Kitabı oku: «One Of Them», sayfa 32

CHAPTER XLV. OF BYGONES

Were we at the outset instead of the close of our journey, we could not help dwelling on the scene the lecture-room presented as the discovery became whispered throughout the crowd. Our goal is, however, now almost in sight, and we must not tarry. We will but record one thought, as we say that they who were accustomed to associate the idea of fine sympathies with fine clothes and elegance of manner, would have been astonished at the instinctive delicacy and good breeding of that dense mass of men. Many were disappointed at the abrupt conclusion of a great enjoyment, nearly all were moved by intense curiosity to know the history of those so strangely brought together again, and yet not one murmured a complaint, not one obtruded a question; but with a few words of kindly greeting, a good wish, or a blessing, they stole quietly away and left the spot.

Seated side by side in a room of the inn, old Layton and his son remained till nigh daybreak. How much had they to ask and answer of each other! Amidst the flood of questions poured forth, anything like narrative made but sorry progress; but at length Alfred came to hear how his father had been duped by a pretended friend, cheated out of his discovery, robbed of his hard-won success, and then denounced as an impostor.

“This made me violent, and then they called me mad. A little more of such persecution and their words might have come true.

“I scarcely yet know to what I am indebted for my liberation. I was a patient in Swift’s Hospital, when one day came the Viceroy to visit it, and with him came a man I had met before in society, but not over amicably, nor with such memories as could gratify. ‘Who is this?’ cried he, as he saw me at work in the garden. ‘I think I remember his face.’ The keeper whispered something, and he replied, ‘Ah! indeed!’ while he drew near where I was digging. ‘What do you grow here?’ asked he of me, in a half-careless tone. ‘Madder,’ shouted I, with a yell that made him start; and then, recovering himself, he hastened off to report the answer to the Viceroy.

“They both came soon after to where I was. The Viceroy, with that incaution which makes some people talk before the insane as though they were deaf, said, in my hearing, ‘And so you tell me he was once a Fellow of Trinity?’ ‘Yes, my Lord,’ said I, assuming the reply, ‘a Regius Professor and a Medallist, now a Madman and a Pauper. The converse is the gentleman at your side. He began as a fool, and has ended as a Poor Law Commissioner!’ They both turned away, but I cried out, ‘Mr. Ogden, one word with you before you go.’ He came back. ‘I have been placed here,’ said I, ‘at the instance of a man who has robbed me. I am not mad, but I am friendless. The name of my persecutor is Holmes. He writes himself Captain Nicholas Holmes – ’

“He would not hear another word, but hurried away without answering me. I know no more than that I was released ten days after, – that I was turned out in the streets to starve or rob. My first thought was to find out this man Holmes. To meet and charge him with his conduct towards me, in some public place, would have been a high vengeance; but I sought him for weeks in vain, and at last learned he had gone abroad.

“How I lived all that time I cannot tell you; it is all to me now like a long and terrible dream. I was constantly in the hands of the police, and rarely a day passed that I had not some angry altercation with the authorities. I was in one of these one morning, when, half stupefied with cold and want, I refused to answer further. The magistrate asked, ‘Has he any friends? Is there no one who takes any interest in him?’ The constable answered, ‘None, your worship; and it is all the better, he would only heap disgrace on them!’

“It was then, for the first moment of my life, the full measure of all I had become stood plainly before me. In those few words lay the sentence passed upon my character. From that hour forth I determined never to utter my name again. I kept this pledge faithfully, nor was it difficult; few questioned, none cared for me. I lived – if that be the word for it – in various ways. I compounded drugs for chemists, corrected the press for printers, hawked tracts, made auction catalogues, and at last turned pyrotechnist to a kind of Vauxhall, all the while writing letters home with small remittances to your mother, who had died when I was in the madhouse. In a brief interval of leisure I went down to the North, to learn what I might of her last moments, and to see where they had laid her. There was a clergyman there who had been kind and hospitable towards me in better days, and it was to his house I repaired.”

He paused, and for some minutes was silent. At length he said, —

“It is strange, but there are certain passages in my life, not very remarkable in themselves, that remain distinct and marked out, just as one sees certain portions of landscape by the glare of lightning flashes in a thunderstorm, and never forgets them after. Such was my meeting with this Mr. Millar. He was distributing bread to the poor, with the assistance of his clerk, on the morning that I came to his door. The act, charitable and good in itself, he endeavored to render more profitable by some timely words of caution and advice; he counselled gratitude towards those who bestowed these bounties, and thrift in their use. Like all men who have never known want themselves, he denied that it ever came save through improvidence. He seemed to like the theme, and dwelt on it with pleasure, the more as the poor sycophants who received his alms eagerly echoed back concurrence in all that he spoke disparagingly of themselves. I waited eagerly till he came to a pause, and then I spoke.

“‘Now,’ said I, ‘let us reverse this medal, and read it on the other side. Though as poor and wretched as any of those about, I have not partaken of your bounty, and I have the right to tell you that your words are untrue, your teaching unsound, and your theory a falsehood. To men like us, houseless, homeless, and friendless, you may as well preach good breeding and decorous manners, as talk of providence and thrift. Want is a disease; it attacks the poor, whose constitutions are exposed to it; and to lecture us against its inroads is like cautioning us against cold, by saying “Take care to wear strong boots, – mind that you take your greatcoat, – be sure that you do not expose yourself to the night air.” You would be shocked, would you not, to address such sarcastic counsels to such poor, barefoot, ragged creatures as we are? And yet you are not shocked by enjoining things fifty times more absurd, five hundred times more difficult. Thrift is the inhabitant of warm homesteads, where the abundant meal is spread upon the board and the fire blazes on the hearth. It never lives in the hovel, where the snowdrift lodges in the chimney and the rain beats upon the bed of straw!’

“‘Who is this fellow?’ cried the Rector, outraged at being thus replied to. ‘Where did he come from?’

“‘From a life of struggle and hardship,’ said I, ‘that if you had been exposed to and confronted with, you had died of starvation, despite all your wise saws on thrift and providence.’

“‘Gracious mercy!’ muttered he, ‘can this be – ’ and then he stopped; and beckoning me to follow him into an inner room, he retired.

“‘Do I speak to Dr. Layton?’ asked he, curtly, when we were alone.

“‘I was that man,’ said I. ‘I am nothing now.’

“‘By what unhappy causes have you come to this?’

“‘The lack of that same thrift you were so eloquent about, perhaps. I was one of those who could write, speak, invent, and discover; but I was never admitted a brother of the guild of those who save. The world, however, has always its compensations, and I met thrifty men. Some of them stole my writings, and some filched my discoveries. They have prospered, and live to illustrate your pleasant theory. But I have not come here to make my confessions; I would learn of you certain things about what was once my home.’

“He was most kind, – he would have been more than kind to me had I let him; but I would accept of nothing. ‘I did not even break bread under his roof, though I had fasted for a day and a half. He had a few objects left with him to give me, which I took, – the old pocket-book one of them, – and then I went away.”

The old man’s narrative was henceforth one long series of struggles with fortune. He concealed none of those faults by which he had so often wrecked his better life. Hating and despising the companionship to which his reduced condition had brought him, he professed to believe there was less degradation in drunkenness than in such association. Through all he said, in fact, there was the old defiant spirit of early days, a scornful rejection of all assistance, and even, in failure and misery, a self-reliance that seemed invincible. He had come to America by the invitation of a theatrical manager, who had failed, leaving him in the direst necessity and want.

The dawn of day found him still telling of his wayward life, its sorrows, its struggles, and defeats.

CHAPTER XLVI. THE DOCTOR’S NARRATIVE

Old Layton never questioned his son whither they were going, or for what, till the third day of their journeying together. Such, indeed, was the preoccupation of his mind, that he travelled along unmindful of new places and new people, all his thoughts deeply engaged by one single theme. Brief as this interval was, what a change had it worked in his appearance! Instead of the wild and haggard look his features used to wear, their expression was calm, somewhat stern, perhaps, and such as might have reminded one who had seen him in youth of the Herbert Layton of his college days. He had grown more silent, too, and there was in his manner the same trait of haughty reserve which once distinguished him. His habits of intemperance were abandoned at once, and without the slightest reference to motive or intention he gave his son to see that he had entered on a new course in life.

“Have you told me where we are going, Alfred, and have I forgotten it?” said he, on the third day of the journey.

“No, father; so many other things occurred to us to talk over that I never thought of this. It is time, however, I should tell you. We are going to meet one who would rather make your acquaintance than be the guest of a king.”

The old man smiled with a sort of cold incredulity, and his son went on to recount how, in collecting the stray papers and journals of the “Doctor,” as they styled him between them, this stranger had come to conceive the greatest admiration for his bold energy of temperament and the superior range of his intellect. The egotism, so long dormant in that degraded nature, revived and warmed up as the youth spoke, and he listened with proud delight at the story of all the American’s devotion to him.

“He is a man of science, then, Alfred?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“He is, at least, one of those quick-minded fellows who in this stirring country adapt to their purpose discoveries they have had no share in making; is he not?”

“Scarcely even that. He is a man of ordinary faculties, many prejudices, but of a manly honesty of heart I have never seen surpassed.”

“Then he is poor,” said the old man, sarcastically.

“I know little of his circumstances, but I believe they are ample.”

“Take my word for it, boy, they are not,” said the other, with a bitter smile. “Fortune is a thrifty goddess, and where she bestows a generous nature she takes care it shall have nothing to give away.”

“I trust your precept will not apply to this case, at all events. I have been his pensioner for nigh a year back: I am so still. I had hoped, indeed, by this project of lecturing – ”

“Nay, nay, boy, no success could come of that. Had you been a great name in your own country, and come here heralded by honors won already, they would have given you a fair hearing and a generous recompense, but they will not take as money the unstamped metal; they will not stoop to accept what the old country sends forth without acknowledgment, as good enough for them. Believe me, this race is prouder than our own, and it is not by unworthy sneers at them that we shall make them less vainglorious.”

“I scarcely know them, but for the sake of that one man I owe them a deep affection,” said Alfred, warmly.

“I have a scheme for you,” said the old man, after a pause; “but we will talk of it later on. For the present, I want you to aid me in a plan of my own. Ever since I have been in this country I have endeavored to find out a person whose name alone was known to me, and with whom I gave a solemn promise to communicate, – a death-bed promise it was, and given under no common circumstances. The facts were these: —

“I was once upon a time, when practising as a physician at Jersey, sent for to attend a patient taken suddenly and dangerously ill. The case was a most embarrassing one. There were symptoms so incongruous as to reject the notion of any ordinary disease, and such as might well suggest the suspicion of poisoning, and yet so skilfully and even patiently had the scheme been matured, the detection of the poison during life was very difficult. My eagerness in the inquiry was mistaken by the patient for a feeling of personal kindness towards himself, – an error very familiar to all medical men in practice. He saw in my unremitting attention and hourly watching by his bedside the devotion of one like an old friend, and not the scientific ardor of a student.

“It is just possible that his gratitude was the greater, that the man was one little likely to conciliate good feeling or draw any sympathy towards him. He was a hard, cold, selfish fellow, whose life had been passed amongst the worst classes of play-men, and who rejected utterly all thought of truth or confidence in his old associates. I mention this to show how, in a very few days, the accident of my situation established between us a freedom and a frankness that savored of long acquaintance.

“In his conversations with me he confessed that his wife had been divorced from a former husband, and, from circumstances known to him, he believed she desired his death. He told me of the men to whom in particular his suspicions attached, and the reasons of the suspicions; that these men would be irretrievably ruined if his speculations on the turf were to succeed, and that there was not one of them would not peril his life to get sight of his book on the coming Derby. I was curious to ascertain why he should have surrounded himself with men so obviously his enemies, and he owned it was an act prompted by a sort of dogged courage, to show them that he did not fear them. Nor was this the only motive, as he let out by an inadvertence; he cherished the hope of detecting an intrigue between one of his guests and his wife, as the means of liberating himself from a tie long distasteful to him.

“One of the party had associated himself with him in this project, and promised him all his assistance. Here was a web of guilt and treachery, entangled enough to engage a deep interest! For the man himself, I cared nothing; there was in his nature that element of low selfishness that is fatal to all sense of sympathy. His thoughts and speculations ranged only over suspicions and distrusts, and the only hopes he ever expressed were for the punishment of his enemies. Scarcely, indeed, did a visit pass in which he did not compel me to repeat a solemn oath that the mode of his death should be explored, and his poisoners – if there were such – be brought to trial. As he drew nigh his last, his sufferings gave little intervals of rest, and his mind occasionally wandered. Even in his ravings, however, revenge never left him, and he would break out into wild rhapsodies in imitation of the details of justice, calling on the prisoners, and by name, to say whether they would plead guilty or not; asking them to stand forward, and then reciting with hurried impetuosity the terms of an indictment for murder. To these there would succeed a brief space of calm reason, in which he told me that his daughter – a child by a former wife – was amply provided for, and that her fortune was so far out of the reach of his enemies that it lay in America, where her uncle, her guardian, resided. He gave me his name and address, and in my pocket-book – this old and much-used pocket-book that you see – he wrote a few tremulous lines, accrediting me to this gentleman as the one sole friend beside him in his last struggles. As he closed the book, he said, ‘As you hope to die in peace, swear to me not to neglect this, nor leave my poor child a beggar.’ And I swore it.

“His death took place that night; the inquest followed on the day after. My suspicions were correct; he had died of corrosive sublimate; the quantity would have killed a dozen men. There was a trial and a conviction. One of them, I know, was executed, and, if I remember aright, sentence of transportation passed on another. The woman, however, was not implicated, and her reputed lover escaped. My evidence was so conclusive and so fatal that the prisoners’ counsel had no other resource than to damage my credit by assailing my character, and in his cross-examination of me he drew forth such details of my former life, and the vicissitudes of my existence, that I left the witness-table a ruined man. It was not a very difficult task to represent a life of poverty as one of ignominy and shame. The next day my acquaintances passed without recognizing me, and from that hour forth none ever consulted me. In my indignation at this injustice I connected all who could have in any way contributed to my misfortune, and this poor orphan child amongst the rest. Had I never been engaged in that ill-starred case, my prospects in life had been reasonably fair and hopeful. I was in sufficient practice, increasing in repute, and likely to succeed, when this calamitous affair crossed me.

“Patience under unmerited suffering was never amongst my virtues, and in various ways I assailed those who had attacked me. I ridiculed the lawyer who had conducted the defence, sneered at his law, exposed his ignorance of chemistry, and, carried away by that fatal ardor of acrimony I never knew how to restrain, I more than suggested that, when he appealed to Heaven in the assertion of his client’s innocence, he held in his possession a written confession of his guilt. For this an action of libel was brought against me; the damages were assessed at five hundred pounds, and I spent four years in a jail to acquit the debt. Judge, then, with what memories I ever referred to that event of my life. It was, perhaps, the one solitary incident in which I had resisted a strong temptation. I was offered a large bribe to fail in my analysis, and yet it cost me all the prosperity it had taken years of labor to accomplish!

“Imprisonment had not cooled my passion. The first thing which I did when free was to dramatize the trial for one of those low pot-houses where Judge and Jury scenes are represented; and so accurately did I caricature my enemy, the counsel, that he was actually laughed out of court and ruined. If I could have traced the other actors in the terrible incident, I would have pursued them with like rancor; but I could not: they had left England, and gone Heaven knows where or how! As to the orphan girl, whose interest I had sworn to watch over, any care for her now would only have insulted my own misery; my rage was blind and undiscriminating, and I would not be guided by reason. It was, therefore, in a spirit of unreflecting vengeance that I never took any steps regarding her, but preserved, even to this hour, a letter to her guardian, – it is there, in that pocket-book, – which might perhaps have vindicated her right to wealth and fortune. ‘No,’ thought I, ‘they have been my ruin; I will not be the benefactor of one of them!’

“I kept my word; and even when my own personal distresses were greatest, I would not have raised myself out of want at the price of relinquishing that revenge. I have lived to think and feel more wisely,” said he, after a pause; “I have lived to learn the great lesson that every mishap of my life was of my own procuring, and that self-indulgence and a vindictive spirit are enough to counterbalance tenfold more than all the abilities I ever possessed. The world will no more confide its interests to men like me than they will take a tiger for a house-dog. I want to make some reparation for this wrong, Alfred. I want to seek out this person I have spoken of, and, if this girl still live, to place her in possession of her own. You will help me in this, will you not?”

It was not without a burning impatience that young Layton had listened to his father’s narrative; he was eager to tell him that his friend the Colonel had already addressed himself to the enterprise, all his interests being engaged by the journals and letters he had collected when in Ireland. Alfred now, in a few hurried words, related all this, and told how, at that very hour, Quackinboss was eagerly prosecuting the inquiry. “He has gone down to Norfolk in search of this Winthrop,” said he.

“He will not find him there,” said old Layton. “He left Norfolk, for the Far West, two years back. He settled at Chicago, but he has not remained there. So much I have learned, and it is all that is known about him.”

“Let us go to Chicago, then,” said Alfred.

“It is what I would advise. He is a man of sufficient note and mark to be easily traced. It is a well-known name, and belongs to a family much looked up to. These are my credentials, if I should ever chance to come up with him.”

As he spoke, he unclasped a very old and much-worn leather pocket-book, searching through whose pages he at last found what he sought for. It was a leaf, scrawled over in a trembling manner, and ran thus: “Consult the bearer of this, Dr. Layton, about Clara; he is my only friend at this dreadful hour, and he is to be trusted in all things. Watch well that they who have murdered me do not rob her. He will tell you – ” It concluded thus abruptly, but was signed firmly, “Godfrey Hawke, Nest, Jersey,” with the date; and underneath, “To Harvey Winthrop, Norfolk, D. S.”

“This would be a meagre letter of credit, Alfred, to most men; but I have heard much of this same Winthrop. All represent him as a fine-hearted, generous fellow, who has done already much to trace out his niece, and restore to her what she owns. If we succeed in discovering him, I mean to offer my services to search out the girl. I saw, a short time before I left England, one of the men who were implicated in the murder. I knew him at once. The threat of reviving the old story of shame will soon place him in my power, if I can but find him; and through him I am confident we shall trace her.”

To understand the ardor with which the old man entered upon this inquiry, one must have known the natures of those men to whom the interest of such a search has all the captivation of a game. It was, to his thinking, like some case of subtle analysis, in which the existence of a certain ingredient was to be tested; it was a problem requiring all his acuteness to solve, and he addressed himself to the task with energy and zeal. The young man was not slow to associate himself in the enterprise; and in his desire for success there mingled generous thoughts and more kindly sympathies, which assuredly did not detract from the interest of the pursuit.

The theme engrossed all their thoughts; they discussed it in every fashion, speculated on it in every shape, pictured to themselves almost every incident and every stage of the inquiry, imagining the various obstacles that might arise, and planning how to overcome them. Thus journeying they arrived at Chicago, but only to learn that Winthrop had left that city, and was now established farther to the westward, at a place called Gallina. Without halting or delay they started for Gallina. The road was a new and a bad one, the horses indifferent, and the stages unusually long. It was on the fourth evening of the journey that they arrived at a small log-house on the skirt of a pine wood, at which they were given to expect fresh horses. They were disappointed, however, for the horses had already been sent to bring up two travellers from Gallina, and who had taken the precaution of securing a rapid transit.

“We are here, then, for the night,” said old Layton, with a faint sigh, as he endeavored to resign himself to the delay.

“Here they come!” said the host of the log-hut, as the rattle of a heavy wagon was heard from the dense wood. “Our sheriff don’t let the moss grow under his feet. Listen to the pace he ‘s coming.”

Seated, with his son beside him, on the wooden bench before the door, the old man watched the arrival of the newcomers. The first to descend from the wagon was a man somewhat advanced in life, but hale and stout, with a well-bronzed face, and every semblance of a vigorous health. He saluted the host cordially, and was received with a sort of deference only accorded to men of official station. He was followed by a younger man, but who displayed, as he moved, evident signs of being fatigued by the journey.

“Come, Seth,” said the elder, “let us see what you have got for our supper, for we must be a-moving briskly.”

“Well, sheriff, there ain’t much,” said the host; “and what there is you ‘ll have to share with the two gentlemen yonder; they’ve just come East, and are waitin’ for you to get a morsel to eat.”

“Always glad to chance on good company,” said the sheriff, saluting the strangers as he spoke; and while they were interchanging their greetings, the host laid the table, and made preparation for the meal. “I must look after my fellow-traveller,” said the sheriff; “he seems so tired and jaded. I half fear he will be unable to go on to-night.”

He speedily returned with good tidings of his friend, and soon afterwards the party took their places at the supper-table.

The sheriff, like his countrymen generally, was frank and outspoken; he talked freely of the new-settled country, its advantages and its difficulties, and at last, as the night closed in, he made another visit to his friend.

“All right, Seth,” said he, as he came back; “we shall be able to push on. Let them ‘hitch’ the nags as soon as may be, for we ‘ve a long journey before us.”

“You’re for the Lakes, I reckon?” said Seth, inquiringly.

“Farther than that.”

“Up to Saratoga and the Springs, maybe?”

“Farther still.”

“Well, you ain’t a-goin’ to New York at this time of year, sheriff?”

“That am I, and farther still, Seth; I am going to the old country, where I have n’t been for more than thirty years, and where I never thought to go again.”

“You might visit worse lands, sir,” said old Layton, half resentfully.

“You mistook my meaning, stranger,” said the other, “if you thought my words reflected on England. There is only one land I love better.”

The honest speech reconciled them at once, and with a hearty shake-hands and a kindly wished good journey, they separated.

“Did you remark that man who accompanied the sheriff?” said Layton to his son, as they stood at the door watching the wagon while it drove away.

“Not particularly,” said Alfred.

“Well, I did my best to catch sight of him, but I could not. It struck me that he was less an invalid than one who wanted to escape observation; he wore his hat slouched over his eyes, and covered his mouth with his hand when he spoke.”

The young man only smiled at what he deemed a mere caprice of suspicion, and the subject dropped between them. After a while, however, the father said, —

“What our host has just told me strengthens my impression. The supposed sick man ate a hearty supper, and drank two glasses of stiff brandy-and-water.’

“And if he did, can it concern us, father?” said Alfred, smiling.

“Yes, boy, if we were the cause of the sudden indisposition. He was tired, perhaps, when he arrived, but I saw no signs of more than fatigue in his movements, and I observed that, at the first glance towards us, he hurried into the inner room and never reappeared till he left. I ‘m not by any means certain that the fellow had not his reasons for avoiding us.”

Rather treating this as the fancy of one whose mind had been long the prey of harassing distrusts than as founded on calmer reason, Alfred made no answer, and they separated for the night without recurring to the subject.

It was late on the following day they reached Gallina. The first question was, if Harvey Winthrop lived there? “Yes; he is our sheriff,” was the answer. They both started, and exchanged looks of strange meaning.

“And he left this yesterday?” asked old Layton.

“Yes, sir. An Englishman came two days back with some startling news for him, – some say of a great fortune left him somewhere, – and he’s off to England to make out his claim.”

Old Layton and his son stood speechless and disconcerted. These were the two travellers who had passed them at the log-hut, and thus had they spent some hours, without knowing it, in the company of him they had been travelling hundreds of miles to discover.

“And his friend knew us, and avoided us, Alfred,” said old Layton. “Mark that fact, boy, and observe that, where there is ground for fear in one heart, there is reason for hope in some other. We must follow them at once.”