WHAT man of achievement cannot recall some one short period of his life which seems to transcend in significance and value all the rest of his career—when great things for which he had only unconsciously waited came to him without the asking; when the high court of events rendered its sudden, unexpected verdict of success, without costs to him who had never made a plea; when the very stars in their courses seemed to have privily conspired to fight for him? How swift, inexplicable, even amazing it all was! And yet how simple too! And when the first flush of astonishment—half delight, half diffidence—had passed, how natural it all seemed; how mind and manners and methods all expanded to meet the new requirements; how calmly and as a matter of course the dignity was worn, the increment appropriated, the mental retina adapted to the widened focus! How easily, too, he sloughed off his own conviction that it was all pure luck, and accepted the world’s kind judgment of deserved success! Who is it that accuses the world, and rails at its hardness of heart? What man among us all, in the hour of honest introspection, does not know that he is rated too high, that he is in debt to the credulity, the generosity, the dear old human tendency to hero-worship, of his fellows?
This is an extract from a letter which the successful Seth Fairchild wrote a few months ago. Chronologically, it is dated only a couple of years after the occurrences with which we are now concerned—but to him an interval of decades doubtless seemed to separate the periods. Perhaps the modesty of it is a trifle self-conscious, and the rhetoric is of a flamboyant kind which he will never, apparently, outgrow, but at all events it shows a disposition to be fair as between himself and history. The period of great fortune, to which he alludes, is to be glanced at in this present chapter—to be limned, though only in outline, more clearly no doubt than he himself could be trusted to do it. For, though a man have never so fine a talent for self-analysis, you are safe to be swamped if you follow him a step beyond your own depth. In cold fact, Seth could no more tell how it was that, within one short year, he rose from the very humblest post to become Editor of the Chronicle, than Master Tom here can explain why he has outgrown his last summer’s knickerbockers while his twin brother hasn’t.
He had been back at his work in Tecumseh only a month when word came to the office one morning that Mr. Tyler could not come—that he had been seriously injured in the havoc wrought by a runaway horse. It was too early for either editor or proprietor to be on the scene, and Arthur Dent at that hour was the visible head of the staff. He and Seth had scarcely spoken to each other for months—in fact since that disagreeable evening encounter—but he walked over now to our young man’s desk and said:
“Mr. Fairchild, you would better take the News to-day. Tyler has been badly hurt.”
Marvelling much at the favoritism of the selection, for Dent had not only passed Murtagh over but had waived his own claims of precedence, Seth, changed desks. He got through the work well enough, it appeared, but he mistrusted deeply his ability to hold the place. Mr. Samboye did not seem to approve his promotion, though he said nothing, and the manner in which Mr. Workman looked at him in his new chair seemed distinctly critical.
After the paper had gone to press, and some little routine work against the next morning’s start was out of the way, he wavered between idling the remaining two hours away among the exchanges, or attempting an editorial article for the morrow, such as Mr. Tyler occasionally contributed. His former experience with Mr. Samboye dismayed him a bit, but he concluded to try the editorial experiment again. Some things which Ansdell had said one day on the Silver question remained in his mind, and he made them the basis of a half-column article. He was finishing this when the office-boy told him Mr. Workman wished to see him below. He took his Silver article with him, vaguely hoping, hardly expecting, to be congratulated on his day’s work, and told to keep the desk.
Seth’s impressions of his employer were that he was a hard, peremptory man, and he searched his face now for some sign of softness in vain. Mr. Workman motioned him to a seat, and said abruptly:
“You were on the News desk to-day. Did you take it yourself, or were you sent there?”
“Mr. Dent told me to take it, sir.”
“Why didn’t he take it himself, or put Murtagh on?”
Seth had it in mind to explain that Murtagh did not come down early enough, but he remembered how strenuous the rules were in the matter of matutinal punctuality, and concluded to say simply that he didn’t know. Mr. Workman looked at him for a moment, made some arabesque figures with his pencil on the edge of the blotter, looked at him again, and then said, in a milder tone than Seth had supposed his voice capable of:
“I may as well be candid with you. I have been very much disappointed in you so far. You haven’t panned out at all as your brother led me to expect you would.”
This was a knock-down blow. Poor Seth could only turn his copy about in his hands and stammer: “I am very sorry. In what way have I failed?”
“It would be hard to tell exactly in what way. I should say it was in a general failure to be the sort of young man I thought you were going to be. You have shown no inclination, for example, to write anything—and yet your brother praised you up to the skies as a writer.”
“But what was the good? I did write a long paragraph when I first came here, and handed it in to Mr. Samboye, and he tore it up before my eyes! That would be enough to discourage anybody!”
“Oh, he did that with you too, did he?” Mr. Workman made more arabesques on his blotter, shading them with great neatness.
Seth thought this was a favorable opportunity to get in his Silver article, and handed it to the proprietor with a word of explanation. Mr. Workman read it over carefully and laid it aside without a syllable of comment. There was nothing in his face to show whether he liked it or not. He surrounded all his penciled figures with a wavy border, and said again:
“Then there are your associations. Before ever you came I was discouraged at the amount of money and time and health my young men were squandering in saloons. It had become a scandal to the town. I get a young man in from the country, whose habits are vouched for as perfect, with an idea that he will influence the rest, and lo and behold! he becomes the boss guzzler of the lot!”
“There is a good deal of justice in that, Mr. Workman—or there was. But since I’ve been back this time it has been changed. I have moved into another boarding house where I have a room to myself, and I have read at home almost every evening when I was not with Mr. Ansdell. I think I see the folly of that old way, as clearly as any one can.”
“Ansdell and I had a long talk about you the other day. It was he who gave me my first idea that there was anything in you. He is something of a crank on certain subjects, but he knows men like a book. I have been saying to myself that if he liked you there must be more in you than I had discovered. If I am right in this, now is your time to show it. It is a toss up, the doctors say this afternoon, whether poor Tyler lives or dies. In any case he won’t be about in months. You can keep on at the desk for a while. We’ll see how you make it go.”
The next afternoon, when the inky boy brought up the damp first copies from the clanging, roaring region of the press, Seth was transfixed with bewilderment at seeing his article in the position of honor on the editorial page. While he still stared at it, amazed and troubled, Mr. Samboye with an angry snort swung around in his chair to face him:
“Is this Silver thing yours?”
“Yes.”
“And it is your conception of the ethics of journalism, is it, to sneak leaders into the composing, room without authority?”
“I sneaked nothing in! I gave the copy to Mr. Workman last night. I am as much surprised to see it the leader as you are.”
Mr. Samboye rose abruptly, and strode through the room to the stairs. They were ricketty at best and they trembled, the whole floor trembled, under his wrathful and ponderous tread.
The fat-armed foreman, who was in on his eternal quest for copy, had heard this dialogue. He grinned as the Editor slammed the door below, and chuckled out “He’ll get his comb cut now. The boss ordered your thing to be the leader himself.”
Mr. Samboye presently returned with his broad face glowing crimson, and seated himself at his work again in gloomy silence. He made more erasures than usual, and soon gave it up altogether, taking his hat and stick with an impatient gesture, and stamping his way out.
Time went on. The luckless Mr. Tyler died, and Seth became confirmed in his place. He had developed more strongly, perhaps, than any other one trait, the capacity for system, and he was able to so remodel and expedite the routine work of the News desk that he had a good deal of time for editorial writing. His matter was never again given the place of honor, but it came to be and important and regular feature of the page.
He worked hard on the paper—and almost equally hard, by spells, at home evenings. He did drop in at Bismarck’s or some like place, for a few moments now and then, but he was careful to avoid games, or any further intimacy with habitués. Had it not been for Ansdell and Dent, this part of his new regimen would have been well nigh impossible, for the gregarious instinct was strong in him—as it is in any young man worth his salt—and associations of some sort were as necessary as food to him. He had discovered, long before this, that Dent was an old acquaintance of Ansdell’s, and that he, in fact, had told the latter about Seth and his profitless courses, and interested the lawyer in his case.
He had learned, too, that this pale “Young Man Christian” as Watts had called him derisively, had from the first been well-disposed toward him, and, when the emergency of Tyler’s absence came up, had waived alike his own claims to preferment and his justifiable personal pique, and thrust Seth forward into the place because he felt that he needed some such incentive to make a man of himself. This was very high conduct, and Seth tried hard to like Dent a great deal in return. He never quite succeeded. They were too dissimilar in temperament to ever become close friends. Seth explained it to himself by saying that Dent was too cold and non-emotional. But Dent himself never seemed conscious of anything lacking in their relations, and they were certainly cordial and companionable enough when they met, generally two evenings a week, at Mr. Ansdell’s chambers.
Nothing less like the bachelor’s den dear to tradition can be imagined. There were no pipes, for the lawyer smoked cigars and nothing else; there was no litter of papers, opened books, pamphlets, scraps and the like, for he was the soul of order; no tumbled clothes, odd boots, overflowing trunks, etc., for he was the pink of neatness. He used to like to describe himself in the words with which Evelyn paints his father, as “of a thriving, neat, silent, methodical genius,” but it was always with a twinkling eye, for surely no man was ever less silent. He was a born talker—nervous, eager, fluent, with a delicate sense of the sound and shading of words, a keen appreciation of all picturesque and salient points, a rare delight in real humor, and, above all, with tremendous capabilities of earnestness. Conceive such a man, if you can—for there will never be another like him—and then endow him in your mind with a marvelous accumulation of knowledge, with convictions upon every conceivable subject, and with nothing short of a passion for enforcing these upon those of whom he was fond—and some idea of the perfect ascendancy he gained over Seth will have been obtained.
Mr. Ansdell was neither impeccable nor omniscient. There was much in both his theories and his practice which would not commend itself to the moral statutes of the age; he attempted no defense, being incredulous as to the right of criticism upon personal predilections. But he had a flaming wrath, a consuming, intolerant contempt, for men who were unable to distinguish between private tastes and public duty. On this subject of public duty he was so strenuous, so deeply earnest, that often there seemed but a microscopic line between his attitude and fanaticism. But this zeal had its magnificent uses. Often it swayed despite themselves the politicians of his party who had least in common with him, and who disliked him and vaunted their conventional superiority to him even while they were being swept along toward nobler purposes than their own small souls could ever have conceived, in the current of feeling which his devotion had created.
He took complete possession of Seth’s mind, and he worked wonders upon it. There is neither room here, nor power, to analyze these achievements. The young man, heretofore through circumstances slow and mechanical, revealed under the inspiration of this contact his true temperament. He became as receptive as a sensitized plate in the camera. He seemed to take in facts, theories, emotions, prejudices, beliefs, through the very pores of his skin. He found himself hating one line of public action, and all its votaries, vividly; he found himself thrilling with violent enthusiasm for another line, and its exponents—such an enthusiasm as exiled men tremble under when they hear the national air of their native land.
He was not always right. Very often indeed he did injustice, in his mind, and in the types as well, to really well-meaning men who after their lights were just as patriotic as he was. He condemned with undue ferocity where he could not unreservedly praise, and, like most men of three-and-twenty who sit on the tripod of judgment upon their fellow mortals, he made many mistakes. But his mental and moral advance, despite these limitations, was tremendously swift, and, in the main, substantial. No man ever made the world budge an inch ahead who had not well developed the capacity for indignation at weak and wrong things. This indignant faculty grew and swelled in Seth’s nature like a strong vine, spreading upon the tree of his admiration for his ideals.
He had a fair income now—twenty dollars a week—and he lived very well, having a room in a good house, and taking his meals down town. This was a condition of life which had always commended itself to his imagination, and he revelled now in realising it. Of course he saved no money. Through Ansdell and others he had made the acquaintance of a number of Tecumseh men of position, and he had been asked a little to their houses, but he had not gone more than once. This single experience did not dismay or humiliate him; he flattered himself that he came out of it with credit. But it did not interest him; it was wofully difficult to talk to the women he met—to know what to say to them. It was the easier to come back from this one excursion to his old Bohemian bachelor notions, and justify them to himself.
The correspondence with Isabel had not been altogether so attractive as he had anticipated. It had its extremely pleasant side, of course, but there were drawbacks. She wrote well, but then most of her writing was about herself, which grew wearisome after a time. It was difficult too, to find time to answer her letters always when the philandering mood was upon him, and in this matter he found himself curiously the creature of his moods. The routine of daily newspaper toil had rendered him largely independent of them in his ordinary work. He wrote about as well one day as another. But there were seasons when he could not write to Isabel at all. Then he would say to himself that the need of doing so was a nuisance, and in this frame of mind he would generally end by reproaching himself for even entertaining the idea of a mild flirtation with his brother’s wife. Not that there was anything wrong in it, of course; he was quite clear on this point; but it was so useless, such a gratuitous outlay of time and talent!
But then next day, perhaps, a good dinner, or a chance glimpse of fresh romance in the exchanges, or some affecting play at the theatre of an evening, would bring back all the glamour of her pretty, tender face, the magic of her eyes, the perfume of her tawny hair. And then he could write, and did write, often with a force of sweet rhetoric, a moving quality of caressing ardor, which it is difficult to distinguish from love making.
To him these letters did not mean that at all; they were really abstract reflections of the sentimental side of his nature, which might have been evoked by almost any likable, intelligent woman.
But to the wife on the farm they seemed deeply, deliciously, personal.
It was the year of a great political revival—coming none too soon.
It is a part of the history of human progress that grand moral movements, once they have fulfilled their immediate purpose, swing backward to the establishment of some new abuse. The net gain is, no doubt, century by century, continuous. But to those who look for episodic interest rather than epochal meaning the march of the race must often seem crab like—as when a Henry VIII utilizes a reforming revolt to crush and plunder a vast system of benefaction, and create a hard-fisted, commercial plutocracy with one hand, while calling into existence with the other a permanent class of starving poor; or when a Bonaparte makes the waning impetus of a democratic uprising serve his imperial ambition, and converts the legions of the Republic into the guards of a Caesar.
So, in our own time, in our own country, craft and greed had climbed to the control of a great organization, baptized in the name of Freedom and excited still with the thoughts of its tremendous achievements, and diverted its forces to the service of base ends.
This ignoble mastery had not gone unchallenged. More than one revolt against it had given promise, for a little, of success. But each in its failure had but repeated the familiar experience of yeomanry against trained troops, of sporadic, scattering popular impulses against the cool, consecutive plans of organized power. But it is the fate of despotisms, whether of a man or of a machine, to by excesses sap their own foundations. There came a time when the political usurpers who, through the listlessness of some citizens, the ancient prejudices of others, the mean lust for profit and place of still a third class, had attained power, went just a step too far.
As this is a romance, and not a political history, it is permitted to avoid both dates and any details which might seem to fix a particular occurrence, and ask the reader to conceive that the crisis grew out of the manner in which these politicians obtained control of an imaginary but important Convention—that they bribed delegates, that they forged telegrams to secure a majority for themselves on the organizing committee, and that they made drunk the poor tool they had selected for Chairman and locked him in his hotel room that he might not escape them. It strains credulity to assume all this, I know, but its acceptance is essential to the story. Fortunately it is less difficult to credit the corollary—that the decent people of the State, led by an honest press, rose en masse and pulverized this machine at the following election.
It was at the outset of this crisis that Seth became Editor of the Tecumseh Chronicle. The young man had been, it need scarcely be said, deeply interested in the events which led up to it, and when the first of the party papers came out frankly, the morning after the Convention, refusing to support its nominations, he was in a tremor of delight. He scarcely dared hope that the Chronicle would follow their lead, but still he did hope. Mr. Samboye remained downstairs in consultation with Mr. Workman longer than usual on that eventful forenoon. They were settling the policy of the paper, of course, and the young news editor, perfunctorily weeding out copy for the “first side,” was conscious all the while of being eagerly anxious to know what this policy was to be.
Mr. Samboye presently came up, took his seat without the ordinary prelude of conversation, and began writing. He finished his article, still without a word to any one, and took it down to Mr. Workman. He was absent but a few moments. On his return Seth asked him:
“Do we bolt the ticket?”
Before he could answer, a telegraph boy came running up the stairs (this one actually did run) with a dispatch for Mr. Samboye. The editor opened and read it in a puzzled way at first, then more carefully and with a light of comprehension on his broad face. He folded the telegram up carefully, put it into his inner vest pocket and said to Seth:
“No, we occupy a picturesque position on the top rail of the fence.”
The editor did not seem quite himself that day. He stayed about the editorial room instead of going out to lunch, until the leader proof was ready, and then he asked to read it himself, instead of letting it go in the ordinary course to the proof-reader. He made a good many corrections on it, which was unusual for him. Finally, about half-an-hour before the paper went to press, he took his departure, saying briefly to Seth that he would not return that day.
Two hours later the office boy summoned Seth to the counting-room below. Mr. Workman sat alone at his desk, with the day’s Chronicle spread out before him, and with the original proof-sheet of the leader in his hand. He motioned Seth to close the doors, and to take a seat close beside him.
“You have read this leader?” he asked, after a moment’s silence.
“Yes.”
“What do you think of it?”
“I shouldn’t like to say all that I think of it.”
“Neither should I,” replied Mr. Workman with an iron-clad smile. He was very pale, and Seth scented a storm in the manner in which the grim smile faded from his face after an instant of hovering, as a gleam of wintry sunshine passes off the snow. “There’s a story—a very curious story—back of this leader. I only know part of it; perhaps you can help me to get at the rest.”
Not knowing what to say, Seth remained silent. The proprietor continued: “When this leader left my hands this morning, it bolted the ticket, out and out. There was no mistake about it. It was squarefooted. As it is now, it’s neither fish, flesh nor fowl. It condemns the Convention and the frauds, but it practically says that the result must be accepted. The worst of it is I didn’t see the paper until the edition had been worked off. The alterations in the proof here, which make all the difference between white and black, are in Samboye’s hand. Did he say anything to you about it? Was anybody up in the editorial room to see him?”
“No one came up to see him; he said nothing to me except that we were on the fence. That disgusted me so much that I asked nothing further.”
“Did he say that when he came up from here—or later, after he had gone over the proof?”
“He said it when—or no, hold on—he received a dispatch just before;” and Seth recounted the episode of the telegram.
Mr. Workman was much impressed with this. He covered his blotter thick with scrolls and geometrical figures while he pondered it. At last he spoke.
“You don’t know where the telegram came from?—no, of course not. I think I know about where, and I think I can guess about what it said. It said that, in this matter of bolting tickets, one day’s delay might make an immense amount of difference, and that it would be worth his while to keep the Chronicle non-committal in its first issue by hook or by crook. Take my word for it, that is what it said in substance. The fellows who sent it were scared about the Chronicle. They knew what an effect its course would have on the weeklies, most of which go to press to-morrow. They couldn’t spend money better than in having us accept the ticket, and not only commit ourselves but the country editors—and they’ve bought Samboye!”
There was a long silence. The two men looked at each other. Finally Workman said:
“The worst feature of it is, there is no way of getting at the thing—of proving it. I suppose I could get an order compelling the Company to produce the telegram, but I am not sure, and then it would be a big scandal and a big expense.” He lapsed into pencil work again and sighed.
“But is Samboye that kind of man?” asked Seth. “Oh yes, I have no illusions on that score. I very nearly caught him in a thing of this sort—on a smaller scale, of course—three years ago.”
“But why then——”
“Why have I kept him? You were going to ask. Well, he is a good man in his way. He is an immensely clever writer, if you don’t care much for solid argument, and do care for decorative stuff, with a good deal of fun, and epigram, and big words. People used to talk about his articles. I suppose hundreds of people buy the Chronicle just to read them. Well, we will have to lose those people, and all the others who will quarrel with us for bolting the ticket. For she’s going to be bolted! So you better go to bed early to-night, and eat raw meat for breakfast, for we want a leader to-morrow that will make their hair curl.”
“Do you mean——” began Seth in a flutter of strange excitement.
“Yes, you will have to take hold. Samboye shall never show his face in that room again. That’s settled! I may get somebody else, later—we’ll see. But you can carry it along for a time, can’t you?”
“I’ll try—but I am afraid——”
“You needn’t be afraid. In a campaign you simply want straightforward, red-hot, to-the-point writing. It is the rest of the year, when one must write general matter, that pulls on a man. Besides, Ansdell will help you out, if you need him. Oh, yes, and that reminds me—your brother Albert didn’t show to very good advantage in that Convention. He might easily have made a better beginning in politics than that. From all accounts he had the Dearborn County delegates in his pocket, and, although these other scandals have diverted attention from it, I think the way they ratted over was about the worst thing in the whole affair.”
“It wasn’t nice, for a fact,” said Seth.
“I haven’t had it mentioned in the paper, mostly on your account. But I am not so clear about keeping silent next week, when the Congressional Convention comes up. Your brother, I suppose, has Dearborn County solid for his own candidacy. But here in Adams County the delegates are for Ansdell—and of course he is our sort of man. I don’t think much of a party paper interfering before the nomination is made, but this may be a case where it will be necessary—especially if Abe Beekman, up in Jay County, tries any of his funny work. However, it will be time enough to cross that bridge when we get to it. Meanwhile, say not a word to anybody, in the office or out of it, about what has happened. Just go ahead with the work, and pay attention to no one.”
There was no scandal. Mr. Samboye took his punishment quietly, and left Tecumseh shortly afterward, ostensibly on a long vacation. There was some little gossip, but no whisper of the actual facts in the case.
Seth surprised himself by the excellence and evenness of his work in the new position. Probably he will never do better or stronger writing than he did in this his first campaign. For one thing, it is doubtful if any political contest can ever again appeal to his enthusiasm, and stir all his emotions to the glowing point of ardency, as this one did. In one sense his new position was embarrassing, for a number of the old time readers of the Chronicle refused to support it now against their party, and some of them said very disagreeable things about the youngster rattling about in Samboye’s shoes. But there was another class, a larger class it seemed to him, who shared his enthusiasm, and, in their excited admiration for the course of the paper, heaped praises upon him even beyond his deserts. So he worked on, writing almost the entire page daily, coming down early in the morning and staying long after the paper was out, and giving scarcely a thought to the outside world.
He had barely seen Ansdell since his promotion. He felt an even greater sense of loss in this than he would have done under ordinary circumstances, for the tremendous mental outpouring to which he was daily subjected made him almost famished, at times, for food in the form of conversation with this man who, of all others, most sympathized with him.
But there was a difficulty in the way—of which Seth’s sensitiveness made, no doubt, a great deal too much. The fight for the Congressional nomination in the district was attracting attention all over the State, and, as evil luck would have it, Seth’s brother was pitted against Seth’s dearest friend. It was no ordinary contest, in which a man could with ease maintain a friendly neutrality. Everywhere the struggle in the Thirty-sixth District was regarded as a sample conflict, as embodying in itself all the features of the larger issue between the machine and the people. Albert Fairchild had identified himself so thoroughly with the party organization, and had played so prominent a part in the scandals which provoked the revolt, that his cause was distinctly that of the politicians; while Ansdell was just as distinctively the representative of the independent and rebellious element. In no other district of the State were the lines so clearly drawn.
It was a fortnight or so after Seth’s assumption of the editorship that the District Convention was held—at the little village of Tyre, some dozen miles from Thessaly, up in Jay County. The Chronicle had taken no part in the contest. No one doubted that its sympathies were with Ansdell, but still it had not said so. The night before the Convention Mr. Workman advised Seth to write to his brother, warning him that if he were nominated the Chronicle could not support him.
“So long as we are in the bolting business, we might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” said the proprietor.
It was not a pleasant task, but Seth performed it as graciously as he could.
There was no news from Tyre next day save that Mr. Beekman of Jay was also a candidate, and that the Convention was in a deadlock. The second day, along with the news announcement that the Convention, after seventy-odd fruitless ballots, had adjourned for a week, came a despatch from Albert begging Seth to visit the farm for a couple of days, and talk the thing over, before the Chronicle took action. Upon consultation with Mr. Workman Seth replied that this was impossible, owing to the necessities of his work.
Then there came a letter from Albert, brief, but very much to the point.
“DEAR Brother: I am sorry if your work must suffer by your coming to me, but I think I have a claim upon you superior to even that of the Chronicle. If I have not, I ought to have. I decline to believe that, if you represent the matter to him as really imperative, my former friend, Mr. Workman, will place any obstacles in your way. But if he does I still insist that your choice between him and me must be a final one. I do not write a word to you about gratitude. I simply say, be here at the farm on Sunday—or never again.
“Albert.”
After this there was nothing to do but for Seth to telegraph that he would come.
When Seth walked over from the Thessaly station, Sunday forenoon, to the farm, he was not, it may be imagined, in a placid frame of mind. There lay before him an interview with his brother which could not, in the nature of things, be pleasant, and which might very easily be distinctly unpleasant. It was his duty to say sundry things to Albert which were not in themselves nice, and if Albert was still in the mood shown forth by his peremptory letter, these remarks would very likely produce a scene. Seth was in no sense afraid of his brother, nor had the thrifty thought that this brother was a rich, childless man, to offend whom would be a gratuitous economic blunder, ever entered his head. The youngster had no faculty whatever for financial prudence. But he was grateful—almost ridiculously grateful—by nature. The trait is not a rare one, even in these days when a new civilization has substituted for individual patronage and beneficence the thanks-to-nobody trade-unionism of universal conceit and rivalry, but it was abnormally developed in the youngest of the Fairchilds.
He said to himself, as he crossed the fields toward the white and red land-mark of house and barns on the side hill, that he owed everything in the world to this brother. Whatever there might be in his public attitude to condemn, however pernicious his politics might be, still it was his fraternal feeling and generosity which had created the vast gulf between Seth the plow-yokel and Seth the editor. These reflections brought no comfort to the young man.
Some perverse agency whispered to him, as he strode along over the stubble, that after all he had never really liked Albert; and this liberality of his, too, might it not be a mere cheap mess of pottage, thrown to Seth to console him for the loss of his rights in the farm? John had always been incredulous as to Albert’s true goodness in this matter; might there not be something in these suspicions? Seth tried manfully to combat these ungenerous doubts, but they forced themselves upon his mind.
Then there was Albert’s treatment of his wife! Seth had never been clear as to the exact nature of Isabel’s grievance against her husband. No specific allegation of cruelty or neglect, much less of infidelity, had ever been laid by her at Albert’s door in his brother’s hearing. Indeed, so far as Seth’s observation went, Albert had always appeared to be a decent enough sort of husband, complaisant even if somewhat indifferent, and acquiescent to the verge of weakness, in her whims. He seemed to refuse her nothing, in the matter of having her own way, and if he most often broke the ruling conjugal dumbness by satirical comments on her actions and opinions, he at least never seriously attempted to fetter either. This sounded like the description of a tolerable husband, as husbands go. But up against it was to be set Isabel’s plaintive, pitiful, persistent assertion of unhappiness with him. And clearly she ought to know what her husband was like a good deal better than an outsider could.
So the arguments did battle in Seth’s mind, as he climbed the last fence, and felt his feet on ancestral soil. He had now only to cross a short stretch of pasture land to be at his journey’s end.
Perfect silence rested on the farm. The fat cows lay lazily about him, comfortably chewing the cud of sweet aftermath; the cluster of bright, neat buildings fell into picturesque lines of composition before him, in the soft, hazy sunshine of Indian summer. The background of scarlet and ochre and deep purple-browns in the woods beyond, of warm mauve hills and pale, fluffy clouds above; the shaggy old horse, standing in tranquil bliss, with his head over the fence; the aged shepherd-dog stretched asleep on the kitchen door-stone in the sunny distance—all brought to him a sense of content and beauty which warmed his heart and calmed his thoughts. The spell of the peaceful, restful scene soothed him. Then, as by magic, the whole picture seemed to take on the charm of Isabel’s presence. “I am to see her!” he said aloud, almost exultantly.
There had been no special pleasure in this prospect, a few hours before. Indeed, it had been months since he had been conscious of a genuine desire to meet his sister-in-law. At times of late it had even seemed to him that a meeting would be a source of embarrassment, just as the necessity of keeping up the clandestine correspondence presented itself often to him in the light of a bore.
But now—yes! she was walking forth swiftly to meet him—coming over the grass with a gliding haste which had a wealth of welcome in every motion. The very genius of the mellow, warm-hearted season she seemed to his eyes as she advanced, clad in some soft, indefinite stuff, loose-flowing, and that in tint under the red noon sun could be the shadow on golden grain, or the light on dark puce grapes, or the dim, violet haze over the distant valley. She was near him now, beaming with unaffected delight, reaching out her hands in greeting—and his heart went to meet her.
“Oh, Seth! How good of you to come!”
She had almost thrown herself into his arms, and had stood upon tiptoe to be kissed. He held himself back from the embrace, but he did kiss her, and he swung her hands now in his, looking into her glowing eyes with tender, responsive intentness, and smiling his joy. This reception did make him very happy, but he had also a great uneasiness lest some of the folks should be observing them from the windows of the house.
She divined his thoughts, and said, gayly: “They are all at church!”
“What? Albert too?” Seth knew that his brother was not of a religious turn; but he swiftly bethought himself, and added “Oh, I forgot that election is coming on.”
“No,” she chirruped, springing along by his side, her arm tight in his, her walk reflecting exultantly her emotion, “he is in New York. He will be back to-morrow. He has telegraphed me to have you wait.” She dropped into a mock-serious tone: “That is, of course, if you would like to wait?” She looked up archly: “Do you much mind waiting?”
“Do I mind!” He could only look his delight. His voice trembled.
She made a tiny skip, and lifted her face to him again, radiant with happiness. “Do you know,” she said, “I could run and jump like any little child, I am so wild with joy! It seems such an age since we were together last! Only letters—but they were very nice, though. You dear boy, who taught you to write such pretty letters—?”
He pressed her arm closer in his. “Who taught me everything that is sweet?” he whispered. It was all very delicious, but still it troubled him.
They entered the house, and he excused himself while he took his hand-bag up to his old room, and made his toilet after the long hot walk. As he occupied himself thus, and brushed his novel beard, his thoughts were much perturbed. It was very far from his ideas to make love to his brother’s wife. This bald statement of the situation which framed itself now in his mind, almost for the first time, repelled and alarmed him. Yet it seemed to sum up the state of affairs fairly. If there was not lovemaking in every feature of that meeting out on the lawn, then his conceptions of the tender passion were all at fault.
“By Jove, it mustn’t come to that!” he said to himself. “A fellow ought to be able to be fond of his sister-in-law, and be pleasant to her, and sympathize with her and all that, without going beyond the bounds, and making a scoundrel of himself.”
And it was with a deep resolution to be careful, and watch all his words, that he descended the stairs. He had taken out of his valise two front pages of a Sunday newspaper, containing “Jeff Brigg’s Love Story,” which he had saved a while before for Isabel, and he gave them now to her.
“Here is something I cut out for you, Isabel; it is a very pretty story, and I know you will like it.”
“Oh, how sweet of you! How well you know just what will please me most of all! And you shall read it to me! The other stories you have sent me were only moderately nice, because I had to read them by myself, but this—oh! this will be enchanting!”
She arranged an easy chair—a low, capacious chair with light blue the dominant color in its covering—close beside the window in the parlor which overlooked the poplars, and seated herself in it. Seth brought a hassock for her feet, and then put his own chair along side, where he could see her, and still get a good light on the print. It was not easy for him to begin the reading, so great was the fascination of looking at his companion. The sunlight flared upon the white curtains above her, and its reflections glowed back again from her crown of golden braids, luminous against the azure of the chair, and tipped with soft radiance her rounded profile, in cameo-relief against the deep olive of the poplars. Isabel was an artist.
He made a beginning at last, and read until the democrat-wagon drove up in the yard, with its load of church-goers. She made a little mouth at the interruption.
“I suppose Sabrina will come in now, and dinner will be ready soon. But afterwards we can be quiet again, for she always reads the Bible in her own room Sunday afternoons.”
All through the cold dinner, despite the necessity of answering Aunt Sabrina’s and Milton’s remarks, Seth found his mental vision fixed on that beautiful profile against the leafy background; especially sweet was the portrait when the eyes were closed, and the lovely fullness above the lids, as in the face of a Madonna, was revealed in the wavering light.
The story was not to be finished that afternoon, for Elhanan Pratt and his daughter dropped in almost before the meal was finished, and a little later Annie Fairchild came. There was not even much consolation in the pretty grimaces expressive of discontent which Isabel from time to time, when the visitors were not looking, confided to Seth. It was a very dull afternoon.
The venerable Mr. Pratt, a weazen, verbose little “gentleman-farmer,” who wore a huge black satin stock over his high flaring collar opening behind, and remained clean-shaven, in pious memory of Henry Clay and the coon campaign, sat on the edge of his chair and droned commonplaces by the hour. He evidently had an axe to grind by his visit, and he was much disappointed by Albert’s absence. But if he could not see “the coming Congressman,” as he called him once or twice, and sound that new political magnate as to his own renomination for the Assembly, he could at least enjoy the monopoly of a long conversation with the Editor of the Tecumseh Chronicle, and impress that young man with the breadth and value of his views. So Seth was forced to spend three dreary hours, answering as briefly as might be, listening wearily, and stealing stray glances at the three young women, who made a brighter group on the other side of the parlor stove. Once or twice he tried tentatively to engraft himself upon their conversation, and choke old Elhanan off, but the solemn little bore relentlessly brought him back to the dry bones of politics. Thus it happened that he had barely had an opportunity of exchanging a word with his cousin Annie, when she stood up and said, “I must be going.”
He walked over to her now, and put his hand in a brotherly way on her shoulder, as he helped her on with her cloak.
“I’ve scarcely had a word with you, Annie,” he said, smiling. “How is your grandmother? I needn’t ask how you are. You grow prettier everyday. And how do you get on with your school?”—for the girl was now teaching in the district school house over the hill.
She answered, “Oh, grandmother is about the same; perhaps a little weaker, but as bright mentally as ever. You are looking well, Seth, and quite the man now. Your beard becomes you—doesn’t it, Isabel? We are so sorry you can’t come to-morrow night. We see so little of you since you have become a city man.”
“Sorry that I can’t come!” repeated Seth after her.
“Come where?” Isabel interposed with a ready explanation. “There is to be a husking over at Crump’s to-morrow evening—the first of the season. There will be a big party of young people, and Crump sent over by Annie an invitation for us. But I have explained that you are here on business, which may very likely occupy you to-morrow evening, and that in any case you would have to write your leaders for the next day’s paper. We are ever so sorry, Annie,” she added, turning to the school-teacher now, “but you know this is a terribly busy time with Seth, and we mustn’t think of letting our little country sociables interfere with his work. Some time, soon, he will come for a real vacation, instead of a flying business trip, and then we can monopolize him—and we will, too, won’t we, Annie?”
Annie smiled, a little faintly, as if her heart were not altogether in it, and replied, “Yes, to be sure we will.” She added, to Seth, “I won’t say goodbye. I suppose I shall see you again.”
He assented, and went to the door with her, and stood on the steps watching her as she walked away in the autumn dusk. Decidedly she was a pretty girl!
The Pratts, father and daughter, consented upon the shadowiest suggestion of an invitation to stay and partake of the picked-up Sunday tea, and that involved their spending the evening. Aunt Sabrina came in, and the talk was dreary and general. So “Jeff Briggs” and his amatory affairs went over to the morrow.
In the morning Seth walked over to Thessaly and saw John. The interview depressed him. John had had some idea of following the Chronicle’s lead, and bolting the State ticket, but the county politicians had bullied him out of the thing by threatening the destruction of the job-printing business connected with the Banner of Liberty, and the boycotting of the paper itself. All his inclinations, too, were toward Ansdell in the Congressional race; but Albert had loaned him some money, and, beside, he couldn’t see his way clear to disregarding, openly at least, the fraternal tie. He was consequently in a savage mood.
“I’m thinking of taking out the head-line of the paper this week,” he growled, with a sardonic humor, “and putting in instead a cut of a runaway slave, with a bundle over his shoulder, which is in the job-room here, left over from the days when there was slavery in New York State, and masters used to advertise in the old paper for fugitives. ‘Banner of Liberty ’ indeed! By heaven, it ought to be ‘Banner of Bondage!”
There was no comfort or profit in discussing the situation, either general or local, with John. He neither knew nor cared, he swore, what Albert’s chances were to dissolve the deadlock on the morrow. He might or he mightn’t; it was all one to him, and apparently to the party, who were the——!
Seth left John to his bad temper and language, and returned to the farm in the afternoon. A telegram from Albert awaited him.
“New York, Oct. 19.—If possible conclude business, home to-night, at latest to-morrow morning. Wait for me at all hazards.—Albert.”
To provide against a possible delay over Tuesday, Seth devoted the afternoon, and the earlier part of the evening, to writing matter for his paper, which Dana was to convey to Thessaly for the early morning train, when he went to the cheese-factory. If Albert was coming at all that night, he would arrive about eight.
Nine o’clock came. Aunt Sabrina, after sitting in stem silence by the living-room stove for an hour or two, looking at the wall-paper as her brother Lemuel had been won’t to do, went up to bed with a frigid “good night.” The farm people had all retired with the chickens, long before.
Scarcely raising his eyes from his writing, Seth remarked:
“How Aunt Sabrina has failed since I left the farm! She grows ever so much like father. Poor old woman, she was so eager to have Albert come here, so elated with the idea that the family was to be restored to social and political dignity again—and now the apples seem to be all dead-sea fruit to her. I can’t see that she takes the slightest interest in Albert’s campaign. Odd, isn’t it?”
Isabel was sitting near the stove, around the corner of the table from him. The reddish radiance reflected down from the shaded lamp fell upon her rounded chin and her smooth white neck, dainty in tint as the ruffle in which it lost itself. Above this lace at the back, as she bent over her embroidery, some stray curling wisps of hair gleamed like gold in the light. She replied:
“It isn’t that at all. She’s interested enough in the Congress idea, or would be if she hadn’t something else on her mind. The prying old piece found out, by quizzing Dana, about our writing to each other. She has got it into her ridiculous old head, I feel sure, that there is something between us. Didn’t you notice the way she eyed us at the dinner table yesterday?”
Seth did not answer. His article was unfinished, but he suddenly found himself in doubt whether it was not already long enough. He reflected, or tried to reflect, for a moment, while the soft tones of her voice murmured in his ears, then added a sentence which might serve as a conclusion, and scrawled a dash underneath.
“There! I’m through!” he said, and looked up.
Her eyes were fixed upon his face. They were in the shadow of the tinted lamp-shade, but they had a light of their own—a languorous, alluring glow. He had never looked into such eyes before; they fascinated him, and he knew, in a delicious trembling, that his own were answering them in kind.
“You can read to me now,” she said, the rapt, wistful gaze melting into a smile. “He will not come to-night.”
Seth took the story, as she gave it to him from her workbox, and glanced over it to pick up the thread of the narrative where it had been dropped. As he was still thus engaged, he felt her hand laid upon his, and, as their eyes met again, heard her low, soft voice murmur:
“Do you know why I declined our invitation for the husking?”
There was a silence, which the young man felt that his face made full of acquiescent meaning.
She answered her own question: “I wanted you here, all for myself.”
Seth lost himself in an uplifting, floating sensation of ethereal beatitude. Her hand was in his now, warm and palpitating, and he raised it to his lips. It was difficult to breathe, but the oppression in his breast was all delight. He rose to his feet, his arms outstretched, his heart beating in exultant tumult. He heard her whisper—he could scarcely see her for the magnetic waving before his eyes—the refrain of the story: “So strong and yet so gentle!” His lips were formed for the passionate utterance—already framed in his heart—“My darling!” when there came the sound of footsteps on the path without, and of a hand upon the latch.
Seth mechanically took up the manuscript of his article, and turned toward the door. Beneath an impassive mien, far more composed than he dared to hope, there was the sensation of being hurled down, down, through the air, to unwelcome earth.
It was Albert. He looked at the two cursorily but closely, and only said, as he tossed his bag into a chair:
“Train was late. You go to bed at once, Isabel. I have particular business with Seth.”