I then determined to locate in the West, and for this purpose bought the machinery which you have often seen in operation on Bull River, as I believed milling would be a profitable business. I worked for a time as a laborer in a mill, to become familiar with its workings, and I bribed the head man to teach me at night. How I came to locate within twenty miles of my wife and child, God only knows, for they arrived here before I did, although I did not know it until four years afterward, as I have already related. What has occurred since, you know.
One more paragraph, and I dismiss this part of my life forever. I have given an inference that I am an only child, which is true so far as my mother is concerned, but Mrs. Tremaine, whose disappearance with your father will give you an interest in the subject, was the child of my father’s first marriage. I believe, although I do not know exactly why, that his first marriage was something like mine, and a few months after securing a divorce he was married secretly to my mother, who was but seventeen, and a member of an excellent family. While I knew where Mrs. Tremaine lived, and knew of her relation to me, I had never seen her but once or twice, which was long before I was married at all, and in my desperation when I first came to this country, I sent her a sum of money, accompanied by a letter of explanation, and entreated her to visit Bradford, and learn how the child prospered. It happened that she was widowed about that time, and instead of doing as I directed, she came out to live with me. I confess to you that I always disliked her, and was glad when she went away. Her husband was a quiet, good man, and I think he must have died of neglect, for she neglected everybody except sinners and drunkards. He was neither, and I think he died from indigestion, induced by living on food prepared by himself. That she was a failure as a woman, you and I know very well, and I have no doubt your unfortunate father admits it by this time.
I have told you, in brevity and in truth, my life, and I only ask that you destroy this immediately after you have finished the reading. If you treat me in the future as you have in the past, I shall believe that you think I was justified in my course; if your manner toward me changes, I will understand that I am censured, but do not refer to this matter in any manner in your future intercourse with me. I dismiss it forever.
Your friend,
Damon Barker.
DURING the fall following the summer when Agnes went to live with her new-found father at the mill, I was so occupied with my work, and with my mother, whose health was failing more rapidly than ever, that I met my old friends in Fairview only occasionally. Several times Jo came to Twin Mounds, but it was usually at night, as if he desired to meet as few of the people as possible, dreading the glances of wonder which his changed appearance attracted. Often I transacted business for him because of his dislike to come to town during the day, and went to great trouble on his account, but I was glad to do it, as I felt that I could never repay his acts of kindness to me.
He said to me often that nothing was so distasteful to him as wrangles over business affairs, as if nothing in the world was so important as the possession of money, and that he allowed himself to be robbed rather than dispute and quarrel, which knowledge I am afraid his customers often used to their own advantage. His business remained profitable, I also heard him say, because he had to keep busy to avoid self-destruction, and that motive seemed to succeed quite as well as the nobler one of ambition.
If he came to the house, and met my mother, her painful condition had a bad effect upon him, so that he finally avoided her, usually coming to the office in the evenings when he knew I should be there. I think she never knew he was in trouble, for I never told her, and she seldom talked to any one else, though she must have wondered at the remarkable change in his manner, for he had grown nervous to a painful degree, and looked anxiously about like a hunted man. Usually when he came to Twin Mounds he had no other errand than to be with me for a few hours; at these times he would go over his painful story in detail, and, in explaining his wretchedness, try to justify himself, talking of it in such a pitiful way that I became nervous myself in trying to devise some way out of the difficulty. He talked a great deal of how the people would blame him if they knew the story; how they would say his brain was softening, or that he ought to be sent to an asylum, and then he would put the case to me again, and ask me to judge if his trouble was not justified. I always believed that it was, more because I knew that my friend, a man of promise, was in distress, than because I had impartially judged it, and so I always told him, but this gave him little satisfaction, for he said that in my friendship for him perhaps I did not do Mateel the justice she deserved.
When the weather was fine, I drove him home at night, and I think we always met Bragg driving toward the town. Except that he was more of a dog than ever, there was little change in the fellow, and he moped about in his usual listless fashion, doing nothing but mischief, and occasionally becoming maudlin from drinking out of his bottle. He probably watched Jo’s coming that he might meet him on the road as an annoyance, and I always trembled when I saw them meet, for Jo’s hatred for him was intense, and he would have been delighted with the slightest excuse to beat him.
Once when he gave so little of the road that his wheels locked in ours, Jo sprang out, and, pulling him from his buggy with one hand, hit him such a blow with the other that he reeled and fell in the underbrush beside the road. I could not leave the team, or I should have sprung between them, but Jo realized his superior strength, and did not strike him the second time, but stood over him with every muscle quivering in restraint. The vicious horse was awed by his master’s misfortune, and stood trembling in the road, as if afraid to move. When we drove on I saw Bragg pick himself up, and after wiping the blood from his face with leaves, climb into the buggy, and hurry away, and although night was coming on, I could see him on the next hill, an ugly speck on the horizon, still wiping away the blood, as though there had been a profuse flow. For several days after that when I met him I could see a livid mark on the left side of his face, and there was a cut on his lip which did not entirely heal for weeks.
I never knew, but I think it is probable that Mateel believed that I accused her more than I did, or that I rather encouraged Jo in his ugly moods, which was not the case, though I confess that I did little to effect a reconciliation, being impressed from the first that it was impossible. His humiliation was so intense that I could not bring myself to speak lightly of it, as though he were a weak man harboring a caprice, and I still believe that in this I was right. Anyway, she barely recognized my presence when I went there at night with her husband, and never spoke to me about the trouble between them. I was more impressed on each visit that she was helpless, and had not the strength to attempt to reclaim him from his depression, or else she had tried everything at the beginning and given up in despair. Had she attempted to win him back to her he would have told me, but as he only spoke of the ease with which she accepted his request to never show him the slightest attention, I am sure she never did.
Although I cannot now remember whether he told me directly, or whether I learned it from all that was said, I knew that he was always waiting for her to ask him to modify or withdraw his request, and that in the stillness of the night he prayed that she would at least come to him and regret his unhappiness, but if she was not indifferent to it all she was an admirable actress. I knew he would have gone to her but for this indifference, but she seemed to care so little about it that he was ashamed to go. Once in my presence—and often when I was not there—he apologized for his cruelty, but her manner indicated that the apology was unnecessary, and that there was no occasion to mention it. I felt that Jo was mortified at this, and that they were now further apart than ever.
Perhaps I worried so much about Jo at this time that I never tried to form an opinion as to whether she loved her husband as much as I knew he loved her, or whether her dejected manner was due to mortification or regret. I was witness to incidents which confirmed me in both these opinions, so that I think I must have concluded that one caused her as much trouble as the other. I often thought to speak to her and say she misjudged me; that I would gladly serve her if I could, and that in my friendship for Jo I had no unkind thought of her, but the favorable opportunity never came, and I neglected it.
Although at long intervals Agnes came to visit my mother, she usually went away again before I had seen her, and only once during this time did I find opportunity to visit her at the mill. It was in the winter, when my mother seemed much better, and I was greatly impressed by the change at the mill. The heavy wooden shutters formerly at the windows were taken down entirely, or left wide open; the thick growth of trees had been cleared out, and in every way the house seemed more cheerful than it had been. I could no longer, as I had done before, think of the house as the home of a desperate man who had retired with his ill-gotten gains and who was always expecting occasion to defend himself; and I thought I had never seen Agnes look so contented and happy as she did in her own home, although she had always been that. A great lump rose in my throat as I remembered that all of them seemed to be getting on better than myself, for as I looked around the pleasant place, the cheerless rooms at home, where my mother sat the day out and in again, appeared before me; I thought of the unhappiness at Jo’s, where I intended to stop on my return, of my father wandering about, a homeless and disgraced man, and of my tiresome work, which seemed never to end, but I could not help feeling keen pleasure that patient Agnes had reason to be happy at last, as I knew she was, for every action showed it, and the house and everything in it seemed to be repeating it.
When I first went there as a boy to visit Barker the room which Agnes afterwards made into a parlor was used for storing sacks, and I never looked in at the door that I did not see venerable rats hurrying away to their holes, evidently as much alarmed at my presence as I was at theirs, and even the damp room where B. used to sit and collect moisture had dried out from having the sun often let into it. The great room above, where we had the suppers and the stories, was not much changed, except that it was cleaner and lighter, and the magic of a woman’s touch was everywhere apparent. The box stove in which we had made the famous fires, the table at which Barker sat, and the revolving shelf where he kept his books, were just the same, and but for the presence of Agnes I should have imagined that the master had stepped into the next room to look through the mysterious boxes for relics to amuse the two barefoot boys who came over from Fairview occasionally to visit him. But I found that the boxes were no longer in the next room; they had been sent to the mill loft, for nothing was left to remind them that they had ever been separated, or that there had been a shadow across their path. The room where Jo and I had slept when visiting Barker was now occupied by Agnes herself, and I sat down by the window and told her how her father came in and stood beside the bed after we had retired, as if dreading to be left alone, where he remained until we were sound asleep; how I had wakened once in the middle of the night, and, creeping to his door, found him sitting at the table with his hat and coat on, as if ready to run away; how generous and considerate he had always been with us, and how we esteemed him as a noble man, and how glad I was that she had found in my old friend one greater than a friend. To this Agnes would only reply that there was nothing now to interfere with their peace and content except the knowledge that some of their old friends were in trouble.
Although I knew that Big Adam had followed Agnes to the mill, and become the assistant, I was made further aware of it by hearing him talking about his work while we were yet in the house, which sounded like distant thunder, for his voice seemed to have grown hoarser with age. When I went down to call on him he hugged me like a bear, and only released me when the miller himself appeared to greet me.
Big Adam seemed to be pleased with his new position, and he frequently came around to remark secretly to me that every family had its deaths by Indians, which I understood was a reference to the mysterious manner in which Agnes had found her father, and he was a sworn friend of Barker’s because he seemed to hate his old enemy. When not engaged in this manner, Big Adam was rubbing against me, that I might get flour dust on my clothes, and understand that he was a miller, but after noticing it, he brushed me down with great ceremony and many apologies. As I walked about the mill with the proprietor, I heard the assistant draw a great many corks, and pour out liquor which seemed to be very old and rich, and which came out of the bottle in hoarse gurgles.
I could not help remarking of Barker that time had suddenly ceased to tell on him, and that he seemed to be growing younger; for all the distressed lines of care had disappeared from his face, and his eyes were brighter, and smiles were no longer strangers to him. His old habit of casting quick glances in every direction, as if always expecting the sudden arrival of a dreaded visitor, was no longer a characteristic; it had disappeared entirely, and instead he was quiet in his manner, and apparently quite at his ease. When I had known him in my boyhood, there were times when I feared him; when I expected him to break out in a violent temper, and, declaring that he was tired of a lawful existence, murder Jo and me with a volley from all his brass pistols at once, and set out to join his old companions, but now there was a serenity on his face which betokened peace and quiet content. He had no ambition beyond the happiness of his child and a quiet life at the mill, and as he had means in abundance, he had little to disturb and annoy him.
I did not have long to talk with him, as my visit was hurried, but he told me during the time that he was worried about Jo, and that if at any time I concluded that he needed his aid—I was with him more, and apt to know should that emergency arise—I had only to command him, no difference what the service was. I think he imagined the trouble was in some way connected with money, for he said repeatedly that he was now easy in that particular, and ready to assist his friends. When I told him it was not that, he was very much concerned, although he did not inquire further, and afterwards became grave and thoughtful in thinking about it.
In returning from this visit to Barker’s—it was in mid-winter, a short time after the holidays—I was very much surprised to meet Jo Erring walking toward me in the road, apparently on his way to the mill. He stopped before I came up with him, as if considering whether he should go on, or back with me, and, settling it as I drove up, he stepped into the buggy and sat down beside me.
Although the day was cold, he said as we drove along that he had been walking through the woods to amuse himself, and was not going anywhere. I remember him particularly on this afternoon because he declared that he would not mention his trouble to me again, as even I must have concluded that he was in the wrong. I replied in such a way as to confirm him in this belief—through hesitancy in framing my answer, it must have been, for I did not mean to—and this hurt him so much that he looked away to hide his tears. I assured him that I never questioned his manliness in the matter, and only thought of it to pity him, but he would only say that he was about convinced himself that he was wrong, although he could not help it; he could not keep his thoughts off his humiliating marriage, and there was nothing left him but disgrace and ruin.
As I looked at him I became more than ever aware of his haggard, desperate appearance; of his nervous twitching, and the quick and excited way in which he did everything. He had formerly been very neat in his dress, but he was now careless in this regard, and instead of sitting upright beside me, he wobbled about, and seemed to be unjointed as well as uncomfortable. No position was easy for him, and at times he acted like a drunken man. He started several times to say something in justification of himself, but before he had fairly begun the sentence, he gave it up, and leaned back in his seat again, convinced that it was a waste of time to talk further about it, or remembering that he had resolved to say less in future. Perhaps he had thought so much over his trouble that his brain was tired, and it was painful to speak. Although he had previously been a robust man, he had grown pale and thin, and there were indications of fever in his face, though when I put the question to him, he said he was as well as usual.
When we came in sight of his house—we were on the other side of the creek, opposite the mill—I was surprised to find Clinton Bragg’s buggy hitched at the gate. At that time Jo was looking down at his feet, so that he did not see it, and I thought to turn around, and drive another way, but my unusual action attracted his notice, and he quickly raised his head. I shall never forget the look of indignation and horror which appeared on his face when he looked up, and, taking a second glance, he sprang out of the buggy, and ran toward the dam. I knew his intention was to cross it, and though it was a dangerous undertaking, he jumped the gaps in it like a desperate animal after prey.
The ford was a short distance below, but before I reached it, I saw him climbing the abrupt bluff on the other side, helping himself by grasping the underbrush, and slipping and falling on the frozen ground. I turned the corner of the mill at this moment, and drove into the ford, and when I came up to the house, Jo had disappeared on the inside. Hurriedly hitching the team, I almost ran into the house, fearing there would be murder done, but when I opened the door, and stepped in, I found them all in the front room—Clinton Bragg, pale and trembling, near the door; Jo, on the opposite side of the room, in a great state of excitement, and Mateel between them. I had never seen her assert herself before, and it awed her angry husband into submission. There was a look of dignity in her face, and her eyes flashed as I had never seen them. I could see she had been talking excitedly, and she continued after looking up as I came in:—
“You have insulted my womanhood by this action, and cast suspicion on my honor,” she said, trembling violently. “The gentleman drove up but a moment ago on a trifling errand from my mother, and I could do nothing else than admit him. He sat down by the fire to warm, when you came bounding in like a jealous demon whose worst suspicions had been confirmed, and would have killed him had I not thrown myself in the way. You have given him reason to believe that you doubted my honor; every one who hears of this disgraceful proceeding will have the same opinion. You have wronged me in the most cruel manner, and I can no longer remain silent. In justice to myself as your wife I protest, and demand that you save me from disgrace by allowing him to depart in peace.”
She was magnificent in her indignation, and Jo cowered before her, though there was so much hatred in his face that he looked like an animal.
“I shall ask him in your presence to take me back to my mother,” Mateel went on to say, watching her husband narrowly, as if fearing that he would spring at Clinton Bragg at the suggestion, “to remain there until you come to me, and acknowledge that you were wrong.” I felt sick and faint when she said it, for I believed that if she went away with Bragg she would never come back. “When you come to yourself you will respect me for it. I have allowed you so much liberty in the past that I feel that I must do this to vindicate your wife; to redeem her from the stain your disordered fancy has put upon her.”
She swept past me and up the stairs to her room to prepare for the journey, and like a cowardly dog Bragg crept out behind her, and on out to the front gate, where he shivered and waited in the cold.
Her determination so impressed me as a mistaken one that I would have followed her up the stairs, and begged her to think again before taking the step, but Jo made a mute appeal to me to remain where I was, which I reluctantly did. Falling into a chair which stood near him, he raised his head occasionally to listen as his wife went about the room above where we sat, collecting a few articles into a package; when she stopped a moment he listened more eagerly than before, hoping, I have no doubt, that she was debating in her own mind whether her determination was not rash and hasty; he followed her footsteps as they came part way down the stairs; he followed them back into the room again, where she went as if something had been forgotten, and down the stairs until she paused timidly at the door, and as she pushed it open and came in he shuddered to see that she was dressed for the ride. I think he never doubted that she would come back, and say she had given it up, but when he saw that her determination continued he buried his face in his hands, and leaned his head on the back of the chair on which he sat.
I could see that Mateel had been weeping while out of the room, and that it was with great effort she maintained her composure. She stood near the door, buttoning her gloves, and spoke to me as much as to Jo:—
“I hope that what I am about to do is for the best; if it were not I am sure that God would not permit me to go away. Surely in His wisdom He would guide me differently if my action threatens to make us more unhappy than we have been.”
She had finished putting on her gloves, and there was no further excuse for her to stay, but she remained, and trembled and hesitated.
“He has imagined so much,” she was talking to me now, “that if I allow this to go unrebuked he will be confirmed in his unjust suspicions. I feel that if I do this it will be better for my husband, better for myself, and for all of us. I have heretofore said nothing submitting to a great many indignities which his changed disposition implied; but he has grown unhappier every day. It cannot be wrong if I ask that he respect my womanhood as I have always respected his manhood. I have felt that I have pursued a wrong course from the first; at this late day I attempt reparation, though it almost kills me to do it.”
She had advanced a step or two toward her husband, and as he made no reply to what she said, she seemed anxious to justify her course still further, and continued, this time talking to both of us:—
“If I have failed to be an acceptable wife, it was because my husband’s unhappiness distressed me so much that I was unable to accomplish all that my heart suggested. I have thought of this so much that my health has become impaired, and I have lost the power to act. I was a weak and puny girl; I fear I am a weaker woman, and if I seem to have been helpless in the sorrow which has come upon our house, it was because I was dumb at the enormity of it I tried in my weak way to explain it and effect a reconciliation, but he told me that everything I said made it worse. I could do nothing then but bear the burden bravely. He asked me as a favor to let him alone; as an obedient wife I did the best I could, hoping all the time that he would recall his cruel request. I have not dared to express my regret at his unhappiness, fearing he would not like it, and God is my witness that it is not my fault that we have lived as strangers so long.”
As I paid respectful attention, and her husband none at all,—his face was turned from her,—she addressed herself to me again:—
“I hope it will be always understood that I am taking this step not in anger, but because I feel that I must do something. I cannot live as I have been living, and self-preservation suggests action of some kind. Perhaps what I am doing is not wise, but I can think of nothing else. I have always felt that I should have been more independent, and asserted myself more. I hope he will understand, and respect my determination.”
Although I felt that I ought to interfere, I knew it was useless and idle, and perhaps would offend them both, so I held my peace.
“If he will ask me to remain,” she was losing her dignity and composure very rapidly, and when I realized how pale and weak she was I wondered she had held up so long, “I will reconsider; or I will ask you to take me home, instead of Clinton Bragg, if he desires it. I will do anything he wishes.”
Not a word, Jo? Will you refuse your trembling wife advice when she asks it, and then hold her responsible if she adopts the wrong course?
When Jo did not reply, Mateel seemed to think that there was nothing left for her to do but to go, and never come back; and walking over to him, she said in a voice which has since remained a sob in my memory:—
“Won’t you bid me good-by?”
He remained still and motionless, as before.
Falling on her knees before him, and holding her hands out to him imploringly, she repeated the request, but he did not move or speak, and after waiting a moment, Mateel rose to her feet in a dazed sort of way, and, staggering toward the door, went out into the hall and down the steps, without once looking back. When he heard the door close upon her, Jo ran to the window, and as he looked out his breathing was short and quick. Standing beside him, I saw that a snow-storm was commencing, and that the day was far advanced. Bragg helped Mateel into the buggy with an insolent sort of politeness, and, seating himself beside her, drove away.
After they had passed down the hill which led to the ford, Jo sprang nimbly up to the sill of the window, and eagerly watched them. As soon as they passed out of sight from that position, he jumped down, and ran up the stairs, and when I followed, I found him standing in the window in Mateel’s room, peering after his rapidly departing wife. As they drove out of the ford, and into the edge of the woods, they were for a moment in full view, but, turning directly away, were soon lost in the gathering twilight. Hoping that a turn in the road, or an opening in the timber, would reveal them again, he remained watching for several minutes, jumping down, and running hurriedly from window to window. When he was at last certain that they had finally gone, he got down slowly from his perch, and, throwing himself on the bed, wept and sobbed aloud.
Knowing that I could not leave him, and that I was expected at home, I went down to the mill, and asked the assistant to drive to town and inform my mother that Jo was ill, and that I should not return till morning. This he readily agreed to do and was soon on the way.
Returning to the house, I soon had the lamps lighted, and the fires burning, and went up stairs to where Jo still lay motionless on the bed. He had not changed his position, although he was no longer sobbing except at long intervals, like a child recovering from a protracted period of weeping. I now noticed for the first time that he was much like my mother in his sullen grief, for a hundred times I had sat beside her bed for hours when she was depressed, asking her to speak to me, but while she seemed to appreciate my thoughtfulness in remaining with her, she would never answer, but tossed about from side to side, always avoiding my eyes. I repeatedly asked him if there was anything I could do, but he would not reply, and at last covered his head, as if he would hide his sorrow from me. Out of consideration for him, I removed the light to another room, and, returning, sat down in the darkness by his side.
An hour passed, and then another, and still another, and nothing could be heard but the ticking of the clock, and the occasional sighs of the unhappy man on the bed, which became so painful to me that I began to watch for and dread them, and wonder whether the most pitiful thing in the world was not a strong man weeping. I have since heard my own children sob in their sleep as Jo Erring did that night, and felt again how wretched I was as I sat there waiting for him to speak.
When it was time for the man to return from town, I began to listen for the first noise of his approach, until at last, becoming nervous that he delayed so long, I went down to the front door, and out to the gate to look down the road, when I found that the snow was falling in earnest, threatening a great storm. Another hour passed, and at last I heard the sound of wheels. Hurrying down to the gate, I received from the hands of the assistant a note, and when I went back to the light, I was alarmed to find that it was from a neighbor of ours, and to the effect that my mother was dangerously ill, and that my coming should not be delayed. I went into Jo’s room, and told him of it, hoping he would propose to go to town with me, but as he paid no attention, I left the note on the table beside him, and hurried away.
The horses were jaded from the long day’s work, but I urged them along the rough roads at a rapid pace. Every bush had grown into a white-robed phantom, and I imagined that one of them was my father, pleading to be taken up, and hurried to the end of his long journey; that another was my mother come out to meet me, distressed at my long delay; in still another I could see a resemblance to Jo as I left him lying on the bed, except that the drapery of white covered everything. I saw Mateel kneeling at a tomb in which I thought must be buried her hope, and so many mounds took the shape of graves that I mercilessly lashed the horses, and it was but an hour after midnight when the lights of Twin Mounds began to appear. When I came into the town, the houses seemed to be great monuments of white, as though the people had said their prayers and died when the snow came, and down the street I could see the light which was always shining for one who never came.
When I hurried into the house I saw that my mother’s room was full of pitying faces, and that the people made way for me as I approached the pale form on the bed. I was so frightened that I could do nothing but kneel down, and burst into tears, and while I knelt thus I knew that my mother’s hand was placed lovingly on my head. When I recovered sufficient composure to look at her, I saw that she was lying precisely as I had left Jo; her arms thrown out carelessly on either side, and there were tears in her eyes, and a look of inexpressible grief on her face. Occasionally she took a long breath, and sobbed, as her brother had done, and she turned her head away from me, as he had done, but not until I saw that there was blood on her lips, when it was softly explained in answer to my look of alarm that she had had a hæmorrhage. I tried to make myself believe that it was but an attack which would soon be over, but the people who were gathered about were so serious that my tears came afresh, and I could do nothing but hope.
She had turned her face away from me, and remained in that position so long that it was suggested that perhaps she was asleep. Some one went softly around to that side of the room to see her face, and looking at the others in quick alarm, they came crowding around the bed: the patient watcher was dead.
Let the bleak winds take up the cry of the unhappy son, and carry it across rivers and fields to the wanderer, that he need not return; that the light in the window has gone out, and that the watcher who waited so long to forgive him is dead. Let them look for him in all the places where hunted men hide, and deliver the message that a pitying angel came, and, taking the light which offered forgiveness and peace so long, planted it in the heavens, where it will remain forever, a pitying star, offering mercy to all men who are weary and in distress.
THE fall of snow continued through the night, and during the following day, and there was grave doubt whether those who had been sent for could arrive in time for the funeral, for great drifts had collected in the roads, and it was very cold. The people who came in talked more of the weather than of the dead, and it was whispered among them that such a storm had never been known before in the history of the country. A man who had been out to dig the grave came in and whispered to his wife that the ground was frozen to a wonderful depth, and that those who were helping him could only work a few minutes at a time, and that the grave filled up with drifting snow almost as fast as they could throw it out.
This was on the afternoon of the next day, and as the evening wore on, lights were brought into the room where I sat. One by one the people who were at the house went away, leaving only those who were to watch through the night, and as each one went out, they remarked the severity of the weather, and shuddered and shivered before stepping out into the drifting snow. I believe I felt a relief when they were gone, for I desired to be alone. I hoped I was not ungrateful for their kindness, but the attentions the people showed me were almost annoying, and frequently during the day I left them, and repaired to one of the lonely upper rooms, where I tried to sleep, but I could only think of my mother lying cold and dead; of Jo in his lonely home, and of the mountain of snow which seemed to be covering up all hope of happiness for any of us.
My mother lay in the front room, which was almost as cold and cheerless as the outside, for when the watchers went in to see that all was right, which they did by turns, they wore heavy coverings, and shuddered, and came out again as soon as they could. A wide hall ran between that room and the one in which I sat, and straight down the hall was that part of the house where the watchers dozed by turns, and talked in low voices, which only came to me when the doors were opened.
As the night wore away the storm increased with every hour, and feeling that my mother was in a cheerless and lonely place, I got up and opened the door leading into the hall, and that which led into the room where the plain black coffin stood. As I went back I noticed that heavy blankets had been thrown at the foot of the front door, to keep out the drifting snow and keen winds, but in spite of them the snow had crept in, and was lying about in little drifts, which impressed me more than ever with the severity of the storm on the outside. Going into the room where the watchers were, I found them all asleep, though they wakened with an apology as I opened the door.
Knowing that they were all tired and worn out, I told them to sleep if they could, and that I would watch until midnight, when I would call them if I tired of the undertaking. Going back to my own room—the one in which my mother had sat, and where the light was always kept burning—I stirred the fire and sat down again. I glanced up at the clock to see what the hour was, but the pendulum was still, and then I remembered that it had been stopped when my mother died, for the first time within my recollection.
I must have fallen into a light sleep, and slept for some time, for, when I started up, the fire was low although I had left it burning brightly. Something, I could not tell what, had disturbed me, and I hastened into the other room to see that all was well. Everything remained as I had left it, and coming back I sat down to listen for the noise again. After listening for a time, without really expecting to hear anything, I was startled by a timid rapping at the front door. It frightened me so that I thought of calling the watchers, but finally determined to open the door myself, thinking it might be some of those who had been sent for. Going out and opening the door a little way, I saw that a strange man, wrapped up in mufflers and furs, was standing at the gate, as if he had despaired of an answer to his knock and was going away. After a moment of hesitation, he walked towards me, and I was almost tempted to shut and lock the door in his face, for I did not know him. He seemed to recognize me, however, for he walked into the house, and, passing me, sat down at the fire I had left, where he shivered and trembled so much that I thought he must be a belated traveller attracted by the friendly light, which was, perhaps the only one in the town.
As I stepped behind him to stir the fire, and looked at him curiously, I became aware that it was my father. His beard was gray, and his face wrapped for walking in the storm, but I knew him. The wanderer had returned at last, but too late! He continued to shiver and tremble, the result of agitation and the extreme cold through which he had come, and sat for a long time trying to warm himself, while I walked up and down the room in nervous agitation.
After stirring the fire, I closed the door leading into the hall, and stood by his side, and when he removed the wrappings from his neck and face, and looked curiously about, I saw that he was poorly clad, and that he was old and broken. He was timid in his manner, and looked at me as though he expected I would denounce him, and drive him out of the house, and when he moved, it was with difficulty, from which I thought he had walked a long distance. His shoes were wrapped in coarse bagging, which was tied to his feet with cords, and when he held out his hands to warm them, I saw that they were bruised and cracked, and I was sure he had been working as a laborer during his long absence.
“It is after midnight,” he said at length, in a hesitating voice, as though he were afraid to speak. “Why are you here alone?”
Then he did not know! He had come back, as my mother always thought he would, at night, repentant and old, to ask forgiveness, but the one who could forgive him was dead. I did not know what to say or do, and walked up and down the room thinking how to answer. He followed my movements curiously for a time, and then suddenly cowered down into his chair again, as if to meditate over one of the old problems. While I was wondering how to break the news to him, he turned toward me, and said:—
“I saw the lights in the front room as I came up, but hoped it was a sign of welcome rather than of death; but I know now why you are alone. You need not explain.”
The tears came into his eyes, but he tried to brush them away with his rough sleeve, as though he were a child and had been warned not to cry. I think he realized in a moment, while wondering why I was so much agitated, that she was dead, though he had cheerfully imagined, when approaching the house, that the lower rooms were lit up on purpose to receive him.
“She died this morning just after midnight,” I said to him, coming over to his side, and placing my hand on his shoulder, “but I know she always believed you would come back. She sat in this room every night waiting, and her last words were a blessing on your name.”
He did not look up, but I thought this assurance cheered him, though he remained motionless so long that I think he must have reviewed his entire life, from his boyhood in the backwoods to his manhood on the prairie, where the forbidden processions were always passing, and from his career in Twin Mounds through all his hard wanderings as an outcast; a long record of discontent, sorrow, and disgrace, with nothing to excuse it save the natural unrest with which his life had been beset like a hell. Inexplicable and monstrous as it was, I knew it was real, and that a devil had possession of him for whose acts he was unjustly held accountable. A hundred times since then I have thought of John Westlock as a worthy man driven by a fiend with whip and lash, always sullenly protesting, but never able to resist the evil which was bred against his nature, and against which he had struggled all his life.
I tried to decide in my own mind, as he was thinking, whether I knew him any better, and whether I was less afraid of him now than the day he went away, but I could not help concluding that he was the same mysterious man he had always been.
“If you will let me, I should like to look at her,” he said, when he looked up again, in the voice of a suppliant asking a favor of a hard master, and so unlike him that I shuddered to think of the sorrow necessary to make such a change in a man of his disposition.
I was very anxious that the watchers should not see him; I don’t know why, because his arrival and presence would certainly be known in all the town in the early morning, but I knew they would only look upon him with inward reproaches. From this I was anxious to shield him, and, carefully going to their door, I found they slept. I then went into the room where the coffin was, to remove the lid, which had been shut down, from the face. I was thankful that the face wore a pleasanter smile than I had ever seen it wear in life, and, placing the light where it fell directly upon it, I returned to where he sat, and motioned him to follow. He got up from his chair with difficulty, and, staggering after me, hesitated before entering the room, but at last he followed me in timidly, and after looking at the face for a moment, fell on his knees before the coffin, and sobbed aloud. His grief was so great that I feared the watchers would hear him, and waken, but, determined that he should be left alone with the dead, I stood at the door to keep them back should they attempt to come out. But they slept on, and when I went into the room again, he was still on his knees, his hands covering his face as it rested on the coffin, and I thought he was praying. I had often bitterly denounced him in my own mind for the unhappiness he had brought upon our house, and for the misfortunes he had founded, but I forgave him from my heart as I saw his gray head bowed in repentance over the dead body of the principal sufferer; nor did I regard it as a kindness to him, but as an act of justice to an unfortunate man. I accepted his misery as his excuse, and forgave him, as I hope that I shall be forgiven.
When he was aroused by my touch on his shoulder, I led him gently away, and we returned to the room we had left. Here he hugged the fire again, as if he were still cold, and sat without speaking so long that I thought he was trying to solve the hardest problem of his life.
“It was I who made the mistake,” he said finally, without changing his position, and as though we had been saying that some one had made a mistake. “She was always patient, but I was dissatisfied and restless. I thought that if I were married to a flashy, ambitious woman, nothing would be impossible; but I know now that her quiet patience and content were rare jewels which I spurned and neglected. I confess to you now that I was wrong, and that she was right.”
He seemed never to have confessed this to himself before, and repeated it, so there could be no mistake.
“I thought I was more a man than I really was, and that there was nothing I could not do, but I have found”—he looked at his rough clothes as if I could judge by them that he had had a hard struggle in finding it out—“I have found that I could not rid my mind of unrest for committing a wrong. During all the years I have been away I have carried a heavy cross, and worn a crown of thorns on my forehead, in repentance, but since she is dead, and I cannot ask her to forgive me, I must continue to travel the long road, and carry my burden. She could have lightened it, but she is dead, and I must carry it on and on until I fall exhausted into my dishonored grave.”
I could not help thinking he would not be long compelled to carry his heavy cross, for now that the hope of finding his wife alive had left him, he was weak and trembling.
“Had I found her alive and well to-night,” he continued “to remain here, and hide away where no one except my injured wife and son could see me, but as it is now, I will go out into the world again, before it is known that I returned at all, so that the charitable may think of me as dead.”
I realized in a moment, without having had a thought of it before, that he would go away again, and hide from his accusers in Twin Mounds, but before I could protest he went on speaking, as if in a hurry to finish:—
“Of my history since I went away it is only necessary for you to know that I lived alone after the first three months, and worked hard that I might forget, but I could not, and within the last few years I have been travelling this way a little distance every month, and I only completed my long journey to-night. Of my companion—she is no longer my companion, nor has she been for years—I will only say she is as unhappy as I am. We separated within three months, and the first oath that ever passed my lips was a curse for her. We hated each other within a week, each blaming the other for the mistake, and I know no more of her now than she knows of me.”
A suggestion of his old spirit returned while he was talking of B., and there was the old scowl upon his face, but it disappeared when he mentioned my mother again.
“Before I go I want to say that I was wrong; that I am repentant, and that my last breath will be spent in supplicating mercy for my crime against your mother. I was always a man of few words, and my heart was always stubborn, and I cannot make more of a confession than this. She was a good woman, and I was a bad man, and while she was brave and noble, and always true, I was everything I should not have been.”
I could make no reply, though he looked at me as if expecting one.
“It may be of profit to you, who are young, to know that I have been punished for my offence. If I have had a moment’s peace since I went away; if I have had an hour’s sound and refreshing sleep; if I have not been in hell all the while, may God strike me dead: Day and night, night and day, always, everywhere, my crime has taken the shape of a demon, and taunted me; I have not looked into a book that I did not find accusing words staring at me; I have not heard a sound which did not mock me, and wherever I have gone I have heard the people telling what should be done with a man who ran away from his wife. If I avoided them they hunted me up, and told of a patient wife who was mourning for her runaway husband; God, the world seems to be full of such cases! However secretly I moved from place to place I met people who seemed to say: ‘There he goes; there he goes; a man who has run away from his wife. Hate him; beat him; he is a coward; he is dangerous.’ If I went into a church, the minister seemed to point at me and say: ‘Put that man out; he has disgraced us. Put him out, I say, and hurry him from this honorable neighborhood. He is the man who has brought reproach on the church; put him out; put him out.’ If I slept out in the fields to avoid them, the wind always blew from the direction of Twin Mounds, and there were moans in it which came from this house. The very cattle ran away from me, as if to say: ‘He has been unjust to a woman; he will probably kill us; get up there, all of you, and run for your lives.’ This is the life I have led, and which I have deserved. It is the price of discontent; if you have a trace of it in your nature, root it out! Be contented, though it kills you!”
He said this in great excitement, and, getting up, began slowly to wrap the comforter about his neck, and knowing his determined nature I felt that it would be impossible for me to persuade him to stay. Never in my life had I offered him a suggestion, and even in his present broken condition I was afraid of him.
“You probably remember,” he said, pausing in the process of wrapping himself up, “that every year since I have been away a stranger has sent you money for your paper; first from one place and then from another. That stranger was your father, so that I know what a good son you have been, and how hard you have worked to support your mother, who was so cruelly neglected by me. I am satisfied that you have conducted my affairs with good judgment, and that I have been missed but little.”
He got up at this and began to button his great-coat about him, and to wrap his scarf around his neck and head.
“Whether it is your judgment that I should or should not, I am going away again, and will never come back. I am not wanted here, though I see you would insist on my staying, but it is useless. I have made up my mind.”
I had stepped before him, but he pushed me aside, and walked toward the door.
“Listen to me a moment,” I said, taking hold of him. “You are poor and old; I am young, and have ready money. If you will not remain here, as Heaven knows I desire you should, take it with you. I have no one to care for now, and you need it. I will ask it on my knees if it will move you. It is all yours, and I shall feel guilty all my life if you refuse this request, fearing you are poor and in need of it.”
“Rather than that,” he answered, “I would live again in this town, where every man is my enemy and accuser. No, I will take none of the money; my needs are few and easily satisfied. But if you will grant me your forgiveness”—there was more tenderness in his voice as he said it than I had ever heard before—“I will take that.”
I answered that he had suffered enough, and that I had already forgiven him; that we all had, and that we had long been sure that he had repented of his one fault.
“There are but few of us who have to answer for but one fault,” I said. “I know nothing to your discredit except this one mistake.”
He stood by this time near the door, with his hand on the latch, and, simply saying good-by, he opened it, and went out into the storm.
Determined to make one more effort to induce him to remain at home, I ran bareheaded into the street after him, floundering in the snow almost waist deep as I went, but he was already a considerable distance ahead of me, walking with long strides, and looking straight ahead. The louder I called to him the faster he walked, and after following him almost to where the stores and the square began, he turned the corner, and disappeared forever.
ALTHOUGH Jo came to Twin Mounds the day after my mother’s burial, and a few times during the winter, I did not visit him for several months, for I dreaded to go into his house and find him alone in it. I hoped that Mateel would come back, and that their separation would cause them to be happier than they had been, but as Jo ceased his visits to town because I did not return them, at last I could do nothing else.
Another sorrow had been lately added to his life; the messenger who had been sent into the lower country to inform Gran Erring of her daughter’s death returned a few days later with the information that my grandmother and grandfather were both dead. We had been so taken up with our own affairs of late that we had scarcely thought of them, as often we did not hear for a year at a time how they fared; and Jo felt that he had neglected them, although he knew they were never in need, for regularly every quarter he sent them an amount of money amply sufficient for their small necessities, which was partly in payment for the mill site, and according to agreement, though he had long since paid more than the place was worth. My grandfather had a relative in the lower country,—whether it was a brother, a sister, or an uncle, I never knew, nor do I know yet, our family relations were always so miserable,—and this relative, having probably heard of our other distresses, never notified us of his death, or that of his wife, which occurred a few months later. It was very disgraceful, and I felt almost as much humiliation over it as Jo.
The house and mill looked so gray when I came in sight of them that they reminded me of ghosts, although it was more from neglect than age, for neither of them was old, and there was a general air of decay everywhere which said plainly enough that something was wrong. The traveller who passed that way would have remarked it; he could not have known what it was, but he would have felt certain that a disappointed man lived in the house and carried on business in the mill. I have thought that the trees shading the mill pond drooped their heads in mortification at the history of the place, and certainly the water was quiet and subdued, like the master, except when it dashed into the race and after a furious onslaught on its old enemy, the wheel, fell exhausted into the peaceful river below.
I came upon the place late in the afternoon, at least half a year after Mateel went away, and seeing customers about the mill I went down there to find the proprietor, but the assistant was working alone, and said that Jo was probably up at the house. Going in there and failing to find him in the lower rooms, I went up the stairs, where I found him asleep in his room, but the noise of my footsteps awakened him. As he shook hands with me I could not help thinking of the skeleton that kept him awake at night, making it necessary for him to sleep during the day, for he was pale and haggard, and I am not certain but that I looked around for the closet in which it was kept.
The house was a very large one, and while he bathed his face after his long sleep, I walked through the rooms, which seemed so empty that the noise of my feet made echoes as though a troop were following me. When I went into Mateel’s room, where I had left Jo sobbing on the bed on the dreadful night when his wife went away, I found it ready for her reception, as though she were expected to arrive at any time. The woman who kept the house, and who lived so near that she went home every night, had thrown all her woman’s ingenuity into making the room tasteful and pretty, as a compliment to her wretched employer, and it was aired and dusted as regularly as though it had been regularly occupied. All the articles of ornament and comfort prepared by Mateel while she had lived there were in their accustomed places, and her picture, which had been taken shortly after her marriage, had been made gay by the kindhearted housekeeper in a pretty frame for the pleasure of the master, should he ever come in to look at it. There were seven or eight rooms besides this one, and I thought that a man in the best of spirits would have been lonely to stay there without companions.
When Jo joined me in the hall we went down stairs to supper, and after seeing that everything was at hand, the housekeeper left for home to prepare her husband’s supper, leaving us alone. On looking about I saw that Jo had been adding articles of furniture during his wife’s absence, as if to surprise and please her when she should finally return; and I have no doubt he was always expecting she would come back to-morrow, that fateful day which never arrives, though all of us expect so much of it. I think he believed every time he went to sleep that when he awakened she would be standing by his side, and from the miller and the housekeeper I learned that he turned quickly at every noise, expecting that it was the step of his returning wife. He never told me, but I believe that had she come back and said that she could not live without him they would have been much happier than they were before, and perhaps finished their lives in peace together. His life alone in the great house must have been a greater sorrow than his letter and the skeleton, and I think he would have consented to forget a great deal to avoid it.
He only mentioned his horror of the empty house at night in general terms, but I have always been convinced that his greatest trial was his loneliness, and that he would have closed the place and left it but for the hope that Mateel would surely come to-morrow; not as a humble suppliant, but as his wife, with a request that she be allowed to occupy her old place in the house, if not in his heart. Had Mateel opened the right door to his heart she would have found such a wealth of love and consideration there that she would never have ceased trying to reclaim it, for his love for her was so great that he could not have resisted the smallest effort. I do not remember that I thought this until I went to his house a half year after the separation, but I firmly believed it then, and I believe it yet. Perhaps I shall be better understood if I explain that while Jo was frequently at fault before the separation, six months of loneliness had wrought a great change in him, and he was willing to admit that his estimate of women was too high; that they were weak like himself, and that he was to blame for having made a serious matter of love. In the early days of his acquaintance with Mateel he had worshipped her as an angel rather than admired her as a woman, but he was now ready to give up his idol, and forgive her faults as she forgave his. He had regarded his marriage as a piece of unusual good fortune, whereby he secured a perfect being who would bring him only happiness in her train, but the experience of a few years had taught him that it was only a ceremony pledging two persons to charity for the failings of each other.
Many times after that I got up from my bed at night, after thinking about it, determined to go to Mateel, and tell her of my conviction, but upon consideration would conclude that she must know it, and that she did not desire a reconciliation. Although there was always an unspoken hope that such was not the case, Jo probably took this view of it—that she preferred to live without him. Perhaps I had better say that he did not ask her to come back for fear of the humiliating reply that she did not care to come, for he was always in doubt with reference to her.
When there was occasion Jo ran the mill at night, preferring to be there at work than alone in the house, and he was seldom in the mill at any other time, trusting his business almost entirely to his assistant, who, fortunately, was capable of managing it with Jo’s advice. He told me after we had finished an early supper that he was to take charge at seven o’clock, and when that hour arrived we went down there and were soon alone. There was little to do, except to see that everything was running smoothly, and by the time Jo had made a general inspection it was dark, and we were seated in the largest room without a light, with nothing to disturb us except the subdued hum of the machinery, and the gentle fall of the water.
“It is out of the friendliest curiosity that I ask, Jo,” I said to him in the course of the evening, “but have you heard nothing from Mateel since she went away?”
“Not a word,” he replied with a long sigh. “I have not even seen any one who has spoken to her, unless it is Bragg, who passes here regularly every day, going to the Shepherds’, and returning noisily at night. During the six months she has been away, I have not even seen her father, who formerly came to the mill quite frequently. I have about concluded that she is glad of the opportunity to be rid of me. I have always thought that she married me as a penance, and that she was determined to be an excellent wife in every way except that she could not love me. I think that sometimes she pitied my friendless condition, and was kind to me for that reason, for she was always that.”
“But why do you not go to her,” I asked, “and settle these doubts?”
“She went away,” he replied, after thinking awhile, “without cause, and if she cared to prevent a separation, she would come back. It was an insult to me to allow that fellow to come into my house, and I only expected that she would tell him so. I did not doubt her womanly integrity, as she said; I only felt she wronged me in permitting him to annoy me. It would have been an easy thing for her to have said to him that his presence there was presumptuous and annoying to me, but instead she invited him in, and I suppose treated him civilly. I know she did this entirely out of considerations of politeness, but I regret that she did not have more consideration for me. I did wrong to run into the house with the intention of murdering him; I know I should have greeted him pleasantly, and made him believe that I cared nothing for him, but he had pursued me so long, and with so little reason, that his impudence caused me to lose all control. When she went away with him I took an oath that I would never think of her again; that should she come back to me on her knees, I would curse her, but I am so lonely that I should almost welcome her if she came to taunt me. I have not closed my eyes in natural sleep since she went away, and with the darkness come troops of faces to peer at me through the night. However bright I make the house, there are always dark corners, and the phantoms hide in them to attack me when the light is out. If I wonder whether she be gay or sad, I always conclude—I can’t tell why—that she is quite content, and in the roar of the water I can hear her gay laughter; not as I ever heard her, but as Bragg heard her laugh when she was his young and pretty lover. In the rumbling of the wheels down below, when I sit here alone at night, I can distinguish the voices of them all; even Bragg is good humored, and Mrs. Shepherd, her husband, and Mateel seem to be mocking me with their merriment. Of course it is all fancy, but it is so real to me that I listen to it breathlessly, and sometimes it annoys me so much that I stop the wheels.”
He had formerly talked of the matter in a resentful tone, but it was sorrowful now, as if he were convinced that he gave himself a credit he did not deserve when he thought she worried because he was unhappy.
“Frequently when there is nothing to occupy my attention all night,” Jo said later in the evening, “I walk through the woods, and steal up to her father’s house, and remain under her window until the approach of day warns me to depart. I cannot say that I expect it, but I always hope that she will divine my presence, and speak to me, but the house is always dark, though I have heard them walking on the inside.”
His habit of being startled at every noise, and nervously looking about, was growing upon him, for when some one appeared at the door, he went hastily into another part of the mill, to avoid him. It was only the miller come after something he had forgotten during the day, but Jo would not come back until after he had gone, not caring to see even him. In contrasting his present condition with his former manliness, I thought his sufferings must have been great to work such a change.
“The people who come here,” he said, in explanation of his going away, “look at me as though I were a curiosity, and I avoid them. Although no one has told me what they say, I know what it is, and I do not care to meet them. At first I thought not to mind it, but among them all I did not find a single pitying face; they were all against me, and I determined to run from them and get out of their way. I see no one now except you, and there is nothing I dread so much as a pair of curious eyes, and a head containing a brain which I know must be conjecturing and wondering with reference to me.”
I tried to laugh away this notion, although I knew it was well founded, but he paid little attention, and resumed what he was saying when interrupted by the entrance of the miller.
“When I light my lamp at night there are insects which seem to have a fatal fascination for the flame, and hover around it until they are wounded or killed. I am a good deal like them; I cannot give up Mateel, who is the cause of all my unhappiness, although I have every reason to believe that she does not even care for me. I hover about her as the insects hover about my lamp, and sooner or later I shall fall into the flame. I cannot help thinking now that she never kissed me voluntarily in her life. She has kissed me, of course, but it was only because she had heard that good wives—one of which she desired to be—showed that mark of affection for their husbands, but it was mechanical, as was every other kindness she ever showed me. I was not a hard critic when we were first married, as I am now, and I noticed it then, and my honest affection was frequently wounded because it was necessary for me to do all the loving. I am not certain that you understand what I mean; she was a good wife in every way except that it was an effort for her to love me; there was nothing natural about it, and I was never satisfied.”
I had noticed this peculiarity in his wife many times myself, and wondered at it; for he was a handsome man, and sensible and considerate, and I was surprised that Mateel was not very fond of him, as I was. If I ever explained the matter to my own mind at all it was on the theory of Mr. Biggs, that the two people in a community the least suited to each other always got together and married.
“When we were first married,” he continued, “I was greatly in debt, and very uncomfortable in consequence. I could not sleep at night for worrying about it, and once I told Mateel. She seemed very much concerned for a few moments, but soon forgot it entirely, and for weeks afterwards wondered why I was moody and silent. I owed everybody, and invented hundreds of ways to avoid the bills when they were due. I remember once I wrote in a disguised hand to a man who wanted his pay, that Mr. Erring was at present away collecting money, but that he would no doubt soon return, and make satisfactory settlement. I also said I knew Mr. Erring very well, and that although at present a little pushed, he was an honest man, and would soon be all right. I signed “Jo Erring” to the letter, with an L below it, intimating that a party named Leepson, Lawson, or Liar was one of his numerous clerks. At that time I made every mistake it was possible for a man to make; I knew absolutely nothing, and paid the highest tuition in the school of experience. At night, although she knew I was distressed from some cause, Mateel would lie down beside me, and after inquiring what was the matter, go to sleep before I had framed my answer. It was very absurd in me, but I frequently flounced around to waken her, that she might know I was still unable to sleep.”
This was so ridiculous, and so like Jo, that I was really amused, though apparently he could not see why I should be, for he looked up in surprise at my merriment.
“I have never doubted that Mateel was constantly trying to do that which was right, but her nature was such that, although I recognized that she was a good woman, I was never contented. Perhaps this was wicked in me, but I always did the best I could, though in my weakness I was very often wrong. I despair of being able to explain to any one exactly what I mean, and probably I shall always seem to have been a ridiculous and unreasonable man, though I can fully justify myself in protesting against a life without hope. I only regret that Mateel is not as much concerned as I am, for then there would be a possibility of bridging the difficulty. When I think how careful you are of my wishes, and how easily you please me, I cannot help remembering how innocently Mateel did that which was distasteful, though all the time I realized that she was upright and honest, and a better woman than I was a man. I can only say in excuse of my conduct that the more contemptible I became in all other eyes than yours and my own—I believe you would love me even though I should commit murder—the more I hoped Mateel would realize the necessity of hunting out a remedy, and applying it, for I thought I would rather die than live as wretchedly as I did, but matters have grown steadily worse, and instead of understanding that whatever I did was prompted by love for her, she seems to believe that I am depraved and wicked. She had great sympathy for everybody and everything except me, and I have frequently found her weeping over a newspaper scrap when I was so much in need of her sympathy that I almost asked it on my knees. She was always thinking of the unfortunate birds, the unfortunate people, or worrying over distress of some kind, but upon my honor she never in her life, of her own motion, had any sympathy for my affairs. I was always robust, but occasionally I regretted that she was not anxious about my health. I never worked too hard, but I regretted she did not think so, and remonstrate with me in such a way as to prove that she had an interest in me. Before we were married and when I was building the mill, I worked harder than any man had ever before worked in Fairview, and really became quite pale and wan, but she never mentioned it. Although I was glad to do what I did for her, it would have pleased me had she said I was a worthy man for it, and encouraged me a little. I suppose she thought everything came to me naturally and easily, but it did not. Or she may have thought that much that I did for her was the work of the Lord. What makes me most miserable of all, however, is the certainty that she possesses all the womanly tenderness I feel the lack of, but I was not the man to bring it out. It was the misfortune of both of us.”
I thought of what he had said about becoming a hard critic, but he was criticising himself rather than his wife, for he always gave me the impression that the trouble was his own failure to inspire her love and enthusiasm. I regarded this as an admission from his bleeding heart that, had she married Clinton Bragg, there would have been no cause for complaint.
“I often set about to make Mateel happy, and I always accomplished it,” my moody companion said at another time. “I could tell it in her face, and in her pleasant surprises, but although she has always said that she had no other ambition in life than to make me contented, she never succeeded in a single instance. I should have continued this devotion to her happiness all my life had she been able to give me anything in return, but I grew tired of always being considerate of others, while no one was considerate of me. I hope I may say this without causing a suspicion in your mind that I was contemptible, for I should have been perfectly content had she anticipated my wishes as you do, or as Agnes did for both of us when we were boys. If I was enthusiastic over my small successes, she did not share it with me, and made me feel silly that I was so easily moved; everything she did (although it was not intended, I am certain of that) was an accusation that she was the right woman, though I was the wrong man. I make these statements more in explanation of my own conduct, which seems inexplicable, than to accuse her, for every one must be saying that I am wrong.
“And while I have lacked the sympathy of my wife, I have also lacked the sympathy of the people. They say I am too prosperous, although I have simply had an ambition to be an honest and worthy man; others might have been equally prosperous had they denied themselves and worked as hard as I have done. Many of the Fairview men are suspicious of those who use punctuation marks in their letters and spell their words correctly. They go a long way around me to patronize my rival up the river, but somehow he does not get along, for he is extravagant, while I save and work hard that I may live in a house like a man, instead of in a shed, like the cattle. The vagrants who idle in the shadow of my buildings say that I am ‘lucky,’ but they are incapable of understanding the work I do.”
When the work we had set out to do was completed, it was near midnight, but after shutting down, Jo showed no disposition to return to the house, for I think he hated it, and was seldom there at night. There were boats on the mill pond, and I proposed a row. With his strong arms at the oars, we were soon far up the stream, and although I tried to rally him, he had little to say, except to answer my questions.
Two miles above the mill there was a bend in the river, and for a considerable distance I knew the road leading to the Shepherds’ skirted the stream, and before we reached it I was certain we should find Clinton Bragg travelling it. I became so impressed with the idea that I suggested that we turn back, but with the strange fascination which always pursued him, Jo said he needed exercise, and continued to pull at the oars.
As I feared, when we came to the point where the road ran close to the river, Clinton Bragg appeared on horseback, riding leisurely toward town. It was rather a dark night, but we were so close to him that I could see that while we had tried to avoid noticing his presence, he stared insolently at us, and even slackened the speed of his horse.
Jo pretended not to see him, continuing to work at the oars, but I could hear his hot, heavy breathing, and knew that he was in great excitement. He had not been disposed to talk before, but I could get nothing out of him after this, and, changing places with him, I pulled the boat back to the mill in silence.
The next day was Sunday, and it happened that we saw Bragg pass, going toward the Shepherds’ in the morning, and return at night, and Jo told me that it was always so; a day never passed of late that he did not come upon him going or coming, and from his fierce manner when he spoke of it I thought that if Bragg knew the danger he was in, he would travel the other road, for there was another one, which was several miles shorter.