw a girl that could skip a stone."
"But I am not a girl," she said.
"Oh, but thee was a girl once, and if thee did not learn then thee cannot do it now. Come, let me see thee try. Here is a stone, and a beauty, too; round, flat and smooth. That stone ought to make sixteen jumps!"
"But you must show me how," she said.
"All right, I will," he replied, and sent one skimming along the smooth surface of the water.
"Beautiful," she said, clapping her hands as it bounded in ever diminishing saltations and with a finer skill than that of Giotto, drew perfect circles on the watery canvas.
Delighted with the applause, the child found another stone and gave it to Pepeeta. She took it, drew her hand back and tossed it awkwardly from her shoulder. It sank with a dull plunge into the stream, while out of the throat of the lad came a great and joyous shout of laughter. "I knew thee could not," he said. "No girl that ever lived could skip a stone!"
And then he threw another and another, and they stood enchanted as the beautiful circles widened away from their centers and crossed each other in ever-increasing complexity of curve.
Steven did his best to teach Pepeeta this very simple art; but after many failures, she exclaimed:
"Oh dear, I shall never learn! I am nothing but a woman after all! Let us hasten to the fishing pool, perhaps I shall do better there."
"Don't be discouraged. Thee can learn, if thee tries long enough!" Steven said encouragingly, and led the way to a deep pool a few rods farther up the river. It was a cool, sequestered, lovely spot. Great trees overhung it, dark waters swirled swiftly but quietly round the base of a great rock jutting out into it; little bubbles of froth glided dreamily across it and burst on its edges; kingfishers dropped, stone-like, into it from the limbs of a dead sycamore, and the low, deep murmurs of the flood, as it hurried by, whispered inarticulately of mysteries too deep for the mind of man to comprehend. Except for this ceaseless murmur, silence brooded over the place, for the song-birds had hidden themselves in the wood, and the two intruders upon the sacred privacy, by an unconscious sense of fitness, spoke in whispers.
"Beautiful!" said Pepeeta.
"Hush! See there!" Steven exclaimed, in an undertone, and pointing to a spot where a fish had broken the still surface as he leaped for a fly and plunged back again into the depths.
His eye glowed, and his whole figure vibrated with excitement.
"And did your Uncle David used to bring you here?" Pepeeta asked.
"Well, I should say," he whispered. "He used to bring me here when I was such a little fellow that he sometimes had to carry me on his back. He was the greatest fisherman thee ever saw. I cannot fish so well myself!"
And with this ingenuous avowal, at which Pepeeta smiled appreciatively, they laid their baskets down, and Steven began preparing the rude tackle.
"Did thee ever bait a hook, Pepeeta?" he asked under his breath.
"I never did, but I think I can," she answered doubtfully.
And then he laughed again, not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in a manner fitting such solitude.
"If thee cannot skip a stone I should like to know what makes thee think that thee can bait a hook," he said, still speaking in low whispers. "I have seen lots of girls try it, but I never saw one succeed. Just the minute they touch the worm they begin to squeal, and when they try to stick it on the hook, they generally, have a sort of fit. So I guess thee had better not try. Just let me do it for thee; I'll fix it just as my Uncle David used to for me when I was a little fellow, and helpless like a girl." Pepeeta laughed, and Steven laughed with her, although he did not know for what, and they took their poles and sat down by the side of the stream, the child intent on the sport and the woman intent on the child.
He was an adept in that gentle art which has claimed the devotion of so many elect spirits, and gave his soul up to his work with an entire abandon. The waters were seldom disturbed in those early days when the country was sparsely settled, and the fish took the bait recklessly. One after another the boy flung them out upon the bank with smothered exclamations of delight, with which he mingled reproaches and sympathy for Pepeeta's lack of success.
She was catching fish he knew not of, drawing them one by one out of the deep pools of memory and imagination.
There is one thing dearer to a boy than catching fish. That is cooking and eating them.
Hunger began at last to gnaw at Steven's vitals and to make itself imperatively felt. He looked up at the sun as if to tell the time by its location, though in reality he regulated his movements by that infallible horologue ticking beneath his jacket.
"It must be after twelve," he said, although it was not yet eleven.
"Where are we going to have our dinner?" Pepeeta asked.
"Come, and I will show thee," he replied, flinging down his pole and gathering his fish together.
Pepeeta followed him as he led the way up from the river's side to a ledge of rocks that frowned above it.
Rounding a cliff, they came suddenly upon the mouth of a cave where Steven threw down the fish, assumed an air of secrecy, took Pepeeta by the hand and led her toward it, whispering:
"This is the robbers' cave."
"And is it within its dark recesses that we are to eat our dinner?" Pepeeta asked, imitating his melodramatic manner.
"Yes! No one in the world knows of it, but Uncle Dave and me. We always used to cook our dinner here, and play we were robbers."
Pepeeta saw the ashes of fires which had been built at the entrance, an old iron kettle hanging on a projecting root, a coffee pot standing on a ledge of a rock, and fragments of broken dishes scattered about, and entered with all her heart into an adventure so suddenly recalling the vanished scenes of her gypsy childhood. The eyes of the boy glistened with delight as he perceived the unmistakable evidences of her enjoyment.
"And so this is your secret!" she exclaimed.
"Not by a good deal!" he answered, "Thee is not to know the real secret until we have had our dinner. I will build the fire and clean the fish, and if thee knows how, thee can cook them."
"Oh, you need not think I don't know anything—just because I cannot skip stones and bait hooks," Pepeeta said gaily, and with that they both bustled about and before long the smoke was curling up into the still air, and the fragrant odor of coffee was perfuming the wilderness.
While they were waiting for the fish to fry, Pepeeta regaled her enchanted listener with such fragments of the story of her gypsy life as she could piece together out of the wrecks of that time. He was overpowered with astonishment, and the idea that he was sitting opposite to a real gypsy, at the mouth of a cave, filled up the measure of his romantic fancy and perfected his happiness. He hung upon her words and kept her talking until the last crust had been devoured and she had repeated again and again the most trivial remembrances of those far off days.
The boy's bliss had reached its utmost limit, and yet had not surpassed the woman's. The vigorous walk through the woods; the silent ministrations of nature; the simple food; the sweet imaginative associations with David; but above all that most recreative force in nature,—the presence and prattle of a child,—filled her sad heart with a happiness of which she had believed herself forever incapable.
They sat for a few moments in silence, after Pepeeta had finished one of her most charming reminiscences, and then Steven, springing to his feet, exclaimed:
"Why, Pepeeta, we have forgotten the secret! Come and I will show it to thee."
She took his proffered hand and was led into the depths of the cavern.
"Thee must shut thy eyes," he said.
"Oh! but I am so frightened," she answered, pretending to shudder and draw back.
"Thee need not be afraid. I will protect thee," he said, reassuringly.
She obeyed him, and they moved forward.
"Are thy eyes shut tight? How many fingers do I hold up?" he asked, raising his hand.
"Six," she answered.
"All right; there were only two," he said, convinced and satisfied.
He led her along a dozen steps or so, and then halted.
"Turn this way," swinging her about; "do not open thy eyes till I tell thee. There—now!"
For an instant the darkness seemed impenetrable; but there was enough of a faint light, rather like pale belated moonbeams than the brightness of the sun, to enable her to read her own name carved upon the smooth wall of rock.
"Ah! little deceiver, when did you do this?" she asked, touched by his gallantry.
"Do this! Why, Pepeeta, I did not do it," he answered, surprised and taken back by her misunderstanding.
"You did not do it?" she asked, astonished in her turn. "Who did it if you did not?"
"Why—can't thee guess?" he asked.
And then it slowly dawned upon her that it was the work of her lover, done in those days when he wandered about the country restless and tormented by his passion. His own dear hand had traced those letters on the rock!
She kissed them, and burst into tears.
This was an indescribable shock to the child, who had anticipated a result so different, and he sprang to her side, embraced her in his young arms and cried:
"What is the matter, Pepeeta? I did not mean to make thee sad; I meant to make thee happy! Oh, do not cry!"
"You have made me a thousand times glad, my dear boy," she said, kissing him gratefully. "You could not in any other way in the world give me such happiness as this. But did you not know that we can cry because we are glad as well as because we are sad?"
"I have never heard of that," he answered wonderingly.
She did not reply, for her attention reverted to the letters on the wall and she stood feeding her hungry eyes upon that indubitable proof of the devotion of her lover.
The child's instinct taught him the sacredness of the privacy of grief and love. He freed himself from her embrace, slipped out of the cave and left her alone. She laid her cheek against the rude letters, patted them with her hand, and kissed them again and again. It was bliss to know that she had inspired this passion, although it was agony to know that it was only a memory.
The remembrance of feasts once eaten is not only no solace to physical hunger, but adds unmitigated torment to it. It is different with the hunger of the heart, which finds a melancholy alleviation in feeding upon those shadows which reality has left. The food is bitter-sweet and the alleviation is not satisfaction, but neither is it starvation! Probably a real interview with a living, present lover, would not have given to Pepeeta that intense, though poignant, happiness which transfigured her face when she came forth into the daylight world, and which subdued and softened the noisy welcome of the boy.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OUT OF THE SHADOW
"Until the day break and the shadows flee away."
—Song of Solomon.
In due time the vessel upon which David had embarked arrived at her destination, the city of New York, and the lonely traveler stepped forth unnoticed and unknown into the metropolis of the New World.
With, an instinct common to all adventurers, he made his way to the Bowery, that thoroughfare whose name and character dispute the fame of the Corso, the Strand and the Rue de Rivoli.
Amid its perpetual excitements and boundless opportunities for adventure, David resumed the habits formed during that period of life upon which the doors had now closed. His reputation had followed him, and the new scenes, the physical restoration during the long voyage, the necessity of maintaining his fame, all conspired to help him take a place in the front rank of the devotees of the gambling rooms.
He did his best to enter into this new life with enthusiasm, but it had no power to banish or even to allay his grief. He therefore spent most of his time in wandering about among the wonders of the swiftly-growing city, observing her busy streets, her crowded wharfs, her libraries, museums and parks. This moving panorama temporarily diverted his thoughts from that channel into which they ever returned, and which they were constantly wearing deeper and deeper, and so helped him to accomplish the one aim of his wretched life, which was to become even for a single moment unconscious of himself and of his misery.
He had long ceased to ponder the problems of existence, for his philosophy of life had reached its goal at the point where he was too tired and broken-hearted to think. He could hardly be said to "live" any longer, and his existence was scarcely more than a vegetation. Like a somnambulist, he received upon the pupils of his eye impressions which did not awaken a response in his reason.
If any general conceptions at all were being formed he was unconscious of them. What he really thought of the phenomena of life upon which he thus blindly stared, he could not have definitely told; but in some vague way he felt as he gazed at the multitudes of human beings swarming through the streets, that all were, like himself, the victims of some insane folly which had precipitated them into some peculiar form of misery or crime.
And so, as he peered into their faces, he would catch himself wondering what wrong this man had done, what sin that woman had committed, and what sorrow each was suffering. That all must be in some secret way guilty and miserable, he could not doubt, for it seemed to him impossible that in this world of darkness and disorder, any one should have been able to escape being deceived and victimized. "No man," he thought, "can pick his way over all these hot plowshares without stepping on some of them. None can run this horrible gauntlet without being somewhere struck and wounded. What has befallen me, has in some form or other befallen them all. They are trying, just as I am, to conceal their sorrows and their crimes from each other. There is nothing else to do. There is no such thing as happiness. There is nothing but deception. Some of the keener ones see through my mask as I see through theirs. And yet some of them smile and look as gay as if they were really happy. Perhaps I can throw off this weight that is crushing me, as they have thrown off theirs—if I try a little harder." Such were the reflections which revolved ceaselessly within his brain.
But his efforts were in vain. In this life he had but a single consolation, and that was in a friendship which from its nature did not and could not become an intimacy.
Among the many acquaintances he had made in that realm of life to which his vices and his crimes had consigned him, a single person had awakened in his bosom emotions of interest and regard. There was in that circle of silent, terrible, remorseless parasites of society, a young man whose classical face, exquisite manners and varied accomplishments set him apart from all the others. He moved among them like a ghost,—mysterious, uncommunicative and unapproachable.
He had inspired in his companions a sort of unacknowledged respect, from the superiority of his professional code of ethics, for he never preyed upon the innocent, the weak, or the helpless, and gambled only with the rich or the crafty. He victimized the victimizers, and signalized his triumph with a mocking smile in which there was no trace of bitterness, but only a gentle and humorous irony.
From the time of their first meeting he had treated David in an exceptional manner. In unobserved ways he had done him little kindnesses, and proffered many delicate advances of friendship, and not many months passed before the two lonely, suspicious and ostracized men united their fortunes in a sort of informal partnership and were living in common apartments.
The most marked characteristic of this restricted friendship was a disposition to respect the privacy of each other's lives and thoughts. In all their intercourse through the year in which they had been thus associated they had never obtruded their personal affairs upon each other, nor pried into each other's secrets.
There was in Foster Mantel a sort of sardonic humor into which he was always withdrawing himself. In one of their infrequent conversations the two companions had grown unusually confidential and found themselves drifting a little too near that most dangerous of all shoals in the lives of such men—the past.
With a swift, instinctive movement both of them turned away. Each read in the other's face consciousness of the impossibility of discussing those experiences through which they had come to be what they were. Such men guard the real history of their lives and the real emotions of their hearts as jealously as the combinations of their cards. The old, ironical smile lighted up Mantel's features, and he said:
"We seem to have a violent antipathy to thin ice, Davy, and skate away from it as soon as it begins to crack a little beneath our feet."
"Yes," said his friend, shrugging his shoulders, "it is not pleasant to fall through the crust of friendship. There is a sub-element in every life a too sudden plunge into which might result in a fatal chill. We had all better keep on the surface. I am frank enough to say that the less any one knows about my past, the better I shall be satisfied."
"I wish that I could keep my own self from invading that realm as easily as I can keep others! Why is it that no man has ever yet been able to 'let the dead past bury its dead'? It seems a reasonable demand."
"He is a poor sexton—this old man, the Past. I have watched him at his work, and he is powerless to dig his own grave, however many others he may have excavated!"
"The Present seems as helpless as the Past. I wonder if the future will heap enough new events over old ones to hide them from view?"
"Let a shadow bury the sun! Let a wave bury the sea," answered David bitterly.
"I am afraid you take life too seriously," said Mantel, on whose face appeared that inexplicable smile behind which he constantly retired. "For, after all, life is nothing but a jest—a grim one, to be sure, but still a jest. The great host who entertains us in the banqueting hall of the universe must have his fun as well as any one, and we must laugh at his jokes even when they are at our expense. This is the least that guests can do."
"What, even when they writhe with pain?"
"Why not? We all have our fun! You used to scare timid little girls with jack-lanterns, put duck eggs under the old hen, and tie tin cans to dogs' tails. Where did you learn these tricks, if not from the great Trickmaster himself? Humor is hereditary! We get it from a divine original, and the Archetypal Joker must have His fun. It is better to take His horseplay in good part. We cannot stop Him, and we may as well laugh at what amuses Him. There is just as much fun in it as a fellow is able to see!"
"Then there is none, for I cannot see any. But if you get the comfort you seem to out of this philosophy of yours, I envy you. What do you call it? There ought to be a name for a metaphysic which seems to comprehend all the complex phenomena of life in one single, simple, principle of humor!"
"How would 'will-o'-the-wispism' do? There is a sort of elusive element in life, you see. Nature has no goal, yet leads us along the pathway by shows, enchantments and promises. She pays us in checks which she never cashes. She holds out a glittering prize, persuades us that it is worth any sacrifice, and when we make it, the bubble bursts, the sword descends, and you hear a low chuckle."
"You have described her method well enough, but how is it that you get your fun out of your knowledge?"
"It is the illusion itself! The boy chasing the rainbow is happier than the man counting his gold!"
"But what of that dreadful day of disenchantment when the illusion no longer deceives?"
"Ha! ha! Why, just put on your mask and smile. You can 'make believe' you are happy, can't you?"
"I have got beyond that," David answered savagely. "I am not sitting for my picture to this great, grim artist friend of yours, who first sticks a knife into me, and then tells me to look pleasant that he may photograph me for his gallery of fools! I am tired of shams and make-believes. Life is a hideous mockery, and I say plainly that I loathe and abhor it!"
"Tush, tush, whatever else you do or do not do, keep sweet, David! Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad! You take yourself and your life too seriously, I tell you. Everything will go its own way whether you want it to or not! I used to read the classics, once, and some fragments of those old fellows' sublime philosophy are still fresh in my memory. There is a scrap in one of the Greek tragedies—the Oedipus, I think, that has always kept running through my head:
"'Why should we fear, when
Chance rules everything,
And foresight of the future there
is none?
'Tis best to live at random as we
can!
But thou, fear not that marriage
with thy mother!
Many, ere now, have dreamed of
things like this,
But who cares least about them,
bears life best!'
"There is wisdom for you! 'Who cares least about them bears life best!' It's my philosophy in a nut-shell."
"Look here, Mantel," said David, "your philosophy may be all right, provided a man has not done a—provided—provided a man has not committed a-a crime! I don't care anything about your past in detail; but unless you have done some deed that hangs around your neck like a mill-stone, you don't know anything about the subject you are discussing."
Mantel dropped his eyes, and sat in silence. For the first time since David had known him, his fine face gave some genuine revelation of the emotions of his soul. Great tears gathered in his eyes, and his lips trembled. In a moment, he arose, took his hat, laid his hand gently upon the arm of his friend, and said "David, my dear fellow, we are skating on that thin ice again. We shall fall through if we are not careful, and get that chill you were talking about. Let's go out and take a walk. Life is too deep for either you or me to fathom. I gave it up as a bad job long ago. What you just said about having a knife stuck into you comes the nearest to my own notion. I feel a good deal as I fancy a butterfly must when he has been intercepted in a gay and joyous flight and stuck against the wall with a sharp pin, among a million other specimens which the great entomologist has gathered for some purpose which no one but himself can understand. All I try to do is to smile enough to cover up my contortions. Come, let us go. We need the air."
They went down into the streets and lost themselves in the busy crowd of care-encumbered men. Half unconscious of the throngs which jostled them, they strolled along Broadway, occasionally pausing to gaze into a shop window, to rest on a seat in a park, to listen to a street musician, or to watch some passing incident in the great panorama which is ever unrolling itself in that brilliant and fascinating avenue.
Suddenly Mantel was startled by an abrupt change in the manner of his companion, who paused and stood as if rooted to the pavement, while his great blue eyes opened beyond their natural width with a fixed stare.
Following the direction of their gaze, Mantel saw that they were fixed on a blind beggar who sat on a stool at the edge of the sidewalk, silent and motionless like an old snag on the bank of a river—the perpetual stream of human life forever flowing by. His head was bare; in his outstretched hand he held a tin cup which jingled now and then as some compassionate traveler dropped him a coin; by his side, looking up occasionally into his unresponsive eyes, was a little terrier, his solitary companion and guide in a world of perpetual night.
The face of the man was a remarkable one, judged by almost any standard. It was large in size, strong in outline, and although he was a beggar, it wore an expression of power, of independence and resolution like that of another Belisarius. But the feature which first arrested and longest held attention, was an enormous mustache. It could not have been less than fourteen inches from tip to tip, was carefully trimmed and trained, and although the man himself was still comparatively young, was white as snow. Occasionally he set his cup on his knee and with both hands twisted the ends into heavy ropes.
It was a striking face and exacted from every observer more than a passing look; but remarkable as it was, Mantel could not discover any reason for the strained and terrible interest of his companion, who stood staring so long and in such a noticeable way, that he was in danger of himself attracting the attention of the curious crowd.
Seeing this, Mantel took him by the arm. "What is the matter?" he asked.
David started. "My God," he cried, drawing his hand over his eyes like a man awakening from a dream; "it is he!"
"It is who? Are you mad! Come away! People are observing you. If there is anything wrong, we must move or get into trouble."
"Let me alone!" David replied, shaking off his hand. "I would rather die than lose sight of that man."
"Then come into this doorway where you can watch him unobserved, for you are making a spectacle of yourself. Come, or I shall drag you."
With his eyes still riveted on that strange countenance, David yielded to the pressure of his friend's hand and they retired to a hallway whence he could watch the beggar unobserved. His whole frame was quivering with excitement and he kept murmuring to himself: "It is he. It is he! I cannot be mistaken! Nature never made his double! But how he has changed! How old and white he is! It cannot be his ghost, can it? If it were night I might think so, but it is broad daylight! This man is living flesh and blood and my hand is not, after all, the hand of a mur—"
"Hush!" cried Mantel; "you are talking aloud!"
"Yes, I am talking aloud," he answered, "and I mean to talk louder yet! I want you to hear that I am not a murderer, a murderer! Do you understand? I am going to rush out into the streets to cry out at the top of my voice—I am not a murderer!"
Terrified at his violence, Mantel pushed him farther back into the doorway; but he sprang out again as if his very life depended upon the sight of the great white face.
"Be quiet!" Mantel cried, seizing his arm with an iron grip.
The pain restored him to his senses. "What did I say?" he asked anxiously.
"You said, 'I am not a murderer,'" Mantel whispered.
"And it is true! I am not!" he replied, with but little less violence than before.
"Look at this hand, Mantel! I have not looked at it myself for more than three years without seeing spots of blood on it! And now it looks as white as snow to me! See how firm I can hold it! And yet through all those long and terrible years, it has trembled like a leaf. Tell me, am I not right? Is it not white and firm?"
"Yes, yes. It is; but hush. You are in danger of being overheard, and if you are not careful, in a moment more we shall be in the hands of the police!"
"No matter if I am," he cried, almost beside himself, and rapturously embracing his friend. "Nothing could give me more pleasure than a trial for my crime, for my victim would be my witness! He is not dead. He is out there in the street. Mantel, you don't know what happiness is! You don't know how sweet it is to be alive! A mountain has been taken from my shoulders. I no longer have any secret! I will tell you the whole story of my life, now."
"Not now; but later on, when we are alone. Let us leave this spot and go to our rooms."
"No, no! Don't stir! We might lose him, and if we did, I could never persuade myself that this was not a dream! We will stay here until he leaves, and then we will follow him and prove beyond a doubt that this is a real man and not the vision of an overheated brain. We will follow him, I say, and if he is really flesh and blood, and not a poor ghost, we will help him, you and I. Poor old man! How sad he looks! And no wonder! You don't know of what I robbed him!"
David had now grown more quiet, and they stood patiently waiting for the time to come when the old beggar should leave his post and retire to his home, if home he had.
At last he received his signal for departure. A shadow fell from the roof of the tall building opposite, upon the pupil of an eye, which perhaps felt the darkness it could not see. The building was his dial. Like millions of his fellow creatures, he measured life by advancing shadows.
He arose, and in his mien and movements there was a certain majesty. Placing his hat upon his storm-beaten head, he folded the camp-chair under his arm, took the leading string in his hand and followed the little dog, who began picking his way with fine care through the surging crowd.
Behind him at a little distance walked the two gamblers, pursuing him like a double shadow. A bloodhound could not have been more eager than David was. He trembled if an omnibus cut off his view for a single instant, and shuddered if the beggar turned a corner.
Unconscious of all this, the dog and his master wended their way homeward. They crawled slowly and quietly across a street over which thundered an endless procession of vehicles; they moved like snails through the surf of the ocean of life. Arriving at length at the door of a wretched tenement house, the blind man and his dog entered.
As he noted the squalor of the place, David murmured to himself, "Poor old man! How low he has fallen!"
Several minutes passed in silence, while he stood reflecting on the doctor's misery, his own new happiness and the opportunities and duties which the adventure had opened and imposed. At last he said to his friend, "Do you know where we are? I was so absorbed that I didn't notice our route at all."
"Yes," Mantel answered. "I have marked every turn of the way."
"Could you find the place again?"
"Without the slightest difficulty."
"Be sure, for if you wish to help me, as I think you do, you will have to come often. I have made my plans in the few moments in which I have been standing here, and am determined to devote my life, if need be, to this poor creature whom I have so wronged. I must get him out of this filthy hole into some cheerful place. I will atone for the past if I can! Atone! What a word that is! With what stunning force its meaning dawns upon me! How many times I have heard and uttered it without comprehension. But somehow I now see in it a revelation of the sweetest possibility of life. Oh! I am a changed man; I will make atonement! Come, let us go. I am anxious to begin. But no, I must proceed with caution. How do I know that this is his permanent home? He may be only lodging for the night, and when you come to-morrow, he may be gone! Go in, Mantel, and make sure that we shall find him here to-morrow. Go, and while you find out all you can about him, I will begin to search for such a place as I want to put him in. We will part for the present; but when we meet to-night we shall have much to talk about. I will tell you the whole of this long and bitter story. I am so happy, Mantel. You can't understand! I have something to live for now. I will work, oh, you do not know how I will work to make this atonement. What a word it is! It is music to my ears. Atonement!"
And so in the lexicon of human experience he had at last discovered the meaning of one of the great words of our language. After all, experience is the only exhaustive dictionary, and the definitions it contains are the only ones which really burn themselves into the mind or fully interpret the significances of life.
To every man language is a kind of fossil poetry, until experience makes those dry bones live! Words are mere faded metaphors, pressed like dried flowers in old and musty volumes, until a blow upon our heads, a pang in our hearts, a strain on our nerves, the whisper of a maid, the voice of a little child, turns them into living blossoms of odorous beauty.