ALTHOUGH I began my career as an editor with a good deal of enthusiasm, in the course of two or three years I became so tired of the work that I longed to give away the establishment, that I might have a month’s rest. I have since wondered that I did not follow the example of the founder of the “Union of States,” and run off, as I came to regard myself as filling the station that my father stormed, and my mother cried, because I could not fill in my youth, not being a girl; for as a kitchen maid only cleans dishes that they may be soiled again, so it seemed that we only set up the types and inked them that we might wash and tear them down, and begin all over again.
It was peculiar to my business that the people could see at the end of every week all that had been accomplished, and it was usually so little (though I did the best I could) that I felt ashamed of it, and dreaded to see a stranger pick up the “Union of States” in my presence, for fear he would not know my connection with it and make unfavorable comment. I frequently left a public place on this account, and I never came suddenly upon a knot of men that I did not hurriedly announce my presence, so that if they were pointing out the most glaring defects of the paper, they could spare me the humiliation of listening to them.
Other trades and professions are more secret, and their contemptible transactions generously hid from the public, but all my work had to be submitted to the criticism of every idle vagrant who cared to pick up the sheet. A lawyer or a merchant might lock himself up in his office, and pretend to be engaged in grave affairs while really idling time away, but if I had attempted it, the deception would have been apparent at once. Public attention is always called to a newspaper, for otherwise it cannot prosper, and so the people are usually disgusted when they realize how little a man can do, papers of the class I published were not popular. Other men’s affairs were equally contemptible, but they were charitably hid from the public gaze, whereas mine were regarded as common property, and fault found accordingly. I did not know then, though I have since found it out, that what one complains of will please another, so that when a paper makes an enemy, it makes a friend with the same paragraph, though the enemy takes more pains to talk about it than the gentleman who is quietly delighted.
It is my opinion that to become too well known is dangerous, for under such circumstances your faults are common property, and your insignificance proverbial, and a man who writes long for a newspaper will inevitably show every weakness of which he is possessed. Each week I laid before the people every thought, every idea, and every suggestion I was possessed of, and became so tired of being criticised that I would have given ten years of my life for half a year’s vacation. When Martin grew tired (he was at first a valuable assistant, but his enthusiasm, like mine, did not last long), he coolly said he was worn out; but I had no one to whom I could make that excuse, and was compelled to get along the best I could. I was subject to the beck and nod of every ridiculous man in the community, for every citizen thought it his duty to give me good advice if he did not give me patronage, and though I longed to retaliate by pointing out the offences of some of them, I found it politic to hold my peace. Occasionally I wrote a very good thing (at least, occasionally I attracted attention), but nobody gave me credit for it, and it was attributed to some one in the town who could not write an ordinary business letter without lolling out his tongue.
A man should not write for a newspaper long in one town, for he becomes so familiar with the small affairs of the people that it is a great effort to treat them with respect. In the course of a few years he will have had occasion to criticise every man of any importance in a town of the size of Twin Mounds, if he is honest and truthful, and will be generally despised in consequence. Even if a complimentary twaddler, sowing good words to the exclusion of everything else, he will become unpopular for that, for the people will soon discover that he is a man of no discrimination or honesty, if he speaks well of everybody.
I wonder that anyone took the “Union of States,” and as for its advertising I was certain the people were throwing their money away. It was the dullest paper, I have no doubt, ever published; but somehow enough people took it to make its publication profitable, though I was always expecting them to stop it, and believed that it would in the end become necessary to suspend its publication entirely. I remember that I would look over it carefully on press days, and, thinking that there was not a paragraph of news or comment which was not either old or silly, almost conclude not to print it at all, but if it was an hour late in issuing, a great many called to complain, which led me to believe that they had nothing else to do, and were anxious to get a copy and make fun of it. I am convinced now that much of this worry, if not all of it, was unnecessary, and that I need not have worked so hard, for when I went away I could not help noticing that everything got along about as usual, and that nobody missed me.
I was thinking this over one morning, and wishing I could get sick—I was always singularly strong and robust—or that the office would burn down, so that I could get a rest from my distasteful work, when the light at the open door was completely shut out, and Big Adam came in. I did not know he was in the vicinity, and was surprised to see him. He seemed in very good spirits, and, sitting down, began looking through his pockets for a note he said he carried for me. After he had found it, and given it to me, and while I was looking curiously at the envelope—it was from Agnes—wondering what was the occasion for sending it in this unusual fashion, Big Adam put his finger in his mouth, drew it out suddenly in such a manner as to make a sound like the drawing of a cork, and then, thumping his jaws slowly while he extended his lips, apparently poured out a liberal drink of liquor.
The contents of the letter were surprising enough:—
Dear Ned,—Mother died early this morning, after a short illness. I shall esteem it as a great favor if you will attend the funeral to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.
Your sorrowing friend,
Agnes.
Big Adam seemed to be very much offended when I looked up from reading the note with a serious face, as he evidently expected that I would be greatly pleased, as he was, but as if to say that if I would not drink with him over his good fortune, he would drink alone, he pulled another cork, and poured out the liquor in very slow and distinct gurgles.
“I didn’t suspect my good luck,” Big Adam said, seeing my inquiring look, “until Agnes woke me up this morning, and said the old missus was dead, and wouldn’t I please carry the note to you. I immediately dressed up in my best and started. I think I never enjoyed a ride more. It was equal to an excursion. I hope there is no mistake about it.”
Big Adam was about to draw another cork, when I inquired if Mrs. Deming had been ill long.
“About a week I should say, and she kept them about her night and day to jaw at, occasionally sending for me. Several times she came down stairs, but no more dried up than usual, so none of us thought anything unusual the matter. She was always complaining about something or other, and although she was undoubtedly bad off this time, we didn’t believe it. We thought she was only pretending, to make us trouble, for she fooled us so much that I have an idea they were all very much surprised when they found her dead at last. It was by the merest accident that Agnes and Biggs were at home. It will be a great day for me to-morrow. I am to drive the remains to the graveyard.”
I could not impress Big Adam with the gravity of the occasion, and after telling him that I would go over to Smoky Hill in the afternoon, he went out into town, but returned every little while with packages of pickles, cloves, confectionery, crackers, etc., which he spread out on my table and devoured with the greatest relish, precisely as if he were at a pic-nic. Usually he was followed by great troupes of boys, whom he hired to swear with his pickles and confectionery.
While he was out on the porch, I heard him say to one of them that he hadn’t an enemy in the world, but if he had, he would like to hear the boy curse him, for up to that time he had won all the prizes with his dreadful oaths and was the raggedest and dirtiest of the lot. He was arranging for a fight between two of them, when I mildly objected to it, whereupon Big Adam laughed with hoarse good humor, and said that while he didn’t know of an enemy, he might have one, and gave the wicked boy a pickle and a caramel to curse him, or her, as the case might be. The young scoundrel promptly responded with the vilest language I had ever heard, and Big Adam laughed so loudly that I thought the house would fall down, declaring that the boy was a “captain.” I knew what he was about, but he seemed to be enjoying himself so much that I did not interfere again. At last he said he was certain the boy’s curses had killed his enemy, and he called upon all of them to give three cheers, which they did, Big Adam joining in like a steamboat whistle.
In the afternoon I drove over to the Smoky Hill country, leaving Big Adam to follow at his leisure, as he showed a disposition to dissipate until night, and after arriving at Mr. Biggs’, I put the horses away in the stable I had become familiar with on my first visit to the place, the stalls of which were still oozy and wet, and went up to the house.
Although I disliked to disturb the quiet of the place, I was compelled to ring the bell, for there was no other way of attracting attention, and after a little while Agnes came to open the door. Instead of speaking to me, she burst out crying, and, in involuntary pity for her distress, I took her in my arms, to which she made no resistance, but sobbed softly as I tried to comfort her with pitying words. I did not even think of my arms being about her, or that her head rested on my shoulder, and for the first time in several years I felt natural in her presence.
From where we stood in the hall I could see through an open door a plain coffin, supported at each end with a chair, in the room where I had sat with Biggs on my first visit to the house. I was impressed that it held a friendless body, for the coffin was not ornamented in any way, and had evidently been hurriedly made by a country carpenter. The top was shut down, as though there were no friends anxious to look frequently at the face, and for the first time I felt sympathy for the dead. It was no doubt very absurd in me, but I had almost expected to find the family in good spirits on my arrival, for I had never had a kindly thought for Mrs. Deming in my life. Her brother never mentioned her at all; her only child did not, except when it was necessary, and Big Adam had told me so much of her disagreeable qualities that I was very much prejudiced against her, but when I found that no one but members of her own family were there during her sickness and death, I felt kindly toward her memory, and thought that Big Adam had certainly misrepresented her. The distress of Agnes, which continued after we were seated in the room where the coffin was, also convinced me there must have been some good in the dead woman, and as the room began to grow dark from the going down of the sun, I thought that her life had been a night, which I hoped would be followed by a glorious morning.
I heard while at the house—it may have been from her old enemy, who returned from town in the course of the night, whistling all the wild airs I had ever heard—that the family had not a single acquaintance in the neighborhood, and that no one came to the house, except a farmer occasionally to see Mr. Biggs on business; that the people all believed Mrs. Deming to be a witch, and that they kept horse-shoes and charms in their houses from dread of her. Although many of them knew and admired pretty Agnes, they believed she had been stolen by Mrs. Deming when very young, and were always expecting some one to arrive and claim her.
From an occasional noise overhead, I understood that Mr. Biggs and the family were up stairs, but none of them appearing, I volunteered to remain up during the night to watch. Agnes gratefully accepted the offer, and as I sat there trying to read after her disappearance, I could tell when each one of the eight children was put to bed. At last I heard the cradle, which had been going constantly up to that time, stop, and I knew the baby, the last one, had been disposed of. Therefore I was not surprised that soon after Mr. Biggs came softly into the room, quite elegantly dressed, in slippers and gown, though he seemed very much depressed. He bowed to me patronizingly, as much as to say that few men could look as interesting in grief as he did, and after standing before me a moment to consider the matter, took hold of my hand and shook it sideways, though I was accustomed to shake up and down. As he walked around the room with his hands clasped behind him, I wondered whether I should be compelled to take the accustomed dose of philosophy, and I soon saw that I should, for, as he walked, he meditated; this was his usual way before attacking me. Coming over to me presently in a manner indicating that he had long been waiting for opportunity to discourse on the shortness of life, and the presence of the coffin afforded it, he seated himself, and abruptly inquired:—
“What is life?”
I knew I was not expected to reply, therefore I did not give him my views on the somewhat complex question and he soon went on:—
“Taking a man, for example, when it is first known that he is to have an existence, his mother cries, and his father says he wouldn’t have had it happen for the world, or for fifty thousand dollars, although he may not have a dollar he can truthfully call his own. After a season of piling his clothes all in one place at night on the part of the coming man’s father, and grief and suffering on the part of his mother, he is finally born, and the women of the neighborhood come in to see which one of his parents he resembles, although it should be known beforehand that he will be like the uglier one in face and disposition. This may ALWAYS be depended upon; it NEVER fails. When he is a month old, or on the first regular bill-day after his birth, his father quarrels with the doctor for bringing him into the world at all, and pays the price in great anger, and under protest, vowing that he will never again give the old quack opportunity to rob him. When he is three or four months old, his father and mother quarrel as to whether he shall be named for her people or his folks. This settled, he is attacked with colic, followed in rapid succession by the numerous distressing complaints which nobody ever escaped. After this comes his boyhood, which he always remembers as being particularly disagreeable, as he never gets enough to eat, and is constantly being found fault with and whipped. At last he is started to school, where a man who is a tyrant because he is not a lawyer (or a woman who is cross because she is not married) endures him during the hours of the day when the outside is most attractive. From this he runs away, and serves an apprenticeship with the world, making so many mistakes, and doing so many foolish things, that he is crestfallen the remainder of his life. Then he marries the wrong woman, and has the experience of his father over again, meanwhile working like a slave to get something ahead. But he does not succeed, as he has a faculty of doing that which he ought not to do, although he strives very earnestly to become a great man, and make his father ashamed of himself, and after a life of misery, a boy comes out of his front door on a morning after a stormy and windy night, and hangs crape on the knob. If there is a newspaper in the town where he lives, he is given a magnificent column, to induce the relatives to buy large numbers of extra copies to send away. The next day a hearse and six gentlemen in black clothes and white cotton gloves appear at his front gate. The neighbors come straggling in to see what the mourners will do, and an hour after that a surly sexton, who is wondering who will pay him, begins to rattle clods on his coffin, whereupon the carriages on the outer edge begin to drive hurriedly away, as if too much time had been spent with him already, and in a few minutes he is an inhabitant of the silent city whose residents quietly wait to be gathered as brands for the burning. If he happened to be possessed of an extra farm, or a store, or ready money, his afflicted relatives prove that he had been crazy several years before his death, that they may divide his effects to suit themselves, and which they afterwards spend in ribald and riotous living. The principal merit of this brief sketch, as the newspaper writers say, is its entire truthfulness. Deceased”—he inclined his head towards the coffin—“had an experience like that I have mentioned, except that she was a woman. Peace to her dust.”
He spoke of his sister as “Deceased” as though that had been her name, instead of Maggie, or Jennie, or whatever it really was.
“Now that she is Up There,” Mr. Biggs continued, after a short silence, waving his right hand toward the ceiling, “I do not care if I mention that Deceased had an unhappy disposition. She had that tendency when a very little girl (being an angel now, she will recognize what I am saying as the truth, and commend me for it), and was usually disagreeable to those around her. Whether her complaint was poor health or disappointed hopes I do not know, but as a man who believes that it is best to tell the truth at all hazards, I confess to you she died friendless. If there is not secret joy in this house that she is dead, then my philosophy avails me nothing, and I am as a ship on an unknown sea without rudder or compass.”
The expression of “a ship without rudder or compass” seemed to please him, for he repeated it quite eloquently.
“Speaking of ships reminds me of my late brother-in-law, whom I have never seen. When he promised to marry the clay which reposes in yon coffin, I was away from home—the exact facts are that I was chased away by my father, a quiet and honest worker in wood who objected to my noise and lying—but for a reason which seems to actuate all fools, I wrote home that I should never be entirely content until I had murdered the man who had bewitched my sister. I can’t tell at this time what caused me to do it, unless it was knowledge of a custom that whenever a girl marries, her brothers and father make fools of themselves (and at that time I was not above custom), for Captain Deming was a very worthy young man. I think he was greatly disgusted at the absurd manner in which we carried on, and if his spirit has been released from the deep, and is hovering around this place, I desire that he hear my declaration that I am ashamed of myself.”
The little man was dramatic again, and waved his hands downward to represent the deep, and upward to represent the heavens.
“None of us liked the girl,” he surprised me by confessing, “and I think that there was some dissatisfaction that she did not marry, and rid my father of her keeping, but the moment there was a prospect she WOULD marry, we all began to object, though I cannot imagine why. At that time I was working in a stable in a town in the West, and I wrote to Captain Deming that only pressing business engagements prevented my coming on and snatching the girl from his relentless clutches, advising my father at the same time by letter not to scruple to burn, shoot, or stab to save the family from impending disgrace. I believe he did sharpen up his hatchet and saw with a vague idea of sawing the Deming body in two, and then cutting it to pieces. I am also informed that he said in the hearing of the Captain one evening that he would rather see the girl in her grave, and when the ceremony was finally performed, he made himself still further ridiculous by remarking to my mother in the presence of the guests that it was all her fault.”
He was apparently greatly amused by the recollection of this ridiculous circumstance, and stopped to laugh to himself, although I thought it was only an expression of satisfaction that he was finally rid of Mrs. Deming. Perhaps he had been wanting to laugh all day, and was now telling me jokes as an excuse.
“I made a great spectacle of myself in the town where I lived, by going about in a dejected and wretched condition, and saying that the Princess, my sister, had married a low fellow who followed the sea, and a few months after that, when I was anxious to boast of Captain Deming, my brother-in-law, I was compelled to move to another place, as the two stories would not fit in the same town. For this reason I went further west, and finally turned up in the Smoky Hills. I believe I never told you before how I happened to come west.”
Had the little old woman burst off the lid, and sat up in the coffin to protest, I could not have been more surprised than I was.
“Captain Deming turned out to be a very superior man,” Mr. Biggs continued, reflectively, “and Deceased to be a very inferior woman, judging from the evidence now at hand, but for several years there was a tradition in my family that she had thrown herself away.”
My companion seemed to enjoy telling the truth about himself as much as I had already noticed he delighted in telling it of others, and while wondering what family confidence he would next let me into, he said:—
“Although in my youth I had a great deal to say about the surprising respectability of my family, they were really a very unpromising crowd. While none of them ever walked between the minister and the sheriff to a hanging, or was ever locked up for theft, none of them amounted to anything, and I am glad that they are all in ignorance as to where I am, for I never want to see any of them again. I am bad enough, but they are worse. My favorite uncle, the Duke, was a barber in the town where I was raised; his sister, the Duchess, was a disagreeable old maid who existed entirely on her respectability, for she spent her time in visiting those of her relatives who had houses, and in boasting of it (she was the laziest woman I ever knew in my life, by the way); my grandfather, the Count, was a market gardener, and there was an Earl on my mother’s side who was a fireman; and the heir to all his possessions rode horses at races because he was old and little. The others I have forgotten, and I am sincerely grateful to my memory for the favor.”
It was very late, and as I did not relish the thought of remaining alone in the room with the coffin, I was sincerely obliged to my companion for his company, and was pleased when I saw that he had more to say:—
“Naturally I am a great liar.” I tried to look astonished, as he intended I should, but I am afraid I did not. “I did not know until a few years ago that honesty was the best policy, and as a boy and young man I never told the truth, even when it would do as well as a falsehood, but of late years I deal in nothing but facts, truths, and principles. I go even farther than that: I rake up the past to find truths that might be kept secret, for I now enjoy honesty as I formerly enjoyed dishonesty. The world is full of men like me in the particular that they tell the truth for no other reason than that experience has taught them it is best to do it. I know hundreds of men naturally thieves who are scrupulously honest for the same reason, and there is a great deal in the saying that honesty is the best policy. It cost me several years of disagreeable experience to make the discovery, but you may depend upon it that honesty is the best policy.”
I had never heard any one accuse Mr. Biggs of having reformed except Mr. Biggs himself, for it was generally understood that he was thoroughly unscrupulous in everything, and the people would no more trust him for money than they would take his word.
“If I lived on a lonely island, without a neighbor, I would do right in everything, for the reason that even under such circumstances honesty would be the best policy. It pays better to be honest to yourself, in fact, than to your neighbor. It’s a pity these facts are not more generally known and accepted, for we should then have a very different world; I am ashamed of it as it is.”
He walked out of the room soon after, and left me alone, where I remained in great terror until an hour or two after midnight, when fortunately I went to sleep in my chair, and did not awaken until Agnes came down in the morning.
The funeral was without incident, except that, very much to the surprise of everybody, Damon Barker appeared soon after the procession started, and walked reverently behind the wagon in which Mr. Biggs, Agnes, and myself rode, Big Adam driving ahead with the coffin. Mrs. Biggs and the children remained at the house for some reason, and I did not see any of them during my visit. A few neighbors appeared at the grave, and threw in the dirt after the body had been lowered, as I believe they had thrown it out, but none of them came to the house. There was no funeral service, but as soon as we arrived at the place selected for the burial, the coffin was put down and covered up, after which we returned to the house, and threw open the shutters. Although Barker was invited to return with us, he politely refused, and went directly home from the church, which was located within a few rods of the place where Biggs had opened the store, and where the post-office was still kept.
In the course of the afternoon it was arranged that Agnes should return home with me, and live there in future, as my mother had long been anxious to have her do, and during the drive to Twin Mounds, little was said, for neither was in the mood for talking. I can only remember of that afternoon that when we arrived at home my mother was waiting, and that for the first time some one seemed considerate of Agnes; for my mother caressed her tenderly, and led her, weeping, into the house.
MY Dear Old Friend,—I am much alarmed when I realize that I am becoming a thinking man, like your father, and that my trouble will some time become so great that I shall disgrace myself and everyone connected with me. Since you were here last I have done little else than think, and I have been very lonely, for I have no companion now. I have not spoken to Mateel since you went away, except when it was necessary, and that has not been a frequent circumstance. This adds to my wretchedness, for I feel contemptible that I am not able to be to all appearance what I always was. I have tried to be, but to no purpose, so I have given it up. I cannot say that I wish I could forget, for then I should feel that I was the man she described in the letter. I am a shrinking, dejected coward, which I never was before, and I think it is because I am not treating Mateel as I should, though I solemnly assert that I cannot do differently.
A man who mistreats a woman becomes a coward as I am, and I accept the ignominy as my punishment. I was bold as a lion when we were happy together, and could look any man in the face; but I cannot now, for I think that everyone who looks at me is an accuser that I am worrying and fretting a helpless woman, which I believe to be the meanest crime of which a man can be guilty. I cannot but acknowledge the accusation, though it is not intentional. I am low and despicable in spite of all I can do, and I can think of no remedy for it.
I continue to make new discoveries which add to my wretchedness. A long while before we were married, Mateel gave me a book full of pretty love stories, and I valued it highly, because many of the passages were underscored, with notes on the margin indorsing the sentiment. The stories were very pretty, and I read them a great deal, but I have discovered that the book was originally given to Bragg; that it was returned when he tired of her, and that the pretty passages were marked for him. It was given to me, no doubt, because it happened to be convenient, and no one else wanted it. Mateel, with the candor which I have come to dread, admitted it, though reluctantly, on being questioned.
One of the romances to which I refer tells of a lady who had quarrelled with her lover, and in a pique married a cold, heartless man, who had no other good quality than that he was kind, and successful, and the story is her reverie. After seven or eight years she accidentally meets her old lover, and confesses that she loves him yet, and has loved him all the while, though she is kind enough to refer to her husband as a dear, good soul. This was particularly full of pencil marks, as though it aptly stated her case, and I think that after she knew a separation with Bragg was imminent, she was anxious to let him know that her future would be something like that.
Another one tells of an eccentric bachelor who meets a pale but strikingly beautiful girl on the street on a cold winter’s night. He once loved a face like that, and interested himself in the girl. In course of time it developed that the bachelor had been engaged to the girl’s mother, and that they were separated by some sort of an unfortunate mistake, and she married a man who was willing to support her in her grief, but who unfortunately died, and could no longer feed her while she mourned. Humiliated and broken, she refused to return to her old friends, but lived with her only daughter in poverty, talking a great deal of her lover, but not a word of the poor fellow who had been her husband. When she finds death approaching she writes a letter to her lover, consigning the girl to his care, and the letter of course falls into his hands, which affects him so much that he surprised his friends by marrying the daughter. I suppose the inference is that Mateel, acknowledging her own weakness, desired Bragg to understand that she would only consent to marry another man with the hope of rearing a daughter good enough for him.
There have been a few sweet chords of music in my life (a very, very few, and simple in construction), but while never complete in my boyhood, I have listened to them in my lonely hours with a great deal of pleasure. They were the whisperings of hope; of happiness which I had never known, but now the familiar air scarcely begins until it is lost in the yells of demons and the harsh laughter of devils. I do not know whether I read it, or dreamed it, but there was once a deep cave said to be haunted. The people who went there without lights, and did not speak for a long while, heard the beginning of the most delicious symphony, as sweet and perfect as the music of the choirs in heaven, but suddenly it was all lost in coarse uproar and laughter, as if the Devil and his imps were flushed with wine at a banquet, and were telling each other of the follies of men, to laugh at them. This dreadful tumult continued until the music was quite forgotten, and no one could remember the strain, although they all said it was very tender and beautiful. Sometimes the people who went there would hear neither the music nor the tumult which always broke into it, but this always happened when the night was fine, and the visitors noisy and in good spirits. But every dark and threatening night, when the wind came hurrying down from the north to be present at the destruction threatened, those who went into the cave always heard the music, and it was notably tender and touching on such occasions, but the devils broke into it more quickly, and were hoarser and louder in their laughing and jeering.
Everything conspires against me now; even Mateel’s religion torments me. I can think of nothing that cannot in some way be construed into misery. Mateel’s hope of heaven is a hope of torment for me. She knows my unbelief, and must be convinced that, if she is right, the years of her happiness in the future can only be measured by the years of my suffering, but she has no other comfort to offer than the hope that I shall be “saved.” How natural it is to disguise fear with hope! I would not regard it as a kindness in a man who saw me drowning to stand peacefully on the bank, and hope I would take hold of a straw, and save myself, but I should admire him if he jumped in, and pulled me out. Hope is often nothing more than an excuse for incapacity and for mistakes, as we hope, in case of an accident caused by carelessness, that nothing serious will result, or as we hope, when we do not do our duty, that everything will turn out fortunately anyway.
If my love for Mateel had never been interrupted, and I had her faith, and she my doubts, I should go mad from thinking of her future. I would make my interest in her impending fate so great that she would become alarmed, and be rescued; or, failing in that, I would be lost with her. I would not own a faith which would not save one I loved, and whom I knew to be honest and pure-minded. I have no particular fears for myself, but, knowing Mateel’s belief as I do, I am hurt at her indifference. I am always thinking—really, I cannot help it, much as I try—that she offers up her prayers for Bragg, and that to be reunited with him I must be burned up, for I am certain that I could not exist with him comfortably anywhere.
I take a kind of delight in finding out how unfortunate I am, and once I wrung a confession from her that she thought it extremely probable that I would be lost, but that all knowledge of it would be blotted out of her memory, and forget in her happiness that I had ever lived. If Mateel’s religion turns out to be true, I think it will be a part of my punishment to be permitted to look into heaven, and see her happy, without a care or thought of me. I don’t think it would be possible to save such a man, but it may become necessary to properly punish my wickedness to place Bragg by her side, in Paradise, that I may contemplate them walking lovingly together.
The skeleton which has found its way into my closet is very noisy now. I think some one, out of consideration for me, has been trying to chain him up, but he has broken loose, and drags his fetters about in the most dismal manner. Either that, or he has company, and I am honored with two skeletons. If other people have but one, I think I shall eventually have two, if I have not now, and be compelled to enlarge my closet. I have occasionally courageously unlocked my skeleton, and tried to look him out of countenance, but he is so indifferent, and I am so unhappy, that I have never succeeded. He is the most impudent skeleton that ever took up an abode in a man’s house against his will, and its grinning, malicious face I cannot lock up, for it follows me about the mill at my work, and walks before me into the dark cellar, and into the lonely loft. Once I thought I saw his tracks in the flour dust, but I found it was only where my unmanly tears had fallen. After I have attacked him, he is more noisy than ever at night, and rattles about so much that I acknowledge his power by thinking my disgrace all over, and admitting that there is no hope.
The affairs of men are so small that I wonder they can be serious about them. I wonder about this every time I meet a grave and thoughtful man, and then I remember that I am grave and thoughtful. I have no doubt that, if I were told of a case similar to my own, I should say the man ought to dismiss it without a curse, and never think of it again, but somehow I cannot do it, though I have tried earnestly and honestly. I had so little peace and content as a boy, and expected so much from my marriage, that I cannot resign myself to a life without hope and without happiness. I suppose the people would laugh at my troubles if they knew them, and I call their affairs trivial, so that altogether we have a very contemptuous opinion of each other. Many of those who come to the mill look at me curiously already, and I suppose it is being said that I am queer, or that I am subject to fits of despondency, which is the first symptom of a crazy man. Next to the original difficulty, I dread most to be called queer, for I never heard it said of a man I respected. But this will probably be added to my other troubles, for when once a man becomes involved in trouble’s web, everything goes against him.
I am only unhappy because I expected the home I built with so much care to be pleasant, but it is not. I expected no more than this, and I would have been a willing slave to insure that result, but there is not the slightest prospect of it now.
Jo Erring.
MY mother was never strong, and her health seemed to be rapidly failing, but she was perceptibly revived by the presence of Agnes. When I told her that Agnes would now live there all the time, and never go away again, she expressed great pleasure, and for days was not content to be out of her company, but followed her slowly around the house as she went about her work. We were like three children again, suddenly released from restraint, but when we spoke in the evening of the happy years we should spend together, my mother became thoughtful at once, and would say no more that night.
Her step was slower than it had ever been; and she walked more feebly, but she still kept up the lonely vigils in her own room at night, and the light was always burning, casting its rays across the deserted street like a pitying star. If I became restless in my bed from thinking of her pale face, and went softly down the stairs to her door, I found her quietly seated in the low chair, as if waiting for a step in the street and a hand on the door. She no longer came to my room at night, as she had done when we were alone, but she apologized for it once because of growing weakness, and believing that she dreaded to be alone, I sometimes lay down on her bed and slept there, but if I awoke in the night, I found her in the old corner, with her head bowed low, and wrapped in deep meditation.
The coming of Agnes brightened the lonely house, which had always been cold and cheerless, as if it were very old, and were inhabited only by very old people, and I was more content than I had been, until I remembered that my mother was slowly dying of a broken heart. This thought came to me whenever we were spending the evening pleasantly together, and often I went away to hide my tears. When I talked to Agnes about it, which I often did before and after she came there to live, I saw by her troubled face that she shared my fears, and that she, too, had marked the faltering steps and whitening hairs. Though we resolved over and over again to do more for her comfort and happiness, and be more watchful of her, she was always just the same—silent and sorrowful, with a look in her white face of worry and sorrow. Whenever she opened a door, or looked into a box or drawer, she seemed to find something to remind her of her husband,—an article of wearing apparel, a scrap of paper on which he had written,—and this she kept in her hand, and carried about, holding it until she took her place in the low chair for the night, where it remained the subject of her thoughts. We both called her mother, and though we were anxious that she should commend us, she seemed shy, as if she were in the way, and Agnes told me that once when she put her hand lovingly on her head, and said we were good children, she did it timidly, fearful of giving offence. She still slept a little during the day—or, at least, she would darken her room when no one was around, and lie down—but we never found her asleep at night, and believed that she never left her chair.
It may have been two months after Agnes came there to live, when we were sitting together one evening, and Agnes was telling us again of her father, of which she never tired, and I recollect that I made more inquiries about him than I had ever done, because my mother was much interested in my statement that men sometimes came back after an absence of a great many years, and told strange stories of adventure. I had no idea this was true of Captain Deming, of whose death there had never been any question, but my mother was listening closely, and I recalled several instances of the return of those given up for dead.
“What evidence have you,” I asked, “that your father is dead, other than that he never came back?”
Evidently Agnes had no thought of a possibility that he was alive, for though she immediately became grave and thoughtful, there was no expression of hope in her earnest face. After thinking about it a long while, she confessed that there was no evidence of his death except that he had never been heard from, which was the brief story of hundreds who had been drowned at sea.
There was one part of the story which I had never before heard, though probably it was not important. The crew which her father had shipped at Bradford was discharged on reaching the first port, the captain claiming there were evidences of mutiny among them, though when they returned they declared that never were men more faithful and honest. Since that time neither the ship nor its captain had ever been heard of, and the returning sailors believed it had gone down because of the shipping of an incompetent crew. Agnes did not know, nor could the sailors who came back to Bradford tell her, what port the vessel loaded for when they were discharged, and this seemed so strange to me that I determined to insert an advertisement in a paper published in a sea town, and solicit information from the captains of that day. This would require a long time, so I resolved to say nothing of my intention, though I had little hope anything would come of it. I found that Agnes knew little about the matter, as she was very young when her father sailed away never to return, but her mother, she said, had made investigations which left no doubt of the shipwreck and death.
My mother and Agnes were sitting together at the other end of the room, while I was facing the door which led into the hall, and into the street. I remember these details distinctly because the ghostly turn the talk had taken led me to think that if the sea should give up its dead, and the captain of the “Agnes” walk in dripping with wet, I should be nearest the door by which he would enter. Agnes was sitting with my mother, who was quietly stroking her hair, and as I looked at them, I wondered if there were two wanderers out in the world wearily travelling toward them, or whether those for whom they mourned were dead, and would never be heard from. It was the merest fancy, for I have since tried to remember whether I believed that night that Captain Deming was alive, or that my father would ever return, and I have decided that I had no real belief in such a possibility.
They were both deeply interested in what I was saying, though incredulous, and I must have been amusing myself in seeing how much I could move them, though I had no intention of being cruel. Perhaps I thought hope was pleasant, even if it had no foundation, for I kept on in such a way that both became very much excited. The wind was rising outside, and when it rattled at the doors and windows I thought it sounded as if some one was demanding admittance.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said gravely, after a long silence, as if I had been debating the question for several years, though I had never thought of it before, “if your father should come to this house some night—I think it would be a dark and stormy night, for they say those long absent only return at such times—and, sitting among us, tell strange stories of his wanderings, and of his search for you. The two travellers we seem to be always expecting here may meet on the road as they near the town, and come on together. Perhaps it is not likely, but it is possible.”
They were both looking strangely at each other, and then at me, and then timidly at the door leading into the hall, and out into the street.
“If they should return to-night, they could easily step into the hall, and listen to what we are saying, for the front door is wide open. Maybe they are there; go and look into the hall.”
This was addressed to Agnes, and there was so much distress in her face when she looked up at me that I regretted having said so much, for I might as well have asked her to look into the hall, and expect to find her mother, who I knew was securely in her grave.
While thinking how to get out of the dilemma into which I had unconsciously talked myself, I thought I heard a noise of feet in the hall, and from where I sat I could look squarely at the door leading into it, though neither Agnes nor my mother could. I supposed it was Martin, who occasionally came to the house in the evening, though I wondered why he should be so quiet, and while deliberating whether to go out and invite him in, or await his knock, the door opened a little, and I was surprised to see Damon Barker standing on the outside. Supposing he had heard all that had been said, I again bantered Agnes to look into the hall.
“I think I heard some one in there,” I said. “Whoever it is he is welcome.”
The visitor did not seem to appreciate my humor, but was very grave, and did not look at me, keeping his eyes on Agnes. He trembled as he came softly into the room, as I have seen men in great excitement since, and was breathing quickly and heavily. At this moment Agnes turned around in such a manner that she saw the face, and with a startled cry she sprang to her feet, and throwing her hands to her head, looked curiously at Barker, and then at me, as if she thought we were in a plot to frighten her.
The silence that followed was of such duration that I would have broken it—as I felt that I was the cause of the awkward situation—but for the fact that as Barker walked in he acted in a manner so odd that I could not speak. Once I thought he would burst out crying, and again he turned as if he would run away. As he advanced toward the middle of the room Agnes shrank further into the shadow, though her eyes were riveted on his face. Two or three times he attempted to speak, and at last he said:—
“Agnes, don’t you know me now?”
His voice trembled so much that the last word was a sob, and the next moment Agnes was in his arms. I was in the greatest wonder, and had not the remotest idea what it all meant, but my mother was shrewder than I, and when she began crying softly I knew she understood it and was satisfied. They remained locked in each other’s arms, both sobbing convulsively, for such a length of time that I began counting the seconds as they were told off by the clock, and when I had got up to sixty Barker held Agnes off at arm’s length to look at her, but he could not see through his tears, and sobbed again like a man who had been holding up for a long time. Even then I did not realize what it all meant, and my jealous heart brought the suggestion to my mind that Barker’s frequent visits to the school meant something after all, and that they had quarrelled, and were making it up.
Just when the thought came to me that Damon Barker was the missing commander of the “Agnes” I cannot now remember, but it almost took my breath away, and a great lump rose in my throat.
Agnes kissed her father over and over, and, wiping away his tears, placed his arms about her again, and hid her face on his breast. He was such a large man, and Agnes such a little girl, that his great arms almost hid her from sight.
“It is so strange as to need an explanation,” Barker said, with an effort, looking at my mother, who was still softly crying, and then at me, who could do nothing but look on in wonder; “but I will never explain to Agnes further than that she has been the object of my thoughts and prayers ever since I so strangely deserted her. However much I may have sinned in other ways I have always loved the child; there is nothing between us. I have been an honest man except in the particular which must be in all your minds, and which it is best never to mention. My secret shall be buried in the grave which we filled up out yonder;” he pointed his hand in the direction of the Smoky Hills, and I thought his old look of hate came into his eyes; “though I have the story written, and Ned shall read it and judge me. I ask him now to read what I have written from my heart during these two months, and then tell you two whether I was justified in the course I took; whether I have been worse than other men who have erred, and suffered. But if I have sinned I have wiped it all out by waiting in the solitude of the woods for the day when I could claim Agnes; in the dreadful fear for her safety, and the prickings of conscience; but if this is not enough I will do penance the remainder of my life that I may be father to my child again. Will you accept me, Agnes, with no other explanation?”
The strange house at the mill, and its strange occupant, were now clear to me, for I knew that when I had seen him in the middle of the night ready to run away; when I had seen him always quickly looking about like a hunted man, he was fearful the little old woman who had frightened me at the house of Lytle Biggs would burst in upon him like a phantom, with her snarling voice, and ugly face, and scold him as she scolded Big Adam.
“Yes, father, yes,” Agnes said, as she looked into his face, “if there is anything to forgive, I forgive it without asking to know what it is. We will be father and child again, and the old house at the mill shall be our home. I ask nothing further than that you love me, and that you have come back to me, never to go away again. You were always so good, and I love you so much, that I believe whatever you did was for the best; I don’t want to know what it is. Ned and his mother can bear testimony to how tenderly I have always cherished your memory, and how much I missed you, though I believed you were dead. The hope that you were alive was never in my mind for a moment, or I should have known you when you were so kind to me in Fairview, after Ned and his mother had moved away, and when I was lonely and friendless. I wondered then why I was not afraid of you, for you were stern and fierce, but I know now; I could not be afraid of my father, though I did not know him. I am content that we commence our lives anew, never to refer to events beyond this night. I am more than content; I am happy, much happier than I have ever been before, or ever expected to be.”
They were walking up and down the room now, locked in each other’s arms, and I thought with Agnes that I would freely accept his explanation without hearing it; I was so certain he was a good and honest man. As my mother looked at them timidly, I thought she was wondering if her wanderer would ever return, and if she would ever be as happy as Agnes. As if convinced that it would never come to pass, she went softly from the room, still hiding her eyes, and we heard her sobbing in the next room. Barker was very much affected, and when Agnes went out to speak to her, he kept saying, “It’s too bad,” until she returned. As for me, I could only stare at him, and look out of the window into the darkness.
“We will agree then,” Barker said, when Agnes was again seated beside him, “that the book of the past, with all its unhappy secrets, shall be closed forever, and we will only open the new leaves, which I hope we can contemplate with pleasure. But before dismissing the past forever, never to recall it again, I want to say that I have watched over you constantly for the past eight years, when I first learned you were living in Fairview. Let me say this to excuse my other neglect, and that you may know how honest my affection for you has always been. You may recollect that you once gave Ned my picture in appreciation of his friendship, and he sent it to me by Jo. He showed it to me one night when I had almost resolved to look for you at Bradford, no difference what the consequence might be, and though I recognized it at once, I tossed it to one side with a glance, though I was so much agitated that soon after I left the room to hide it. When I returned, and inquired as carelessly as I could whom the picture represented, Jo replied that it was the father of the little school-teacher, Agnes Deming and that he had been drowned at sea. By degrees I learned when you came, how you looked, and where you lived; and how often I have made them tell the story without suspecting; how often I have set them to talking of pretty Agnes, and when they told how much she mourned her father, I went away and walked in the woods until I was calm again. Since then I have been near you a hundred times when you did not know it, and a hundred times when you did. Very often I have stolen up to your window in the night, and seeing you were safe and well, crept back through the woods to my desolate home, waiting for this night to come. Once when I looked into your window—it was at Ned’s father’s house, in the country—I saw you kneel, and I heard you ask blessings on my head, though you supposed I was in heaven. It has been a long time to wait, and I have suffered a great deal, but I am satisfied; I believe I shall be happier that it came about as it did.”
I noticed that they at once put into execution their resolve to bury the past in the lonely grave out in Smoky Hill, around which we had all stood two months before, for during the remainder of the night nothing was talked of but the happy future; the to-morrow of their lives, instead of the yesterday.
When I had sufficiently recovered myself to congratulate them, we laughed merrily over my attempt to frighten Agnes, and Barker started to explain how he happened to come when he did, but recollecting his resolve to speak no more of that, he waived it off, and told instead how the house at the mill should be remodelled and refurnished, and the heavy shutters taken down; how the people who passed that way would wonder at the change, and how they should be told that the owner had been blessed through the mercy of God.
“I shall remain plain Damon Barker,” he said. “It is a good name, and has never been disgraced, and I shall keep it. It is as good as any other, and it would be confusing to change.”
I remained with them until long after midnight, and when I went softly up the stairs to my room, I could hear them talking in low tones. During the night, as I restlessly tossed about, I heard the hum of their voices, and when I came down early in the morning after a disturbed rest, I found Agnes quietly sleeping, with her head on her father’s knee, but Damon Barker’s eyes were wide open, and there was a smile on his face, and I thought he had grown younger during the night.
I can never forget the loneliness which came over me when they drove away in the morning, waving their adieus, nor the coldness which came into the house, and would not be driven out. I am certain we lighted fires that night, though they had not been necessary before, and when Martin came down to sit with us, he shivered as he entered the room, and rubbed his hands to warm them.
MY first recollection is of being on board a sailing ship at sea, and by degrees I learned that my mother was dead; that the rough commander who was dreaded and feared by everyone else as well as myself was my father, and that I was kept with him on the ship because I was less troublesome there than anywhere else, and because he desired to look after my education in person, which began when I was five years old.
I heard somewhere that my father, the rough commander, had been very fond of my mother, who died the day I was born, and that his disposition had been different since he gave her an ocean burial, on which occasion he read the service himself in a choking voice, and, locking himself in his cabin directly after it was over, did not come out again for three days and four nights. There was but one other woman on the ship, the stewardess, and I was put in her care, but before I was old enough to remember, she went away, so that I have not the slightest recollection of her.
The mate, who had been in my father’s employ a long while, told me that when my mother was alive she accompanied the ship on all its voyages, and that the commander was not then so hard with the men, but frequently gave them holidays, when it was possible, and was amused with their sports. Indeed, he spent much of his time in her company, trusting the management of the vessel to the first officer while at sea, and was altogether very gallant and attentive, which he had not been to anyone since. The mate’s recollection of my mother was that she was pretty, and fair-haired, and very young and girlish, and evidently well-bred, for her hands were small and white, and she was graceful and accomplished. He believed she had run away to marry my father, for she never left the ship after coming to it as a bride until she was buried in mid-ocean, and neither of them seemed to have friends on shore they were anxious to see, but were entirely content with each other. When the ship was at anchor in the little American port where it was owned, all hands went away for a time except my father and his young bride, and the mate said they seemed to be sorry when the noisy, rough men came back again, as if they had greatly enjoyed being alone.
My father kept her picture in an expensive case in his room, and although I frequently saw him looking at it himself—indeed, when he was not busy with the maps and charts, he had the picture on the table in front of him—I was only permitted to see the face on rare occasions, as on holidays, or after I had learned my lessons particularly well, when he held it before me for a few moments, but never allowing me to take it in my own hands. When I was still a very little boy, I excused much of his neglect of me because of the grief he felt over my mother’s death, and I think my first thoughts were that he in some way laid it all to me, for when I caught him looking at me his face was covered with a frown, and I almost expected him to grasp my throat and inquire why I had been so wicked and so inconsiderate of his feelings. For a great many years I believed her death was due to some blunder of mine, and I suppose this was one reason why I avoided my father as much as possible, that he might not accuse me of it.
I lived on the sea, never being away from it a day until I was fourteen years old, and, occupying a little room connected with my father’s cabin, was compelled to study a certain number of hours each day, and recite to him at night. If I did not learn as much during the day as he thought I ought to learn, he sent for a sailor, and ordered me whipped, but the sailors were my friends, and, begging me to apply myself more in the future, beat the masts instead of my legs. But usually I learned my lessons to amuse myself, for he would not allow me to talk with the sailors, and did not talk to me himself, so that I was very lonely, and studied my books from necessity. Although I never attended school, in this way I became something of a scholar, for I did little else than study under my father’s hard tutelage for eight years—from the day I was five years old until I was thirteen, when he began to grow tired of teaching me. Being an educated man himself, he taught me everything it was necessary for one in my position to know, and selected my studies with so much good judgment, and instructed me with so much vigor and clearness, that I could not have learned more during a like number of years at school.
After I was nine years old he gave me permission to mingle with the sailors to learn their languages, for nearly every country under sunlight was represented in the forecastle mess, and after that I spent all my idle time among them, telling them the story of the stars in return for their strange words, or explaining the mysteries of the winds and currents. I have said that before this he did not allow me to talk to the men, but perhaps I had better write that it was generally understood that I should not mingle with them freely, so that we were all conspirators in getting together. The most pleasant recollection of my youth is of taking an occasional dinner with the sailors, or of spending an hour with them when they were off watch, when there was always a lookout to give notice should the captain approach. Although we were always changing crews, they were all my friends, and the companions of my boyhood were gray and grizzled men, who adapted themselves to my condition, and did whatever pleased me most.
Ours was a merchant ship, though we carried a few passengers, and, as the voyages were long, I became well acquainted with them, for I sat beside my father at the cabin table, and was a great deal in their company, when not engaged with the books. What I know of manners and of polite society I learned from them, and although I thought I liked every new set the best, I believe I cried equally hard when any of them went away. There were many brides among them, going with their husbands to homes in distant countries, and after hearing of my strange childhood, they were all very kind to me. Frequently they asked my father to allow me to visit them at their homes, until his ship touched again at the port where they left us, but always to my inexpressible sorrow he refused, saying he was liable to put the vessel into another trade at any time. I do not remember that we ever had children for passengers, except very small ones, so that I grew up entirely in the company of my elders, and do not now feel that I ever had any childhood at all.
When fifteen years old I was permitted to go on an excursion into the interior with a party of the men, while the ship was lying at a Spanish town, and by an accident I was separated from the rest, and did not find my way back for two days. When the men returned, my father supposed I had run away, and sailed without me, leaving my effects at a shipping office in case I should call for them, together with a sum of money, which was to be forwarded to him unless claimed in a given number of weeks. I really felt relief when I found that I was free, I had lived so wretchedly with my father, and by representing my dilemma to other captains whose ships were in, I had no difficulty in securing a situation, which I desired more than a passage to my own country, and engaged with a captain who was going in an entirely opposite direction. Having studied navigation with my father, I was able to make myself useful to the captain who employed me, and I remained in his service a number of years, at first as his secretary, and finally as confidential adviser and third officer, during which time I learned accidentally that my father was dead, and that his estate did not pay his debts. This induced me to hoard my earnings, which were considerable, and when I was twenty I was part owner and third officer of a ship sailing between a small American port and the Indies. After I had been at this a year or two, my vessel was put in the docks for repairs, and having nothing else to do I fell in love, which is the part of my history upon which I shall dwell.
The girl with whom I became acquainted,—I cannot say infatuated, for I never was; I suppose it was a kind of curiosity,—and who afterwards became my wife, was the only one I had ever known since reaching manhood, and I persisted in calling at her house mainly because she had told me that her father and mother objected to it, though I cannot see why they should, as my station in life was better than theirs, and I had excellent prospects. I do not offer it as an excuse for my later conduct, but it is really the case that I never asked her to become my wife. She took it for granted that I desired to marry her, and said one evening that since it was well understood that we were to be married some time—nothing of the kind was well understood—we might as well agree on a date, and in my weakness I said the sooner the better, or something to that effect, which she understood as a proposal, and accepted in due form. There was never any love between us, but she always gave me to understand that I was distressing her by being there against her father’s will, and never having known a woman before, I supposed the kind of regard she had for me was all that women generally gave, and to vindicate her, and to show her father that he was mistaken in his judgment of me, I allowed the matter to go on until we were married, although I assure you that there was never a moment that I was not trying to devise some means to get out of it, being convinced that it would never do. I am too old a man—and I hope too honorable—to misrepresent any particular in the story I am telling, therefore I have been careful to write only the exact truth, the benefit of a doubt always being given to the dead.
I soon saw that I had made a mistake, but hoped for the best, and, after making extensive arrangements for her comfort, sailed on a voyage which occupied me a year and a half. On returning I found that a daughter had been born to me; but in spite of this I formed such a dislike for my wife that it was with the greatest difficulty I treated her civilly. During the few months I was at home the child became very dear to me, but as my love for it grew, my repugnance for the mother increased so much that I sailed earlier than at first intended (I was captain of the ship by this time) to be out of her company. I had not been at sea a week until I began to dread to return, and often I seriously contemplated drowning, to be rid of it all. But when I thought of the pretty child, I tried to banish the thought for her sake, though I could not do it, and as we neared home on the return trip I dreaded my native town as I dreaded sunken reefs and rocks. The crew counted the days until they could expect to see their wives and sweethearts waving welcome from the shore, but the thought of a meeting with my wife was horrible beyond my ability to relate. I thought of it in a hundred different ways, trying to devise some way to rob the meeting of its terror, but I could never arrange it satisfactorily, and suffered as the damned are said to suffer. On coming home I dreaded most to kiss her, as I was expected to do, and next to that, the first meeting. I cannot explain to you this aversion fully, but it was so strong that I was constantly in the most horrible misery, and the more I thought of it, the more I loathed her.
I am crowding the results of several years into a few lines, during which time I came and went, the aversion all the time growing upon me. Sometimes I was at home only a week; at other times a month or more, and the length of the voyages varied in the same manner. I will not worry you with the details; it is enough to say that she was petulant, an invalid, uninviting in person, without charms of any kind, and utterly lacking in what is now known as common sense. It will be said (you will remark it, no doubt) that I should have made these discoveries before I married her, which is true; I should have, but I did not, as others have failed to make vitally important discoveries until it was too late to take advantage of them; hence this candid avowal of my disgraceful history. I wish to say again that I make these statements with all respect to the charity which should be shown the memory of the dead, yet in justification of myself it is necessary to tell the truth, which may be spoken with propriety at any time.
Other men’s wives were intellectual if not beautiful, or beautiful if not intellectual, but mine was neither. It is my candid judgment, and I write it with sorrow and pity, that she had not a single good quality. (I have thought it all over, before proceeding, and assert it again: Not one.) I think she never went to bed in her life that she did not drink some sort of tea for some sort of complaint, and it was her only boast that in all the world a woman could not be found who “bore up” as well as she did. She took pride in nothing else; she had no other ambition than to demonstrate that such was the case, and had no other delight than to cite evidences of it. I beg you will remember that these are cold, calculated assertions of fact, and not illustrative in any degree. I have spent several weeks in writing this letter, in a manner that cannot be misconstrued; every word has been weighed, and put down after its effect and the impression it would convey had been carefully considered.
She took not the slightest interest in me nor my affairs; indeed, she took interest in nothing except her family, which worried her so much that frequently she awakened in the night, and cried for hours like a silly child for fear her mother, or her father, or her brothers, or her sisters, were not well, although there would not be the slightest reason to suppose they were not enjoying their usual health. This circumstance is particularly worthy of note when it is known that she did not get along with her family, for they were always quarrelling when together, and although they were the most ordinary people, she talked of them, and wondered what would they say to this or that, so much that I gently remonstrated with her. This she construed into an attack, and while I lived with her she regularly vindicated “her family” whenever I came into her presence, in a manner indicating that they were of royal blood. They moved away from there after we had been married a few years, and this gave her occasion to bewail her separation from them, which she never lost opportunity to do. Her father was a perfect type of a common man; the mother was a little better, perhaps, but the brothers and sisters did not average with the young people in the poor town where they were brought up, so that this great admiration was unwarranted, and ridiculous. But if it were disagreeable when “her family” were in the same town with us, it was unbearable when they were away. For every month of their separation she added a hall, park or castle to her father’s possessions—which consisted in reality of battered household goods that a really vigorous man could have carried away on his back. Finally I began to think seriously of running away.
Inasmuch as this is a hurried sketch of my life, I will mention as a single example of how we lived, and which might be multiplied by any figure below a thousand, that if I complained that we seldom had fish on the table, we had fish regularly thereafter until I complained that we had nothing else, whereupon she said I was a grumbler, and hard to please, and from that time fish was banished from the house. No matter how much I longed for fish after that, I was afraid to ask for it, for we would then get nothing else.
I think I never sat down at the table with her that she did not bring out a depraved private dish for herself which I abhorred and despised. Tripe boiled in vinegar was one of these; roasted cheese was another, and the fumes from either made me so sick that I was compelled to get up and go out. She persisted in bringing these dishes to the table to “show her spirit,” although many times she did not want them, I am thoroughly convinced.
In addition to the disagreeable qualities I have hastily mentioned, she was always complaining; if not of me, of her health; if not of her health, of the trouble the child was, or of the house in which we lived, which I am certain was the best she had ever seen; but she never complained of my long voyages, and I think she enjoyed my absence as much as I did hers. In short, although by this time I realized the fitness of a suitable marriage, I knew mine was the most unsuitable in the world; that we had nothing in common; that we should grow gradually worse instead of better, and that I should surely become, by reason of it, a dissatisfied, incapable and worthless man. Therefore, I began to weigh the consequences of running away.
This brought to mind the love I bore the child, which had grown steadily during the eight years since she was born, and I came to the conclusion that if I remained as I was I should become a man so gross and selfish as to shrink under her increasing intelligence and refinement, for she was as pure and good as an angel, and I concluded it would be better for her to think of me as a good man dead than as a bad man alive, therefore after I had lived in the manner I have described for nearly nine years, making my voyages as long as possible, I went away, and determined never to return.
The more I thought of it, once I was away, the stronger my determination became never to enter the presence of my wife again, and after thinking of it night and day for several weeks, I accepted the disgrace. Public opinion is always against a man in matters of this kind, no difference what his wrongs may be, and men who are contemplating running away from family difficulties themselves regard the offence the greatest of which some one else can be guilty, but I accepted the consequences, and felt relief when I knew I was finally rid of her.
I had accumulated a good deal of property during my career as a shipmaster, and I left it all, except the ship, and in such condition that she could use it. The ship I determined to keep as my share, as it was no more than half. My first idea was to locate somewhere—I had no idea where, but a long way off—and after Agnes had reached a reasoning age, to secretly write her the story I have written to you, and ask her to decide between us, in the hope that she would come to me. This hope supported me, and without it I could never have put into execution my plan of escape.
On reaching the first port after sailing from home, I pretended to find evidences of mutiny among the crew, which caused me a great deal of pain, for many of the men had been with me for years, and were as true and honest as men become, but it was necessary to carry out my plan, and I discharged them all. After they had left the place by taking positions on other ships, I engaged another crew, and went into another trade, which carried me thousands of miles further away from my own country. Again I discharged the crew, and after allowing the ship to be idle in the docks for several weeks, I rebuilt and repainted it in such a manner that its old acquaintances would not have known it had they encountered it on the high seas. I also changed the name. After another voyage, I sold the ship at a sacrifice, and took passage for my native land as Damon Barker, where I arrived after an absence of two years, and by mingling with seafaring men, I heard that the “Agnes” had been lost, which impression was generally accepted.