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"O Splendid Sorcery," The Vanguard Press, New York, 1930
"O Splendid Sorcery," The Vanguard Press, New York, 1930
James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
ALWAYS it has been my great desire to set down in simple words the story of my young aunt, Morna O'Neill, who came to live with us on our New Hampshire farm when I was a little boy of ten. To me a strange story. One into which the Fates thrust happenings that had an unusual quality—a queer entrancing quality that lifts up the narrative and sets it apart from all others that I have heard or read.
Timidly I come to the telling of it although it has been with me for many long years. Day and night it has cried to me to send it forth, but I lacked the words to dress it as it should be dressed. For, although the incidents were simple ones, there was about the very smallest of them an air of glamorous mystery that seemed to come from my aunt herself, and splendid words are necessary to carry that elusive glamour to the reader. That is the fear that has kept me from the telling—the fear that is on me now.
Everyday happenings some might think the things of which I am going to tell, but, peering back over the grey fields of memory, I know that every little one of them was plaited into a great colorful fabric that ran up and down the world. A fabric that God spins out of the thoughts and dreams of persons like my aunt. For my aunt had golden dreams made from the spindrift of her imagination. Imagination that leaped and flamed in the great darkness that encompassed her. The terrible and appalling darkness. For my Aunt Morna, who was young and beautiful, had been made suddenly blind. She had become in the soft sweet words of that Ireland where she was born, a "dark" woman....
Full of courage and tragedy was the letter that told of
her coming. It was I who brought it from the village, a
light letter with a little stamp that carried the bald head
of King Edward, but if woe had a weight it would have taken
a team of horses to move it and a million stamps to buy its
passage across the seas.
This is what rolled out of the letter and into the ears of my father and mother. Of its contents I knew little at the time, but later I learned. My Aunt Morna, the younger sister of my mother and only nineteen years of age at the time, was crossing the green in White Abbey, which is a fine suburb of Belfast, when a cricket ball thrown by a boy at play struck her on the forehead. After she recovered from the immediate effects of the blow she complained of pains above her eyes, and her father took her to Dublin to see a great oculist who lived near St. Stephen's Green. A great man to whom came people from London and other parts of England, and many Americans as well. After making various tests with the sight of my aunt he walked over to a calendar that hung upon the wall, studied it for a few moments, and then came back to the side of my grandfather. "She will be completely blind on the sixteenth of September," said he quietly. "That is twenty-five days from this blessed morning. And nothing can be done for her." Not another word did he say because his heart was heavy, she being as beautiful as the dawn and so young. All this I heard later when she came to live with us on our New Hampshire farm.
Now my aunt was engaged to be married to a young man of Belfast whose name was Hugh Renshaw. A fine young man. He could out-box, outrun, and outswim any young fellow in the north of Ireland, and he loved Morna O'Neill with a great love. A love that was so tremendous that when they danced together at village fairs the people watched them in a kind of sweet trance, forgetting their hates and sorrows because of the great affection for each other that came out from the boy and the maid.
Morna O'Neill knew that if she told Hugh Renshaw that she was going to lose her sight that nothing in the world would make him give her up. Nothing at all. And the pride within her, the pride of the O'Neills who were a great fighting clan and who once owned the whole of Belfast as the history books will tell you, made it impossible for her to thrust herself, a blind woman, upon him. She swore her family to secrecy concerning the coming blindness, then she sent for Hugh Renshaw.
A fine and glorious lie she told to the young man. Sitting proud and erect she told him that she was breaking the engagement. And for why? She would tell him. Her sister, my mother, had written her telling her that there were millionaires aplenty in America and asking her to come over and live with us where she could pick and choose. A lie that was so fat that it nearly choked her with its words. And it left her heart dead and cold within her.
Hugh Renshaw laughed at her story. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. But my aunt clung to it in the face of hot words and abuse. Clung to it with a grimness brought by her pride. The words of the great oculist stiffening her against the sneers of the young man. In twenty-five days she would be a "dark" woman! "Yes, yes, yes!" she cried, "I am going across the seas to find a rich American! I am through with you! Through with you forever!" And he staggered away from her, cursing her greed and her cold heart.
And the next day she went to Dublin and from Dublin to Liverpool where she booked a passage for New York. And that same day Hugh Renshaw, who was the son of a banker and had a fine position in the city of Belfast, banged down the lid of his desk, walked to the docks and shipped as a common sailor on a tramp steamer that was leaving for the East Indies to hunt for cargo up and down the thousand and one lost islands of the Malay.
At this time my aunt had an income of two thousand dollars a year, it being a legacy left to her by her mother's father who had become a great judge in London and who loved Morna greatly because of her beauty. Independent was she, but the dark shadow was coming closer with each minute that passed. Five days of that scanty period of grace had slipped away when she boarded the big boat at Liverpool. And slipping down the Irish Sea at the same moment was a bull-nosed tramp, on board of which a young sailor, whose muscles were like snakes beneath his satiny skin, cursed all women so that his mates looked at him in wonder.
My father and mother went down to New York to meet my
aunt. On a fine Saturday she came to the farm, and Romance
came with her. Glorious romance. She was tall and supple
like a willow wand, and her skin was as white as milk. And
she had raven-black hair like a Spanish woman, for many of
the black Irish are descended from the Spaniards who were
shipwrecked in the north of Ireland after the defeat of the
Great Armada and who settled down with the Irish, naturally
sympathetic to them because they hated the English. And
she had fine teeth, and her lips were a proud exultant red
in their own right, so to speak, and she had beautiful
hands and small feet. And her eyes were big and dark and
sparkled brightly, for no one then or at any other time
could see that there was anything wrong with her eyes, no
one except the big oculist near St. Stephen's Green who
had examined them. And she had a voice that always made me
think of the fall because it had in it a strange note of
wonder and a little thrill that comes to us when the red is
on the leaf.
All that Saturday and the three days that followed she spent studying the rooms of the house and the lay of the farm buildings. Never for a moment was she still. I and my brothers, Tom and Joe, and my sister, Joan, followed her around for she was something beautiful and pleasing that children would naturally follow, and we wondered a little at her restlessness. But I think that my father and mother knew the reason that drove her little feet. Yes, my father and my mother knew.
Through every room of the house she went, walking quietly and slowly, looking at everything as if she wished to keep a picture of it in her mind for ever and ever. Standing in a doorway she would study a room, measuring with her eyes its length and breadth, noting the position of the windows, and glancing hard at the tables and chairs and armoires that furnished it. And my brothers and my sister Joan and I would look at each as we tried to puzzle out the eye-hunger that was upon her.
It was the same with the barn and the outhouses. Carefully, oh, so carefully, she looked at them. And she counted the steps she took in walking between them and the door of the kitchen. And we didn't know what for. We didn't know.
There was a big wooden bench on a green spot before the barn, a bench that was used on summer evenings when my father told stories to us, and between this bench and the kitchen she walked many, many times. It was I who told her that we all sat there on summer evenings, and it was when she heard this that she continued to walk backwards and forwards measuring her steps and counting them. And wondering greatly, we watched her.
And she looked at great length on the fields and the countryside. The fine sweet countryside that had upon it the soft mist of the early fall, the White Mountains showing in the distance. Pleasant and soothing was that view with the pretty tints of the autumn. Tints that were strange and glorious to her because there is no place in all the world where autumn rides in with all the colored bannerets that it brings to New England. No place at all.
I was alone with my Aunt Morna as she looked at the countryside on the Sunday afternoon after her arrival. She had slipped quietly from the house, but saw her and followed her.
"It's wonderful, Jimmy!" she said to me. "I have never seen such beauty! Ah, the colors on the leaves! There are a million shades of red and brown!"
"It'll be better than this," I told her. "In another week or so it will be a thousand times prettier."
"Will it, Jimmy?" she cried. "Will it?" And there were great teardrops in her eyes as she questioned me.
"Sure," I answered. "See that clump of trees on the slope near the Murray Place?"
"Yes, yes!" she gasped. "I see them!"
"Well, they're maples," I explained, with all the impudence of a boy instructing a grown-up who was for the moment at his mercy, "and when they turn into their real fall tints people come for miles around and stare at them. They're great. You'd think when you looked at them quick-like that they were all on fire."
"Oh, Jimmy!" she cried. "Oh, Jimmy!" Then she moved closer to me, took my hand, and whispered to me in that sweet voice of hers that had the feeling of the fall in it: "You'll tell me all about them when they're properly dressed, won't you, Jimmy?" she murmured. "Tell me that you will?" And then, after a little pause, she called me by the name that she often called me in the years that followed. A soft name which is the Gaelic for Wee Little Jim.
"Shamuseen beg, you'll be my eyes?" she whispered, and she set all my blood tingling with the honey that was in her words. "You'll be my eyes?"
"Sure," I said, thinking she was silly to ask me to describe something that she could see for herself with the beautiful eyes that she had. "Sure, I'll watch them and tell you when to look up toward the Murray Place and see them in all their glory."
We sat down on a bank and she stared at the trees as if she had never seen a tree before in her life, and it was then that I told her the story of the traveling preacher who frightened Jess Fox. This preacher went by our farm one day in the fall and he spoke about the coming of the Lord. Jess Fox, who liked to think that he didn't believe in anything, laughed at the preacher and tried to make fun of him. The preacher looked at the maple trees that were all on fire and he looked at Jess. "The trees know more than you, fool!" he thundered. "They have dressed themselves up for the coming of the Lord that you are too silly to believe in!" Jess looked at the trees, and their glory at the moment was so wonderful that he was sort of abashed and he laughed no more. I told this story to my aunt as we sat on the bank and she liked it greatly.
The interest of my brothers, Tom and Joe, and that of my sister, Joan, seemed to slacken on the Monday, and I walked around with my aunt and showed her everything I could. I told her the names of all our neighbors and showed her all the roads.
I knew that she liked me, and I liked her an awful lot. She had a perfume on her clothes that was beautiful, a perfume that I have never known anyone else to use. Never....
I was tired that evening, but sometime in the night I was awakened by my mother's voice. She was whispering in the passage that led to the room my Aunt Morna occupied. I rubbed my eyes and listened. My father answered my mother. It must have been near midnight. I wondered what was wrong.
I heard my father walk by my room in the direction of the kitchen, then, after a time he came back, and the whispering began again. There was fear in the words of my mother.
Then I heard my sister, Alice, asking questions in a frightened voice. Prince, our red setter, barked in the farmyard, Prince being puzzled by the lights in the house at such an unusual hour.
I tiptoed to the door of the room that I shared with my brother Tom. I opened the door just a little, then to my ears came the soft voice of my aunt speaking. She was telling my mother and father to go back to bed as she wanted nothing. Quite cool was my aunt, and later I wondered at the manner in which she spoke. Wondered much.
I waited till my father and mother went back to their room, then, a little troubled, I climbed into bed and fell asleep. I loved my Aunt Morna, loved her with the strange love that a small, over-sensitive boy often has for a grown person who seems awfully romantic to him....
I don't know how it was told to us. I could never remember. It seems now that it was in the air when I awoke. I am sure that no one told me in exact words. But I know that I ate nothing that morning. The big oculist near St. Stephen's Green in the C of Dublin had guessed the time within twenty-four hours. My Aunt Morna was "dark."
A BIG family were we when my Aunt Morna came to live with us. Nine in all. There were my father and mother, five boys and two girls. My sister Alice was the eldest of the children, she being twenty-one at the time. After her came Will who was eighteen, then Jack sixteen, Joan fourteen, Tom thirteen, Joseph twelve, then I who was ten years and some odd days.
Now I know that in the years that followed a great love came to all of us from my Aunt Morna. Of that I am certain, yet I would like to think that she loved me best of all. Yes, I would like to think always that I was her favorite. For it was to me that she hinted about her approaching blindness on that Sunday afternoon when she said: "Shamuseen beg, you'll be my eyes? You'll be my eyes?" And there were many other things that brought us close in the months that followed.
In those first weeks in the House of Darkness my aunt made an agreement with me. Made it quietly when no one was near, for she had that blessed love of privacy that is held by nice persons. I was considered by my father and mother as the most "booky" member of the family, and during those first terrible days of my aunt's blindness I read to her scraps from the Boston papers.
"Listen, Jimmy," she said one day after I had read her a story from the Boston Herald. "I want to make an agreement with you. I will pay you twenty cents for every book you read to me."
"For little ones as well as big ones?" I questioned, and for my greed I was sorry during the years to come.
"For little ones as well as big ones," said my aunt. "Twenty cents for every book great or small that you will read to me."
"It's a go," I said, and that same afternoon I started reading to her. And I didn't pick a little book either, for I wished to act square with my aunt who could not see. The first book that I read aloud to her was called Ramona, a work by a lady named Miss Helen Jackson, and this story pleased my aunt greatly. When I had finished it she paid me the twenty cents that she had promised me, thanking me also for the care I had taken in the reading.
Many were the books that I read to my aunt during the months that followed. Many and many. My father had quite a number of books, and I borrowed volumes from the neighbors. The Hutchinsons and the Mannings loaned me all the books that they had, and then I happened to tell Mr. William Murray who owned the Murray Place that I was reading to my aunt. Later I was sorry that I ever told this to Mr. Murray. He was very rich, and he only lived in the Murray Place during the summer and early fall, but he gave orders to his housekeeper, who lived there all the year round, that I could visit the library whenever I liked and borrow any books that were there. Mr. Murray did not meet my aunt that year. He left for New York the month following her arrival.
I recall the names of books that my aunt liked greatly. Generous in her praise was she of all that I read to her, and I, on my part, tried to choose the works that would please her. I read The Conquest of Granada by Washington Irving, a book full of color and fine deeds; Little Lord Fauntleroy and That Lass o' Lowrie's by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett; To Have and to Hold, Janice Meredith, The Virginians, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Moby Dick, David Harum, and scores of others.
But of all the books that I read to my Aunt Morna there were two that she loved above all the rest. They were Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Five times I read her Huckleberry Finn, earning a dollar for myself in so doing, and three times I read Tom Sawyer to her, receiving sixty cents for my trouble.
"Oh, Jimmy!" she would say, again and again, as I read those two books to her. "What brave boys they were!"
The death of Buck Grangerford in the Shepherdson-Grangerford feud always upset my aunt. When I read to her how Huck Finn covered Buck's face after the Shepherdsons had shot him and how Huck said: "I cried a little for he was mighty good to me," my Aunt Morna would weep softly, and her crying made me weep also. Always I wanted to skip that chapter about the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, but she wouldn't let me.
Often I have wished that I had written a little note to Mr. Twain telling him how my aunt liked his books and how she often said a prayer for Buck Grangerford. I am sure that he would have liked to hear how real Buck was to her. Now that Mr. Twain is no more I cannot tell him.
My aunt knew of much poetry and of many legends of Ireland. The ballads that she recited to me when we were alone were full of fire and action, and the words had a sheen upon them that I thought I could see as they fell from her lips. Ballads of the O'Neills; of the great Owen Roe O'Neill who fought ten men and killed them all; of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who was no whit behind him as a swordsman; and of big Shane O'Neill, who burned Armagh and who was murdered by the clan of the O'Donnels after they had defeated him at Cushendun.
Of words and the use of words my Aunt Morna knew a great deal. She told me of a harper who came to her father's house when she was a little child, and of the story the harper told of some incident in the life of Owen Roe O'Neill. The story, said my aunt, started on a low key. Hardly more than a whisper, with little words hurrying to get out of the way of the fine throbbing colorful words that carried the full force on the tale.
Suddenly the voice of the harper rose. The narrative reached out and clutched at the listeners. It surged upward and onward like a straining stallion. And color dripped from it, color and fire and emotion. Jaws agape, lips dry, and eyelids that wouldn't flicker if they were asked to, had the folk who sat around. They were but ears that sucked in the words, sucked in their glory and their pomp and their crashing music. Up and up went the voice of the harper till women shrieked with the sweet fear that it brought to them. Then, with the same startling suddenness, the voice of the teller dropped like a rocket that has reached its highest point, dropped with a thousand star-words that brought it whispering down into a pool of silence.
My aunt's father asked the harper how long it would take a man to learn how to tell the story as he had told it, and the harper said this back to him: "It has taken me and my fathers in front of me five hundred years to learn the telling of it. No man who has not sprung from a race of story-tellers could learn how to do it. For all the little teeny words have got to be put in places where they can do the best work for their size and yet not be crushed by the big ones, and all the fine ones that have souls in them—the words that look like moonstones and sapphires—have got to be herded together to stir the emotion, while the strong hard words that are like agates and cornelians pull the heads of the listeners forward and put the ash of fear on their lips. Three words," continued the harper, "I have changed in the years that I have been telling the tale, and my father changed four from the telling of his father. And my father and I gave much thought to those seven words that we changed, for, as I have said, our family for five hundred years have been polishing the tale and licking the words with tongues that loved them greatly."
I tell of this because words and the color of words have a lot to do with the story of my Aunt Morna. Words and the color of words, for the ears of the blind squeeze the voices of the speakers that they cannot see and get color from them. My aunt told me of this as she sat on the bench on the green, I resting for a moment in the reading of some tale. There she would sit like a lady in a medieval picture, our big cat, Daniel Boone, sitting beside her.
It was strange about Danny Boone. On the second day of my aunt's blindness he discovered that she could not see. How he reasoned it out or by what cat-magic he divined it I do not know, but that he did know, I have not the slightest doubt. In those first days of darkness he would climb quietly on the bench and sit himself down beside her, and, she did not sense his presence—a capacity that came to her later, no matter how softly he approached—he would lift a paw and gently tap her hand. When my aunt greeted him he would hop into her lap and go to sleep.
The other two cats and the four dogs often got in my aunt's way when she was walking around the house, but Daniel Boone was always alert. When he saw her moving slowly in his direction, no matter how sunny and warm was the place that he occupied, he would take himself out of her path and sit watching her as she went by.
This is a small matter to tell of, but I have many memory pictures of the big cat tapping my aunt's hand in those first weeks of her tragedy. He seemed to show his approval of her courage, a rare courage that she had polished and honed during the days of grace so that it would cut a path through the years of darkness. A courage that brought her fine music from afar and songs from the ends of the earth and pictures greater than any painted with little dabs of color. For my aunt saw life limned by the league-long brushes of imagination dipped in passion and love, in gallantry, fine pride and all the grand colors of the soul that the Almighty gave us.
NOW my aunt knew that her sweetheart, Hugh Renshaw, had thrown up his fine position and gone to sea. Letters came from Belfast telling her that no word had come from him, he having sworn an oath before sailing that he would have nothing more to do with kith or kin or the friends of childhood. For his anger was great at what he thought was the money-hunger in the heart of my aunt, he not knowing it was her great pride that made her lie to him. So here was a misunderstanding that spanned space, a misunderstanding that puzzled me with each day that passed. For I have often thought that God in His supreme wisdom thrust Hugh Renshaw and Morna O'Neill apart from each other so that He could use the golden thread of their lives to better advantage in far-distant corners of the great fabric that He weaves continuously. Of many little patterns that were changed by the tragic happening to my aunt I will tell of here, but there must have been others of great value that I know nothing of. Nothing at all.
When my aunt came to live with us there was trouble in our home over the love affairs of my sister Alice. On a visit to Boston Alice had met a man named Walter Armstrong and they had fallen in love with each other. This Walter Armstrong had relatives in the village that was a mile and a half from our farm, and after Alice came home he rode up for a visit and it was then that he came to our farm and met my father and mother. He was a rough, easy-going fellow with a great loud laugh, and on the day that he visited us he had drank a little so that his laugh and his rough manners were more noticeable. My father was a very temperate man, and he and my mother decided that my sister Alice was making a mistake.
Alice didn't agree with them. She was perfectly contented with Armstrong, and, as she was over twenty-one, she stated that she intended to marry him in spite of any opposition. The matter came to a crisis in the spring following my aunt's arrival. Alice left our house and went to stay with Armstrong's relatives in the village.
From there, in the early part of May, she wrote a letter to my father and mother telling them that she would be married at the village church on the following Saturday at four o'clock and inviting them to be present. My father, after reading the note, tore it into little bits and flung it into the fire. My mother cried softly; my aunt said nothing.
On that Saturday morning I know that my aunt was thinking of Hugh Renshaw. Thinking of him swinging through the hot seas of the Orient, hating her with a great hate, yet unable to tear the picture of her from his heart. Yes, I know that she was thinking of him, for she asked me to read her certain passages from the Bible that had reference to the sea. And I read them to her, she repeating the words softly after me. Softly, ever so softly, like a stream of golden sound, she whispered passages from the Book of the Kings: "For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." ... Yes, she was thinking of Hugh, for her very words flung up pictures before me of the seas where she thought he was wandering. Great pictures, for fine words are those from the Book of Kings and there was much music in them as my aunt spoke them. "And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom...."
Yes, she was thinking of Hugh, for she brought into my mind visions of hot seas where the waters are like a million colored snakes that are twisting and rolling. And I saw a big, bull-snouted ship, its stern high out of the water like the galleons of old, and I knew that there were great gobs of gold and silver and ivory in the fat stomach of the ship, and I saw hairy, wicked apes and proud peacocks prancing on the deck of the vessel.... It was early spring and it is easy for a boy to see visions in the early spring....
My aunt brought me out of the dream state in which her voice repeating the fine words from the Bible had thrown me. "Do you think, Shamuseen beg," she said softly, "that I could get to the village without anyone knowing that I went?"
"Why, yes," I answered. "We could pretend to walk down to the lower field and then when we got away from the house we could cut through the pines up Sheep Hill and down by Caller Bridge to the end of Lincoln Street."
"And to the church?" whispered my aunt. "And to the church," I repeated. "Jimmy," said my aunt, after a long pause, "it is hard for Alice to go to a man without one of her own being nearby. It is a break in the thread of the race, and the race is everything. Behind us are thousands of ancestors who gave us strength and hope to face the world, and if one of us was not there to hand that on to Alice it would be hard. At birth, at marriage, and at death we want the hand of the clan with us."
I didn't know what to say, but this I knew. No wiser woman than my aunt ever came to our country, and if she wished to go to the wedding of my sister Alice I was willing to take her there. I always liked Alice, and if she wanted that big laughing man it had nothing to do with me.
When it came three o'clock my aunt spoke to me.
"I'd like to take a walk through the lower field," she said. "It's such a beautiful day."
We went down into the lower field and then we slipped through the little bunch of pines and took the trail up Sheep Hill. And Diamond, a collie, who belonged to Alice, came with us.
I had the arm of my aunt, but she walked splendidly. Great courage she had in the way she thrust out her feet, a courage that one seldom finds in the blind. But my aunt had it. She walked boldly, so boldly that one watching her who did not know that she was blind would never have guessed it. And she had strength and wind. Like a young deer she went up Sheep Hill and down the winding track to Caller Bridge. And she spoke little during the walk. Hardly a word.
We swung into Lincoln Street and up to the church. There were only a few people there and they took no notice of us as we went inside. Diamond, the collie, came with us and curled himself up in the pew. I tried to make him go outside but he wouldn't go. We sat there in the shadows and waited, seemed so solemn that I thought my aunt was quite right in saying that the hand of the clan should be with one at such a time.
The bridegroom, Walter Armstrong, arrived with a few of his friends, but he did not see us because we were in a dark corner. And, after a little while, my sister Alice came with a lot of Armstrong's relatives. She glanced quickly around the church to see if my mother and father were there, but she didn't see my aunt and me. Diamond whined a little when he saw Alice, but I kicked him and he kept quiet, although he seemed awful puzzled as to what was going on.
The ceremony was short, and when it was over my aunt asked me to lead her to Alice. Diamond came with us, whining so that all the people in the church turned and looked at him. I wanted to sink through the floor.
Alice saw my Aunt Morna and rushed toward her. She kissed her on both cheeks, then my aunt took a great necklace of pearls from her pocket, a necklace that had been in the O'Neill family for four hundred years, and she put it around the neck of my sister. A fine necklace with ninety graded pearls, and I heard afterwards that it had been given hundreds of years ago to one of the O'Neill ladies by the king of Spain. It looked lovely on the neck of my sister, and the very magnificence of it hushed the chatter of the Armstrong family that was there in force. And I think my aunt lied as she held Alice in her arms. Lied nicely. She said she brought the good wishes and the blessings of the family—which was really not a lie. For, as I have said, there are a lot of ancestors beside your father and mother.
My sister Alice was crying then. And Diamond was jumping up and down and soiling her dress with the mud that he had got on his feet in coming over Sheep Hill.
"I wonder, Jimmy," said my sister, "if I could take Diamond with me?"
"Sure," I said, "he's your dog."
"Yes, but father might not like me to take him," she blubbered.
"Oh, shucks, go ahead an' take him!" I said, and I was crying so hard then that I swatted Diamond on the ear and told him to stay with Alice and her husband. I wished that my father and mother could have seen Walt Armstrong then. He was very quiet as he stared at the row of pearls that were around his wife's throat. It seemed as if he felt that the O'Neill clan was there to send off the bride. To give her a farewell on the new voyage that she was taking.
Crying were both my Aunt Morna and I as we walked back toward Caller Bridge and up Sheep Hill.
And the little spring breezes that were like bits of invisible moss touched our cheeks as we walked. For all New England was waking up to the touch of the fine warmth that was coming from the southland.
It was near dawn on the following morning when I heard the howling of a dog. Terrific howling. I heard my father get up and speak to the dog who was then in the farmyard, but the howling continued.
Then my father called the dog by name, and I grew cold with fear. With a great fear that ran all over my body like a film of ice. For he called the dog Diamond, and Diamond had gone with Alice and Walt Armstrong on their honeymoon!
After a little while my father went out into the yard, then I heard Will follow him. But they couldn't quiet Diamond. You could hear him half a mile away.
I managed to get into my clothes and go out. I was much afraid. My father and Will were looking at Diamond, who was sitting on his tail and howling. He was all wet and dirty, and his paws were bleeding.
"What the devil is up with him?" cried my father.
"Where has he been?"
My father turned as I came across the yard. Possibly he saw something about my manner that made him question me. "Do you know where this dog has been?" he asked. "Will says he followed you down to the lower field yesterday afternoon."
Now my aunt had not asked me to keep our visit to the church secret. Coming back over Sheep Hill she had said something about reconciliations, and that in all probability my father and mother would forgive Alice after she had been married a month or so, but she had not asked me to lie to my parents if they inquired where I had been. "Alice took him," I stammered.
"Alice?" cried my father. "When did she take him?
"Yesterday at the church she—she asked for him and—and I said he was her dog and that she could take him."
My father reached out and clutched the collar of my coat. "What were you doing at the church?" he shouted. "Tell me! Quick!"
It was then that my Aunt Morna came through the back door of the house. In the dawn her face was awful white. "Don't blame Jimmy, Michael!" she said, moving like a slim ghost toward the spot where we were standing. "I asked Jimmy to lead me to the church. I thought—I thought someone should be there—someone to kiss her after the service."
My father was silent. He stood, looking sort of helpless, while Diamond continued to howl. My mother came out then, also my brother Jack. Jack picked up a stick and threatened Diamond, but my father stopped him. My aunt felt her way to the dog and patted his head, but he howled louder, as if he thought she should really know what it was that he wished to convey.
"Michael," said my aunt, addressing my father, "you should go down to the village and see—and see if anything has happened."
"What do you mean?" asked my father.
"He howls so," said my aunt. "Please! Go and see!"
My father, without another word, walked toward the barn. Will followed him. We heard them talking in whispers as they harnessed Gipsy. Diamond was still howling.
Will and my father got into the trap and drove off. It was curious that no one wished to talk. It was getting light when they went down the road.
I made a fire and warmed some water. I washed Diamond's paws that were all cut. He was very dirty. Mud was plastered all over him. He had stopped howling when he saw my father and Will drive away, but ever so often he would remember something that he had left un-howled and he would unloose another yelp or two.
It was nearly eight when Will came driving back
lickety-split. He stuttered out the news. There had been a
train wreck some thirty miles from the village. My father
had gone to the spot.
"Why?" cried my mother, and there was agony in her voice as she put the question. "Why?"
Will began to cry. "The Martins think that Alice and her husband were on the train!" he said. "They had Diamond with them! There's lots of people killed! How many they don't know!"
The body of my sister Alice was identified by the string
of pearls that my aunt had given her and which was around
her neck. There was no other object by which we could
identify her. None at all.
On the day my father brought her body and the body of her husband back to the farm we got a letter that was written by Alice on the evening of her wedding, a little note of thanks that she had thought to send to my aunt. It was I who read it to my Aunt Morna, read it to her when there was no other person within hearing. I remember every word of it. It ran:
Dear darling Aunt Morna:
You were the sweetest aunt in all the world to bring me the pearls. I am praying with all my heart that happiness will come to you and that everything you long for will yet be yours. Now at this very moment I make my prayers for you.
Your loving niece,
Alice.
My aunt was silent for a long time after I had read the note, then she spoke. "Alice was very close to God when she said that prayer," murmured my aunt. "At His knees, Jimmy. At His knees."
Great tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke. Always it was strange to me to see my aunt cry. As her eyes were useless to see with it always seemed to me that they should be tearless as well.
My father and mother were half-crazed with sorrow over the death of Alice and her husband, but they were comforted much by the fact that Alice believed the soft lie told by my aunt about everything being forgiven and that she was at peace with her family. They blessed my aunt for that falsehood.
How Diamond escaped harm we never knew. The van in which he was traveling was completely wrecked, but he must have got loose in some miraculous manner when the collision occurred. Finding that he could do nothing to help Alice, he had started full speed for our house thirty-odd miles from the wreck, thinking, poor old fellow, that if he got there and howled loud enough my father would surely understand that Alice was in danger. For days and weeks after the accident he would sit at the gate leading onto the main road, watching and waiting.
IN the early summer there came along the road a blue-eyed Swede who asked my father for work, and my father hired him. The Swede slept in the loft over the barn. His name was Olaf Hanson.
I have said how my father told stories during the summer evenings when we all sat on the green patch in front of the barn. Fine stories of the fairy folk that danced upon the enchanted Heights of Aghadoe and the fair slopes of Carran Tual near which he was born. Stories that were so splendid that many of our neighbors would come over after supper to listen to them, for my father, although not as wonderful a story-teller as the harper of whom my aunt told, could tell a great tale.
Now this Swede, Olaf Hanson, knew a lot of stories. He had been in every port of the world, and whenever my father had no desire to speak, this Olaf would commence to tell tales of places he had visited. Some of them we believed and others we did not. He said he had seen crabs in the South Seas that could climb trees to get cocoanuts, and on his ankles were marks that he said were made by an octopus that had grabbed hold of him at a place called Apia. He had seen head-hunters and cannibals, and he had been married seven times. Tattooed on his breast were the names of the seven wives, the dates of the marriages and the names of the ports where he had married them. Strange ports that we had not heard of then, but which stirred us greatly when he repeated the names.
I don't know if they were all real marriages, because he told us that at one place called Zamboanga no minister could be found to perform the ceremony, so he and the girl decided to accept the native method of solemnizing the marriage, and this was a strange method indeed. It consisted of plastering the left ear of the bride and the right ear of the groom with nice wet mud so that they could not hear any bad words that might be said about each other. "For," said the Swede, "in that country it is believed that a man can only hear bad words about his wife through his right ear and she can only hear bad words about him through her left. I don't know why, but that is the belief."
My brother Will was curious. "How long did you have to keep the mud in your ear?" he asked.
"For seven days," answered the Swede, and he grinned as he answered. "After seven days it didn't matter what was said because one was indifferent."
Now the Swede and his seven wives became a joke around the neighborhood, and many persons came to look at the names that were tattooed on his chest.
And the quiet jeers that he received about his love of women brought about a curious happening one evening.
Mr. Manning, speaking to the Swede, said that he had heard that all sailors loved women, but the Swede, who didn't like Mr. Manning, said it was not so. He had met a sailor who hated women with a great hate. A terrible hate. And saying this he told a story. The Swede, as the Irish say, had not the English, so I cannot give the story in his own words, and that is a pity for his accent gave the tale a snap and a wallop.
The Swede was on a boat that made voyages between Singapore and the islands of the Malay. On one voyage they took from Singapore as a special favor—the boat not being a passenger boat—a great singer who was hurrying to Batavia to keep an engagement. A Dutch prima-donna she was, and her voice had put so much vanity in her that it was a wonder her pride didn't choke her. She complained of her cabin, of her food, and of the smells that came from the sailors' quarters which she said made it impossible for her to sleep. The captain and officers were near crazy trying to please her, and the sailors were so frightened of her that they ran when she came up on deck.
When the boat reached Batavia she was in such a hurry to get off it that she ran down the gangplank and made a jump for the motor boat that was to take her ashore. But the boat swung as she jumped and she flopped right into the harbor of Batavia. And there was a swift current at the spot that whisked her away before the boatmen could grab her.
The Swede said that there was a young sailor on the steamer, a sailor who had been particularly angry with the remarks of the prima donna concerning the smells that came from the sailors' quarters, and this young fellow sprang overboard, caught up with her, and dragged her back, although the tide was cruel and fought him every inch of the way. But the young fellow was as strong as a lion.
When they got her aboard the ship and she had recovered her breath and was told how she was rescued, she walked up to the young sailor and put out one arm, holding her hand high with the back uppermost, hinting that he was permitted to kiss it. For the vanity of her, said the Swede, knew no bounds.
The young sailor was startled at first, then, suddenly, his temper blazed. He pushed her hand aside, and madame the prima donna was so amazed at what she thought was impudence that she brought up her other hand and smacked his face. Smacked it hard.
The Swede said they were near the rail at the moment. For a second the sailor stood and looked at her, then he picked her up in his arms and tossed her back into the bay. But before her body struck the water he had dived again after her, and by great strength and courage he dragged her back again to the gangway.
When she got her breath the second time she pulled herself to her knees and looked with big frightened eyes at the sailor who was wringing the water out of his undershirt. For five minutes she looked at him, then, her dress still wet, she, with her eyes upon the young man, climbed quietly into the motor boat and was taken ashore. And she didn't speak a word. And the sailor didn't speak a word. And no one said anything to him for throwing her into the water. No one at all. But the Swede said he passed the cabin of the captain some minutes later and he heard the captain laughing in the craziest manner possible. Deep laughter, said the Swede, that reminded him of the booming of bull alligators. And for days afterwards the captain laughed when he was alone on the bridge or in his cabin.
Now my Aunt Morna heard the Swede tell this story, but
she said nothing at the moment. Next day she spoke to me
when we were alone. "Shamuseen beg," she whispered, "I
wonder would you ask Olaf Hanson if he remembers the name
of the young sailor who rescued the singer in the harbor of
Batavia? Ask him quietly when no one is near."
"Sure," I said, "I'll go and ask him now. He's fixing some harness down in the barn."
I went down to the barn and asked Hanson if he remembered the sailor's name. I said my aunt would like to know.
"Ah, Yimmy," he said, "Ah forgets. Ah bane remember no names, Yimmy. A beeg mate hit me one time on de haid wit a bar of iron an' by Gott all de names no more stick wit me."
"He was tall?" I said.
"Ay, high like de pine tree," answered the Swede.
"And strong?" I questioned.
"Stronger dan de lion!" snapped the Swede.
"And the color of his hair?" I asked.
"Brown, Yimmy, brown. An' hees eyes were blue. Blue like de leetle flower you call de vilyet."
So I went back and reported to my Aunt Morna. The Swede didn't know the name of the young sailor, but he was a tall young man, very strong, with brown hair and eyes that were the color of a violet. And my aunt thanked me for making the inquiries. Thanked me with that gracious manner she had which always made one feel that he had done something wonderful although the service might be the most trifling. Often have I wondered over that charming manner in which my aunt thanked people. I have never known another person who possessed it. It made one a slave, a delighted slave, anxious to hear again a word of sweet thanks from her lips. It was this ability to express in words and manner her delight at the smallest favor that made people love her. For my aunt's blindness didn't stop persons from loving her greatly, and of this I will write later.
The Swede was upset because he could not remember the
name of the young sailor, for the Swede too was a slave
of my Aunt Morna. He would watch her with his strange
blue eyes as she walked backwards and forwards between
the kitchen door and the big wooden bench, and his body
would be all tense and his fingers crooked as he watched,
ready to make a mighty spring forward if she stumbled. Of
course the Swede loved all women, as one could tell by
the names of the seven wives that were tattooed upon his
chest, but for my aunt he had a strange reverence that was
charming.
"Gott might haf closed up her eyes, Yimmy, so she see not de rottenness of de tarn world!" he said to me once.
"What rottenness?" I asked.
"De rottenness of mens, Yimmy," he answered.
I didn't know what the Swede meant at the time, but I thought he was trying to pay a nice compliment to my aunt.
Each day Olaf Hanson would make an effort to remember the name of the young sailor, but the wallop that the bucko mate had given him with a bar of iron had upset his memory for names. But he had a good heart even if his memory was poor, and he told some fine stories during the few months he was with us. Many of them seemed unbelievable to us at the time, but I have since discovered that the Swede spoke the truth. For instance, he told us of giant clams that he saw on the Great Barrier Reef, a five-hundred-mile stretch of coral off the coast of Queensland. The Swede said that these clams were some three feet in circumference and if anyone wading on the reefs at low tide put his foot into the open mouth of one of them and the clam snapped shut it would be necessary to amputate the leg to save the unfortunate from drowning with the incoming tide.
No one who listened believed this story, but I have since discovered it is true.
And he told us of the black-trackers of Australia who can follow the trail of a man weeks and weeks after he was passed by, their sight being so keen that they can detect the crushed sand that the wind has not disturbed or the body of a dead insect that had got beneath the fugitive's shoe. He had seen a lot in his voyagings up and down the world. Twice he had been to a ruined city called Angkor Wat, built by a race of whom there is no trace at all, and he had since seen the big cement tanks at Aden that people think were constructed by the Queen of Sheba. He had seen squirrels that could fly like birds, and ants that lived in monster hillocks that were as big as a small haystack.
But the Swede, although a great worker, was a trouble to my father. As I have written, he slept in the loft above the barn, and there he had fine nightmares. Nightmares of sinking ships. Night after night he would wake up and scream at the top of his lungs. Mrs. Parks, the housekeeper of the Murray Place, heard him distinctly, although the building in which she slept was fully half a mile from our house.
The Swede would rush down the ladder from the loft, half naked as he was, and scream out "She's sinking! Mine Gott! She's sinking! Vere are de tarn boats!" And with the names of his seven wives showing on his bare breast he would rush around the yard till the nightmare feeling left him. This foolishness of his annoyed my father greatly.
One night the Swede overdid the nightmare stunt. He dashed down the ladder screaming for the boats, then he ran into the kitchen, colliding with a table on which my mother had set out a great pan of dough. The table was knocked over, and the dish of dough sent sprawling.
It was a moonlit night, and my father looked out the window and saw the Swede scooping the dough back into the pan with his bare hands, the blue tattoo marks of his seven wives plainly visible. My father was awfully annoyed. He went outside and told the Swede to leave at daylight, and the poor fellow was off the farm before we were up.
But he left a note for me. A simple note, written on the leaf of an exercise book. It ran:
Yimmy, I ban try think de name of de saler who pull de Dutch voman outer de water. Gif my regard to de blind lady.
Olaf Hanson.
Both my aunt and I were very sorry when we learned that he had gone. We thought him a very gentlemanly man.
I have wondered much about Olaf Hanson; wondered why he came tramping up into New Hampshire that summer. He said, of course, that he had grown suddenly tired of the sea, but our farm was a long way from the sea. I wonder whether he, like my aunt and Hugh Renshaw, wasn't pushed out of what one might call his regular pattern and led across a wilderness of God's tapestry into some other corner that desired the special thread of color that was his to give? Because I am convinced that the thread which was Olaf Hanson, that is, his own particular personality, was necessary for the completion of the pattern which represented the life of my aunt. I am certain of this. Dozens of threads came into it that I knew of, and possibly hundreds of others that I did not know of, but they were all necessary. But his more than all the others.
My Aunt Morna spoke to me once about these threads that go into the great fabric of life that God weaves. She said that some of these, during the lifetime of the person they represent, are not as important as they are after the death of the same person. For the thread does not die. It exists in the endless pattern, and, curiously—and this I did not know till my aunt pointed it out to me—the threads of many of the dead glow with a greater brilliance after their death. We look back over the enormous mesh and see them more brilliant than ever.
"Look at Abraham Lincoln," said my aunt. "He has been dead for many years yet he is with us constantly. His worth in the scheme of things was really strengthened by death. And there are hundreds of others," said my aunt. "Few knew of Chatterton the poet till he died. The deaths of Shelley and Byron colored their names, and the passing of Nathan Hale brought a flood of scarlet into the national life of America." Wise was my Aunt Morna. Wiser than any woman I have ever known.
IT was in August that Mr. William Murray, who owned the Murray Place, came up from New York to spend a few months in his fine country home. Very rich was Mr. Murray. He was the head of a great business in Wall Street that dealt in stocks and bonds, and each day, so it was said, his house made fifty thousand dollars profit. How, no one could tell, but this was the story that was around the countryside, the story that all believed.
Each summer he brought with him a chauffeur, a butler, and half a dozen servants, and lots of his friends would come up from New York and stay with him. The governor of the state had visited the Murray Place, and lots of singers and editors and actors came up there in the summer-time. It was an honor to be entertained there, and when the place was thrown open to the neighbors, as it sometimes was on the Fourth of July, everyone for miles around would come to see it.
Now something happened in August that made Mr. Murray express a wish to speak to my Aunt Morna. He knew of her because of the books that he loaned me to read to her, but he had never spoken to her. Then, during the first few days of his stay at the Murray Place, this matter occurred that aroused his curiosity.
I have spoken of the manner in which my aunt told the character of a person by their voice. She would listen to the voices of the strangers who called at our farmhouse, her head just a little to one side like the head of a bird, and she could tell many things from the manner in which they spoke. Not from the words themselves but from the tone.
"Jimmy," she said to me once, "we listen too much to the words and not to the voice. But the voice is oftentimes more important than the words it utters. Because," continued my aunt, "every voice has a color value of its own. Yes, a color value. Blue for temper, yellow for cunning, red for anger, and so on."
"And what is the color of mine?" I asked. "Ah, Shamuseen beg," she murmured, "you have a voice the color of the mooly calf that was in the barn the day I came up from Boston. A creamy color with no harm in it at all."
And upon my aunt's knowledge regarding voices rested the incident that brought Mr. Murray visiting to our farm. In that first week in August, some time before midnight and when we were all in bed, there came a rapping at the door. My father called out and asked who was there, and a voice from outside answered him. It was the voice of a Russian named Kubloff who worked for the Mannings, a queer, lank fellow who was always arguing and creating trouble. He had been a Cossack soldier in the army of the Czar.
My father asked him what he wanted, and the Russian said he had an important message from Mr. Manning that he wished to deliver. He asked my father to come outside and speak to him.
Grumbling, my father pulled on his trousers and pushed his feet into his slippers. We were all awake then, for the voice of the Russian was loud and shrill. We lay listening as my father walked toward the door.
My father had to pass the door of my aunt's bedroom, and when he was passing it my aunt called out to him. "Don't go out, Michael!" she said. "Don't go out to him!"
"Why?" asked my father. "It's the Russian who works on Manning's farm."
"Don't go out!" gasped my aunt. "Wait! Wait!"
My father had paused in the passage, and the words that passed between him and my aunt came clearly to us. The Russian called out again in a louder voice. He seemed a little annoyed at the length of time my father was taking to open the door. He said he was in a hurry.
My father, muttering something about my aunt's foolishness, moved again towards the door, but Aunt Morna called to him in a voice that thrilled us. A voice that made cold shivers run up and down our spines. "Michae! Michael! Listen to me! Do not open the door!"
"Tell me why?" cried my father, and his question showed a trace of anger. "Tell me why I shouldn't?"
"There is murder in that man's voice!" answered my aunt, and again we had the cold shivers down our backs. "There is scarlet murder in his voice! If you open the door he will kill you!"
Now my father was a brave man, but there was some queer quality in the voice of my aunt that sapped his courage. My aunt told me once that imagination was the experiences of all our ancestors boiled down and given to us in a concentrated form. The more adventurous our ancestors, the more we knew about fights and struggles and sudden deaths. And I can only think that the memories of a few of those old O'Neills who were shy at going out of their castles after dark were with her that evening. It was one of those that put the strange warning note into her voice, a note that seemed to come from another world.
There was silence for a moment, then my father raised his voice and called to the Russian. "Come around in the morning," said my father. "It's too late—"
My father didn't finish his remark. A gun exploded outside the door and a charge of buckshot crashed through the window of the parlor. In the awful silence that followed we heard the wild laughter of the maniac as he ran toward the road.
A few minutes later two of the Hutchinsons and the three Manning boys came over to our place with guns and lanterns looking for the Russian. He had gone suddenly insane and shot the Manning's hired man, wounding him severely. They all thought that my father had a narrow escape from death, and they marvelled at the strange gift possessed by my aunt, who had sensed what she called "scarlet murder" in the Russian's voice.
This story and others about my aunt's wisdom went out across the countryside, and among others who heard and who wished to come and speak to my aunt was Mr. William Murray.
A man of fifty years was Mr. Murray. He was not short nor tall; he was not slim nor fat. He had a round, clean-shaven face, and his hair was nearly white. He had a large mouth with full red lips, a short broad nose, and grey eyes that looked as if they were very satisfied with Mr. Murray himself. And indeed they had the right to be. For everything they saw and thought good, Mr. Murray would gather to himself without thinking whether anyone else wanted it.
Up to that day when he visited the farmhouse I had neither like nor dislike for Mr. Murray, but after he left I hated him. Hated him with a great hate. And I couldn't altogether tell why. But the hate was in my mind so that, later, I was afraid to speak his name to my Aunt Morna lest she, with that gift she had, would know what was in my mind.
My Aunt Morna, as I have said, brought an atmosphere of fine romance to our farm. It was, maybe, that I, a poor snob, hungry for color, thought that the farm and my family made a dreary existence for me. This is the truth, I think. There were many stupid days before her coming. Fine and splendid were my father and mother and my sisters and brothers, but their bravery and courage in fighting life could not kill the longing in my soul. A longing for something that was different, a something that would put a glow and a beauty on the dull grind of farm labor. A something that would make one forget the tiresome and never-ending chores that began at dawn and continued till sunset and later.
And my Aunt Morna brought the something that I longed for. Perhaps it was because I was physically the weakest of the family that I longed for Romance. For like cats are the weak, hunting always for color and thrill that act as cushions to their tender souls.
This I do know. The coming of my Aunt Morna made me wonder how I had pulled through the days before her arrival, the dull, dark days when a dreariness within my soul resisted all my efforts to push it out.
Her coming was like the approach of a thousand colored banners through a sun-washed meadow.
Banners that snapped and crackled in the breeze. And with the sight I heard the jingle of spurs and the notes of silver bugles blown on hilltops. For my Aunt Morna, blind herself, was to me the means of seeing the wide, wide world for which I craved.
She knew books, as I have written here, and she had seen great picture galleries in Dublin and London, for in the latter city she had lived for some time with her uncle, the great judge who had left her his money. And she had seen the big races at Leopards-town and the Curragh, and those in England at Ascot and Epsom. And she had seen the Tower of London, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and had sat upon the very settle in Anne Hathaway's Cottage on which William Shakespeare sat of evenings when he had walked across the fields from Stratford to court fair Anne.
My soul ached with joy at the very thought of the sights that she had seen. For the great judge took her everywhere when she was in London. When read Kenilworth to her she told me how she and the judge, when visiting Kenilworth Castle, had stayed at the King's Arms Inn which contains the very room where the great Sir Walter Scott made the first draft on his wonderful tale. And I saw that room through her blind eyes! Saw every detail of it. She had seen Warwick, where the Earl Guy slew the terrible Dun Cow, and at Oxford she had touched a guitar upon which Shelley had played, and rested for a moment on a chair made from the wood of Sir Francis Drake's ship, The Golden Hind.
And because the judge, her uncle, loved America, he had taken her down to Sulgrave in Northamptonshire where stands the ancestral home of the Washingtons, the manor-house built by Lawrence Washington three hundred years ago which bears the Washington coat-of-arms. And she had seen the tomb of Penelope Washington in the church of Wickhamford which has the same coat-of-arms upon it, Penelope who was a distinguished ancestor of our glorious First President. These and a thousand things she had seen. Fine dishes for the starved soul of a little boy on a New Hampshire farm. Fine dishes that my aunt, possibly on account of her blindness, served to me in a manner that no one else could imitate.
But the greatest of all the thrills that were mine through the coming of my Aunt Morna to our farm was brought by the facts relating to the breaking off of her engagement with Hugh Renshaw. The great pride that was hers in refusing to tie herself to a man she loved with the dark approaching. The courage that was hers to face his scorn and his contempt for her when she lied about coming to America to find a millionaire. The splendid glorious lie! My poor Aunt Morna, with twenty-five days of light before her, coming to America in search of a rich man! Ah, the pity of it! She who ate up the very color of the trees as the black night rushed down upon her. What a brave, brave falsehood my aunt had told!
I would picture Hugh Renshaw swinging through strange seas with her face ever before him. Crazed with the mad thoughts that came to him. Hunting for forgetfulness, and not finding it. The sweet face of Morna O'Neill showing in the silvery light of tropic dawns, in the sullen heat of noon when the ship's forefoot trampled through seas that were like polished brass, in the nights of magic when the stars looked like big-headed nails of gold driven into a bowl of cobalt-blue.
I was eleven years of age at this time. But it was not
a normal eleven. I was over-strung, sensitive, and too
imaginative. I was afraid of the world. Thoughts, mad
thoughts, clean and unclean, raced through my mind like
hot lava. There were days when the world rocked and rolled
beneath my feet. Secretly, I would watch my brothers,
wondering if they suffered as I suffered. I felt sure that
they did not. They went about their work in a contented
manner, played baseball and football, and slept heavily.
But to me came storm and stress, and in that storm and
stress that troubles the over-imaginative boy approaching
puberty I clung to the romance of my Aunt Morna and Hugh
Renshaw. Clung to it with all the wee fingers of my
soul.
It was for this reason that I hated the visits of Mr. William Murray to our farm. I hated his large mouth with its full red lips, hated his large, cleanshaven face, hated the grey eyes that were so pleased with their owner as they looked around for things that he might acquire. For the grey eyes examined my aunt and they showed their approval of her.
Showed it so that I, who was watching, carefully saw their satisfaction.
I have written of the beauty of my aunt as she appeared on her arrival at our farm. Well, the beauty that was hers at that time flowered in the months that followed. Flowered in a manner that was marvellous. It was as if the Almighty had regretted His act and was making recompense. For to all who saw her she became more lovely, and the glamour that was about her was seen by the most stupid. The fine glamour that was a little unearthly, a little thrilling. There was poetry in every movement that she made with her hands and her body; there was with her the grace of an old, old family. All the gallantry, pride, and courage of a thousand O'Neills had been given to her in some miraculous phial that you could not see but which you knew she possessed. And I have put this badly because I am lost for words when I try to describe my aunt when Mr. Murray came a-visiting.
A clever tongue had Mr. Murray. A fine tongue that had more words at its command than Napoleon had soldiers. Smooth as Satan himself was he with his talk, and my aunt seemed to like to listen. Yes, she seemed to like to listen. Every afternoon he strolled down from his fine house, and he would sit on the big wooden bench talking and talking while the hate that was in me grew greater and greater.
In the nights I could not sleep. I rode the winds of the world in dreams. And these dreams were of Hugh Renshaw. Mad dreams. I heard the swish of ropes on holystoned decks, listened to shouted orders, the curses of sailors, the slap of lolloping waves on the flank of a ship. And I saw waterfronts, blowsy women, and dives. And God knows I had a faint idea of what a dive was in those days. And I saw brawls in dark streets, Hugh Renshaw standing high above all the others, hitting out with both fists, men falling back from him in fear. Brawls in Limehouse, the Barbary Coast, Shanghai Bund, the Vieux Port at Marseilles, the Kasbah, Circular Quay at Sydney, the dram shops of the Luneta at Manilla and a thousand other places. And Hugh Renshaw, hating life because he imagined all women to be cold-hearted cheats; fighting and drinking to drown the pain that was in his heart.
I may have been a little insane during those days. I do know that my father and mother did not think me quite normal, and, looking back at those days, cannot blame them for their opinion. For I did strange things.
One afternoon in September as I lay in the grass by the road leading up to the Murray Place I saw a meeting between Mr. Murray and a woman from the village whose name was Learning. This woman's daughter, Fanny Learning, a fat girl of sixteen, had been employed by Mr. Murray as a maid, but she had left in a hurry and no one knew for what reason. There had been a lot of talk about the matter, and Fanny Learning had left the village to visit some relatives at Dover.
On this afternoon I saw Mrs. Learning stop Mr. Murray as he came down the road toward our farm. I could not hear her words, but judging by the manner in which she waved her hands, I thought she was angry with him. Mr. Murray tried to walk on but she stood in his path, talking and making motions with her hands. There was no one else in sight.
Suddenly Mr. Murray got angry with the woman. He caught her by her two shoulders and pushed her backwards so that she fell heavily. While she was still on the ground he took some bills from his pocketbook, flung them at her and walked off. And he didn't look back to see if she was hurt.
Mrs. Learning got to her feet, brushed the dust off her dress, picked up the bills and walked off in the direction of the village. Now and then she would stop and shake her fist at the big house where her daughter had worked. She seemed very angry.
An hour later I came down the rise to our farm. I came around the back of the barn to the big wooden bench. Sitting on the bench were Mr. Murray and my Aunt Morna, and as I came toward them I saw that Mr. Murray was trying to take my aunt's hand, although my aunt's manner showed me that she did not wish him to hold her hand.
I lost my head completely. I was carrying a long switch that I had cut in the woods, and, before I could control myself, I had rushed forward and brought it across Mr. Murray's face.
He was half blinded by the blow, but he was quick enough to stop me from delivering a second one. He sprang forward and seized my wrists, while the grey eyes blazed as he thrust his face close to mine. "You young devil!" he screamed. "I've a good mind to break your neck!"
My Aunt Morna knew what had happened. She had heard the swish of the peeled rod, she had heard the yell of anger from Mr. Murray and his threat. She was at my side in a moment. "Let him go!" she said, and her voice, although low, had a note in it that made Mr. Murray pause in the threats that he was shouting into my face. "Don't touch him!" said my aunt.
"But—but he nearly blinded me with a switch!" cried Mr. Murray. "He slashed me with it across the face!"
The long white hands of my aunt were upon my shoulders. She forced her supple body between me and Mr. Murray. She broke the grip he had upon my wrists.
As we struggled together my father came from the front of the house. He stood for a moment looking at us, my aunt with her arms about my shoulders, Mr. Murray dabbing the red weal on his face with a silk handkerchief. My father, a startled look upon his features, came slowly towards us.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
I said nothing, neither did my aunt, but after a minute of silence Mr. Murray answered my father.
"A bit of a mistake," he growled. "Just a bit of a mistake."
"But someone hit you," said my father.
"Jimmy thought I was a horse-fly," grinned Mr. Murray, but there was no laughter in his grey eyes as he spoke. "Quite a mistake I assure you. He was slapping at the flies and he hit me. It's quite all right." And with a quick "Good afternoon" to my aunt and a nod to my father, he took himself off.
My father stood and stared at me for a few moments, then he stepped forward and took the switch out of my hands. "Go to your room!" he said, and I broke away from my aunt's arms and went to my room, dodging a question that my mother put to me as I went by the kitchen.
No one came near me till supper-time; then my Aunt Morna brought a plate of food and a cup of coffee. She felt her way slowly to the table and put the things down, then she stood, her big sightless eyes turned towards the chair on which I was sitting.
"Jimmy," she said, "I was wondering today about Olaf Hanson."
"Yes?" I said, surprised that she didn't speak about the trouble I had with Mr. Murray. "What were you wondering about?"
"Nothing much," answered my aunt. "Do you remember the story he told us about the Coffin of Hope?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, it was about that," murmured my aunt, turning and walking slowly toward the door. "Eat some supper, Shamuseen beg. Don't worry. Everything will be all right."
MY father and mother said nothing to me on the day following. Joe, my brother, told me that he had listened to an argument between my father and my Aunt Morna. He said that my father had the intention of giving me a fine threshing, using the same rod that I had struck Mr. Murray with, but my aunt had put forward objections. Joe said it was a very warm argument and that at one time he was certain that I was going to get the best hiding I had ever got in my life. I never found out how I dodged that threshing. My aunt never told me.
"What did you hit him for?" Joe asked.
"I don't know," I snapped.
"You're silly," said Joe. "He gave me a quarter yesterday. He's a good sort, is Mr. Murray."
I looked at my brother Joe and I was startled at the thought that came into my mind. For I found that the words Joe had spoken made me hate him, although Joe had always been very kind to me. I was a little frightened. I thought during that morning that I might be what my father and mother believed I was, a little unbalanced.
That day I thought a lot of what my aunt had said about the Coffin of Hope. I thought it curious of her to mention it to me just after the trouble with Mr. Murray. Walking down by the river I tried to puzzle out why she had spoken of it.
This story about the Coffin of Hope had been told to my Aunt Morna and me by the Swede. I had asked him how he got letters from friends when he had no fixed address, sailing from one port to another, all around the world and back again. Then the Swede told us of Frisco Dick and the great black box that was called the Coffin of Hope.
This Frisco Dick ran a boarding-house in the Rue du Panier which is in the Vieux Port of Marseilles. Olaf Hanson said that the Vieux Port is the toughest quarter that he had ever seen, because there sailors from all over the world drink and fight and gamble from dusk till dawn, the little French policemen being much afraid of them and keeping clear of the narrow streets where the sailors gather. The real bad men of the Seven Seas came to the Vieux Port. Lascars, Algerians, Siamese, Chinese, Japs, and all the bad whites that, as the Bible says, "had knowledge of the Sea."
Olaf Hanson told my aunt and me that in the bar of Frisco Dick's there is a big black box studded with brass nails and looking something like a pirate's treasure chest, and into this box Frisco Dick puts all the letters that came for sailors. And the sailors called the box the Coffin of Hope.
Letters from wives and mothers and sweethearts, for it is only women who write to sailors, so the Swede said. Wives and mothers and sweethearts whose hearts are big and whose memory pictures last for years and years. And when sailors came ashore at Marseilles—and all sailors go to Marseilles at some time or another—they would climb up the slope to Frisco Dick's place in the Rue du Punier and walk straight to the Coffin of Hope. Slowly, ever so slowly—for many of the addresses were difficult to read—they would go over the bundle of letters, and very often a man found a note from a mother or a sweetheart that had been waiting there for years. The letters were kept in the box till they fell to pieces from the daily fingering of dirty-handed sailors who pawed them over and over.
One story the Swede told me of that black box at Frisco Dick's made a great impression on me. A letter came there from America, a fat letter with a lot of stamps upon it. It was addressed to an able seaman named George Allen Seabury and it was put in the box with the other unclaimed mail. The Swede said that he saw the letter when it first came and it attracted him because it was nice and fat and he liked fat letters that were full of gossip. But it wasn't for him.
The Swede went away on a trip to Melbourne, shipped from there to Durban in South Africa, came up to Liverpool, and signed up on a boat going through the Suez to Yokohama. He called at Frisco Dick's and found that the fat letter with the American stamps upon it was still there. It was very dirty now, because during the year that had passed a few thousand sailors had handled it, read the name and dropped it with regret. For it was such a fat letter that they wished their name was on it.
The Swede came back after eighteen months spent in the East, and the fat letter, with the address now hardly readable, was still there. You could just make out the name of George Allen Seabury and the words "care of Frisco Dick, Rue du Panier, Marseilles, France." The stamps had peeled off, leaving little squares that were not so dirty as the rest of the envelope. The corners of the envelope were torn, and it had split along the folds. The Swede, not having a ship at the moment, stayed some weeks at the boarding-house, and during those weeks a strange thing happened. The big envelope fell apart while a sailor was shuffling the bunch of letters, and out dropped a pile of United States bills!
The sailor sprang back from the money, shouting for Frisco Dick. And Frisco Dick came and called the police. On the dirty bar they counted the money, counted it again and again so that there should be no mistake. Two thousand dollars were in the fat letter, two thousand dollars in fine crisp bills. And there was a little note. A little note in a woman's handwriting. It read:
### LETTER
"Dear Geòrgie boy come home! We have struck oil! We have thousands and thousands of dollars! Gome home, Geòrgie boy, I want to see you before I die. Much love and kisses. Mother."
But there was no address! No address at all. And the little French policemen and the big sailors stood around and stared at the pile of bills, a little startled and a little upset by this cry from a mother that had been unanswered. They wondered where Geòrgie was. Why didn't he come to Frisco Dick's to get his mail? And most of them guessed that Georgie's bones were lying somewhere in the sludge and slime of the big sea lanes that cover the world. For that was the reason why letters fell to pieces in the Coffin of Hope in Frisco Dick's boarding-house.
"What did the police do with the money?" I asked Olaf Hanson.
"They took it away, Yimmy," said Olaf. "No one ever heard what they did with it. Pleecemen are no goot. Frisco Dick he was one beeg fool to gif it to them."
That evening I wrote a letter to Olaf Hanson and
I addressed the envelope in care of Frisco Dick's
boarding-house in the Rue du Panier at Marseilles. And
next day I took the letter to the village, put a five cent
stamp on it and posted it. It was the first letter that
I had ever sent to foreign parts and I was thrilled as I
pushed it into the mail.
I asked Olaf Hanson if the name of the young sailor who had rescued the Dutch prima donna had ever come back to his mind, and if it had, would he write and tell me. Also, I would be pleased to know anything else about the young man that he might learn while going from one port to another. And I sent him regards from myself and my Aunt Morna because he was always very friendly with us. I have written how he would watch my aunt walking, his body tense and his fingers crooked, ready to spring forward and catch her if she stumbled. And I felt better after posting the letter. I do not know why, but I did.
MR. MURRAY did not come to the farm for five days. Perhaps he did not like to come till the mark of the switch had left his face, although my aunt, of course, could not see it, and Mr. Murray was not concerned about what my father and mother thought. He was polite to my father and mother because my aunt was staying in their house, but those grey eyes of his told me that he had no great friendship for anyone. Always when I watched him I was reminded of a story that my Aunt Morna told me when she first came to live with us. She said that a farmer in Donegal had done a service for a fairy, and the fairy, pleased with him, asked him what she could do in return. She gave him a choice. He could have one wish only. Happiness, or wealth, or high position.
Now the man was a clever man and he considered the offer for a little. "I'm a soft-hearted man," said he to the fairy, "and I'm always thinking about others in my dealings with them. Now if you could make my heart hard so I wouldn't be troubled, I could get all three things, happiness, wealth, and high position, for myself. For I could trample down the others and not be sorry for them." And the fairy, said my aunt, hardened his heart so that he could not be disturbed by the cries of those that he tricked and robbed and rode rough-shod over, and in good time he owned a great lump of Ireland that he ruled like a king, and he was happy the whole day long because he was not upset by the sufferings of the poor and the sick.
Now Mr. Murray had the gift that the fairy had given to the man in Ireland. It had come to him without the help of any outsider at all, because, unlike the Donegal farmer, he wouldn't have had the heart to do a good turn for the fairy in the first place, his hard heart being born with him.
On the afternoon that he returned to the farm, I was reading to my aunt in the shadow of the house. He walked towards us and when I stood up he put out his hand and smiled at me. "Hello, Jimmy!" he cried, his grey eyes fixed upon me, "we're friends again, aren't we? All over and forgotten, eh?"
I didn't answer, and the book falling out of my hand at the moment gave me a chance to dodge shaking hands with him. For I knew that Mr. Murray and I could never be friends. I knew that.
He laughed at me in a funny way and turned to my Aunt Morna, and I went away and left them together. I was a little sad because Mr. Murray had come back again. I had a foolish belief that the cut I had given him with the switch would have kept him away from the farmhouse, but I didn't know Mr. Murray. I didn't know him at all.
And he came the next afternoon and the next. And he grinned at me in the way he had, and he said things that got me all hot and nervous. And on one matter especially, for he knew that his words pricked me.
It was like this. My mother, who was very proud of my reading, had told Mr. Murray that I had a notion I would be able to write things myself when I grew up. "Little things," said my mother, who was a very modest woman, "not books or anything like that."
"Poetry, perhaps?" grinned Mr. Murray, looking at me squirming before him, wishing that the ground would open up and drop me clean through to China.
"Yes, poetry," said my mother, seeing no harm in praising me before our very rich neighbor.
"He looks a little like a poet," said Mr. Murray, and he grinned like a cat playing with a mouse. "Yes, he might be a poet."
I rushed away from them then because I could not stand the grin upon Mr. Murray's face, but I had let him know my sore spot. I had shown him how he could hurt me, and in those days of September when he came avisiting he didn't forget to make me squirm.
Not before my Aunt Morna would he make his remarks. He would wait till he came upon me alone, then he would grin and fling a spiteful question at me. "And how is the farm poet today?" he would ask. "Written any verses about the cows, Jimmy? We'll live to see you famous yet. Writing poetry is easier than farming." And his words would keep me awake of nights.
I did not tell my aunt how I suffered through the questions of Mr. Murray, but I think she knew. For my aunt had strange ways of finding out things. Ways that puzzled me often. In that great darkness in which she lived she seemed to see the very souls of those around her, the naked souls that could not hide behind that mask which we call the face. For in the same fashion that the words that a person utters make us deaf to the voice, so the features hide the soul of the person who is face to face with us.
One day I read to my aunt a very beautiful book, the words of which were so colorful that they took my breath, so that from time to time I halted in my reading. In one of these intervals my aunt spoke to me. Gently she spoke.
"When you grow up, Shamuseen beg, you will write like that," she said softly. "Nice words like moonstones."
Now the favorite stone of my aunt was a moonstone, she having many of them set into rings and necklaces that had been made for her in Hatton Garden at the order of the old judge, her uncle, who loved her greatly. And I knew that she thought nothing in all the world could be prettier than a moonstone, the soft white soul of it trying always to hide and never being sure that it is out of sight.
"Me?" I gasped. "Me write like that? Me write with words like moonstones?"
"Better, perhaps," said my aunt quietly.
"Do you think so?" I cried. "Do you really think so?"
"I know," said my aunt in a whisper. "I know, Shamuseen beg. Take no notice of anyone who jeers at you." Then with a smile she added: "You would know yourself, if you were not so timid. Timid like the mooly calf in the barn."
And for those words I thanked my aunt. Thanked her again and again. For they made me indifferent to the sneers of Mr. Murray, the sneers that had kept me awake during the long hot nights.
Curiously, the fact that I had written to Olaf Hanson
brought me much comfort. There must have been some magic
about that address in the Rue du Panier in the Vieux
Port of Marseilles. Some fine magic. For I had wonderful
dreams of the city that sprawls beside the Sea of Romance.
I had seen pictures of the great statue of Nôtre Dame de
la Garde which is the landmark for sailors who pray to
the Virgin to protect them from the fierce storms of the
Gulf of Lions, and I wondered if Olaf Hanson ever said any
prayers as he came bowling into the port. I thought not,
for a man who casually marries seven wives did not seem to
me of a praying sort. But I prayed a little for the Swede
during those days. I wanted him to go to Frisco Dick's
boarding-house and get the letter that I had sent there.
The letter in which I asked for news of that young sailor
who had saved the Dutch prima donna in the port of Batavia.
Each night I prayed, and each night in my dreams I saw the
Swede climbing up the stone stairs from the Port, walking
into Frisco Dick's and fingering the letters in the box
that was studded with brass nails. The letters that were
all from women. "Wives and mothers and sweethearts," said
the Swede, "for it is only women who write to sailors."
I may have been a little unbalanced, as my mother and father thought. I don t know. But in those days of late summer I thought that the power to beat Mr. Murray would come to me from Marseilles. And that was a curious thing to think. Yet, try as I would, I could not put the belief from me. I saw in my dreams the ships of all the world coming into the big port; ships from the Orient with strange gums and spices, ships from Australia with tallow and wool and hides, ships from Africa with wines and ivory and great long-horned sheep, and always on all the ships that I saw in my dreams there was upon the bridge, standing clear against the league-high stretch of magic blue that is the back-drop of a boy's dreamland, a tall young man of great strength, with brown hair, and eyes the color of a violet.
IN the early part of of November my brother Will, who was then nineteen years of age, got into trouble. A hot-headed fellow was Will. He was very strong, and he had learned how to use his hands. During that summer a great boxer from New York had fixed his camp about a mile from our farm, and, whenever his chores on the farm gave him an opportunity, my brother would visit the camp to see the boxer go through his daily workout. One day there was a shortage of sparring partners, and the champion, whose name was Spider Daley, asked Will if he would like to put on the gloves with him.
Will put them on, and from the account he gave at the supper table that evening, it was only a matter of months before we would have the champion of the world in our farmhouse. Every afternoon Will would stroll over to the training camp and let Spider Daley use him as a chopping block, and when the Spider went away to fight Red Huggins in Boston he whispered to my brother that there was very little about the boxing game that he, Will, was ignorant of.
Will was still suffering from the swollen head produced by these words when he ran up against the chauffeur employed by Mr. Murray. The chauffeur's name was Voerkens, and he also had a great love for himself. Will was driving Gipsy in the light waggon and I was sitting by his side when we met Voerkens at the bottom of Sheep Hill. The wheel of the waggon touched the mudguard of the auto and an argument resulted.
Voerkens, who was a big strong man, threatened to give Will a threshing, and Will, still hearing the words of Spider Daley, said that he had no objection to Voerkens making the attempt. So that they would have privacy for the affair, they went into a pine grove nearby, stripped off their coats and went at it.
It was a tremendous fight. Voerkens was much taller and more developed than my brother, but Will had profited quite a lot during those daily dancing matches with Spider Daley. To me it was a rather frightening affair as I watched the two of them circling around each other and battering each other's bodies with heavy blows. It was very silent in the pines, and the thump of fists was not pleasant.
The end came suddenly. My brother rushed Voerkens across the cleared space and landed blow after blow on the ribs of the chauffeur. Voerkens went down, and when my brother asked him to get up and fight he said that he was unable to move. Will tried to lift him up, but Voerkens groaned loudly, and my brother and I were fear-stricken as we looked at him.
"Run out on the road and see if you can find someone," said Will. "I think he's badly hurt."
I ran out onto the road, and coming down Sheep Hill was the waggon of Mr. Hatch. I called out to him, and Mr. Hatch stopped the waggon and asked me what was wrong. I told him that Will and Voerkens had been fighting and that Voerkens was hurt.
Mr. Hatch, who was a very religious man, came into the pine grove with me. He examined Voerkens and said that he believed the chauffeur's ribs were broken, a belief that was proved correct when Voerkens was later examined by the doctor. The three of us managed to carry the chauffeur out to the waggon, and Mr. Hatch drove him into the village. That evening Will was arrested for causing grievous bodily harm to Maarten Voerkens, a chauffeur in the employ of Mr. William Murray of the Murray Place.
I was the sole witness of the fight and I told my story
to old Judge Copley when the case came before him. My
father and my mother were there and lots of other people
including Mr. Murray. Voerkens had to be carried into court
on a stretcher and he groaned a lot when he was questioned.
Mr. Murray was very attentive to him.
Old Judge Copley asked me a lot of questions, and I answered them truthfully. I said that an argument started because the wheel of our waggon had touched the mudguard of the automobile and that Voerkens had lost his temper and told my brother that he would give him a threshing.
"Who suggested going into the wood?" asked the judge.
"Mr. Voerkens did," I answered. "He said he wanted a nice quiet place where he could fight in comfort."
"And your brother was sweet and kind and unselfish?" asked the judge.
"Yes," I said, and everyone in the courtroom laughed at my answer.
"Did you help?" snapped Judge Copley.
"No, Judge," I answered.
"But you're a bit of a fighter too, aren't you?" he cried. "Didn't you strike a certain respected resident of this community across the face with a stick?"
"Yes, Judge," I said, nearly dead with shame because the courtroom was crowded.
"Then your evidence is not worth much," he growled. "You're not exactly a peaceful young person. Slashing a distinguished resident of the community across the face at eleven years makes one wonder what you'll be when you grow up. Get down."
Old Judge Copley turned and spoke to my brother. He was very angry with Will. He told him that he thought him a fighting bully and he sentenced him to six months imprisonment. He offered his sympathy to Voerkens and also to Mr. Murray, his employer. Will was led away to prison. My father and mother were stunned.
That afternoon Mr. Murray came over to our farm. He
shook hands with my father and mother and my Aunt Morna
and said he was very, very sorry that Will had been sent
to prison. He said he could not tell them how sorry he
was, and as he spoke I watched my aunt. She had her head a
little to one side in the fashion that she carried it when
she listened with interest to the voices of those whose
true character she wished to discover, and I wondered what
she thought of the voice of Mr. Murray.
My mother was crying, Will being her favorite in the family, and Mr. Murray talked a lot of what he would do to get the sentence lightened. But while he spoke of seeing the governor of New Hampshire and the District Attorney he didn't forget to point out from time to time that Will had done wrong in threshing Voerkens. He said Voerkens was the most peaceable man in the whole of America and would never attack a man unless the man attacked him.
"He attacked Will!" I shouted. "It was Voerkens who wanted to fight!"
Mr. Murray turned on me and spoke quietly. "If I were you, Jimmy, I would keep my tongue in my head," he said. "You didn't do your brother much good in court this morning. You must have gone around bragging about your little attack on me, or else how would the judge —"
"You told him!" I cried. "You told him because you knew I was a witness for Will. You told the judge so as to put me in wrong!"
"You are crazy!" said Mr. Murray. "I would never mention such a thing. I have done my best to keep your brother out of prison, but Voerkens was indignant at getting pummeled for nothing."
I started to speak again, but my father took me by the arm, spun me around and told me to get out of his sight. As I walked away Mr. Murray began to talk again of the things he would do in an effort to get Will released. He would soothe Voerkens, he would immediately see his friend, the governor, he would go down to Portsmouth and see someone else. And mother thanked him between her sobs. When I got to the back of the barn I cried too. Cried because Will was in prison, and also because Mr. Murray was the person who was going to get him released.
After supper that evening my aunt spoke to me. "It is nice of Mr. Murray to interest himself in getting Will released," she said.
I didn't answer her, and, after a little silence, she spoke again. "If the governor took the right view of it he would be released at once."
"It won't hurt Will!" I cried. "He's strong! Six months in jail won't hurt him!"
"Why, Jimmy!" cried my aunt. "What is wrong with you? Six months in prison is a dreadful long time! It will break his heart!"
"It won't! It won't!" I gasped. "Will is strong! It won't hurt him! If he knew—if he knew, he wouldn't want to get out!"
"Knew what?" asked my aunt softly.
"Knew everything!" I cried. "If he knew what Mr. Murray is doing it for! About you! About you! That's what I mean!"
"Hush, Shamuseen beg," whispered my aunt. "What are you talking about?"
"Why—why," I stammered, "why that—that Murray wants you and—and he's only doing this stuff about Will so as to put you—to put you under a compliment to him! That's all he's doing it for. So there!"
Now I knew little of what I spoke of at the moment. That is, being a small boy, I knew nothing of the moral side of Mr. Murray's desire for my Aunt Morna. Whether he wished to marry her or whether he wished to possess her in some such way as that which had caused the scandal with the daughter of Mrs. Learning, I didn't know. But of one thing I was certain, and that was of my hate for Mr. Murray and my desire to keep his hands from my aunt, no matter in what fashion they were extended. The morals of the matter did not come into consideration, morals being a business that the minds of small boys cannot juggle with.
My aunt was silent for a long time; then she spoke softly, her hand upon my arm. "You are a good boy, Jimmy," she murmured, and her voice had that golden note in it which produced thrills. "We must be patient, Jimmy. You and I must dream dreams. You do dream dreams, don't you, Jimmy?"
"Yes!" I answered.
"Of far-off places?" asked my aunt.
"Of far-off places!" I cried, wondering how she knew.
"And of ships?" she queried.
"Always of ships!" I gasped. "All kinds of ships! Ships rolling into strange ports. Queer hot ports away on the edge of the world. And—" and stopped; my aunt waited for me to go on, but I was silent. For her face that was turned toward me at the moment was so beautiful that tears came to my eyes. For my aunt had in her face a delicacy that made one hate the roughness of the world around her. Hers was a beauty that brought from somewhere little dancing whispers. Whispers of fairy tunes played by elves when the world was young, faint notes of music sweeter than any earthly music. And there would come visions of things that one thought one had experienced but which one knew one hadn't. That was the wonder of her face. The great and unexplainable wonder. For, often when I looked at my aunt Morna, I was transported to places that I had never seen and to times that had passed long before I was born. I would see tilting-fields where heralds rode out and called the high-sounding names of competing knights; castles that one only sees in boyhood dreams—fine castles with moats and drawbridges, thin turrets running up to the stars, slit windows for archers and all the fine trimmings of dungeons, secret chambers, and walled-up passages....
My aunt, Morna O'Neill, by the great magic that was hers, brought to me those little shady spots in the desert of the dead centuries where Romance had blossomed. Blossomed and died away, but leaving there for ever and ever a sweet memory that clings in spite of all the battering of a workaday world. Through her I saw Le Baux where the last great Courts of Love were held, and where Queen Jeanne, the last of the ancient Chatelaines, crowned the victorious knights and permitted them to kiss her little hand that was "like a fayre pale lily." And I saw a hundred other spots as well, spots that were far from New Hampshire. She brought them to me, and because I was hungry for that spiritual food that she brought, I hated Mr. Murray. Selfish I was, in a way, but who would not be selfish when their hunger was as great as mine? Hunger for Romance, hunger for the gorgeous colorful life of other days, hunger for the golden glory that has gone forever from this drab world.
For, when I read to my aunt, the farm and all the things connected with the farm were swept away. I would see Venice at the height of its power with jeweled Doges going out to wed the seal And the colossal statues of Rameses II and the great temple at Luxor! And the Isle of Greece! And the white roads running like milk snakes toward Damascus! And Dido building Carthage on the ground that she had got by a glorious trick! And Hannibal's elephants tramping up into Spain, halting before the walls of little towns whose frightened people had never heard of the monster beasts from Africa!... And more! For about her was a sweet enchantment that made a fool of time and space. Little towns of Italy were mine to see by the closing of my eyes! Assisi where St. Francis talked to the birds and where the saint's thornless roses bloom in May! Perugia, up the steep slope of which once walked a tired hungry youth named Raphael to begin his apprenticeship as an artist! Fair Verona where Guelph and Ghibelline struggled and where sweet Juliet sleeps!...
My aunt kissed me gently and whispered her thoughts to me. "All dreams come true if they are dreamed hard enough, Shamuseen beg. Something—something might turn up that will keep us out of debt to Mr. Murray."
WONDERFUL is the weaving of God. Wonderful indeed. Strange and intricate is the pattern, and our poor little minds cannot puzzle out the design. For we view it only for the fleeting moment that is our life-span, while the pattern is one drawn through a million years.
My brother Will was in prison exactly one week when two well-dressed men visited our farm. Together they walked up the little avenue, one carrying a large ledger that had leaves which could be taken out if one wished and new leaves put in. It had nickel rods in it, and the rods shone in the sunlight as the man shifted it from one hand to the other, for it was mighty heavy. A very impressive book that one might see in a bank or the offices of a big corporation.
His companion carried a bunch of printed forms, and around his neck and suspended by a band of bright red leather was a long bottle of ink. In his hand he held a fine pen with a gold handle. Brave and fine they looked, two gentlemanly visitors, as they came up the path, my mother and my father watching them and wondering not a little as to their business.
They bowed to my father and my mother and introduced themselves. At least the one with the big book did the talking for the two. "We," said he, "are from the Department of Agriculture at Washington. Owing to the shortage of meat supplies the President has ordered an immediate census of all live stock in the country. We will be pleased if you will tell us what live stock you possess, cows, horses, and pigs." And saying that he took a form from the other man and commenced to write. "Your Christian name is Michael?"
"Yes," said my father, "that is my Christian name."
"And your stock?" said the fellow. "Horses first, cows next, pigs later."
My father, who was a quiet modest man, was much impressed by the fact that the Department of Agriculture at Washington was interested in the few animals that we had on the farm, so he stepped forward and gave the necessary information. Careful was the fellow who made the entries, careful and unhurried. Under proper heads on the form he put down the details. There were three horses, four milking cows, a calf, and three pigs. Then the man with the book read in a loud voice the matters he had put upon the form. "Three horses, four milking cows, a calf, and three pigs?" said he. "Are you sure that is all the live stock you possess?"
"That is all," answered my father, a little timid on account of the bullying air of the fellow.
"Well, we'll put it in the stock book," said the man, and with that he opened the ledger and, after writing the name of my father in big letters at the top of a fine white page, he wrote under the name the number of horses, cows, and pigs we possessed. Then, with brows drawn, he started to calculate, using a calculating card that his mate handed to him. At last he was through.
"Nine dollars and sixty cents," he said, speaking louder than ever as he started to fill in a receipt blank.
"For what?" stammered my father, taken back a bit by the words.
"For registration!" snapped the man, pushing forward the receipt.
"But I—I didn't know," began my father. "I didn't —"
"You can pay it now or you can refuse to pay and get a summons from Washington," interrupted the fellow. "And," said he, speaking sharply, "if Washington gets after you I'll wager that you'll wish you never owned anything on four legs in your life."
My father and mother were simple honest souls, and the words of the man with the book terrified them. They looked at each other, then my father nodded his head. Mother went into the kitchen to get her purse and I followed her.
My aunt was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, Danny Boone on her lap. She had heard all that had been said, for the two strangers were standing immediately outside the kitchen door.
"Margaret," said my aunt, speaking slowly, "you are not going to pay that man anything, are you?"
"We will have to," said my mother. "He says if we do not pay we will get a summons from the department at Washington."
"Don't pay him," said my aunt.
"Why?" asked my mother.
"Because he is not an honest man," said my aunt. "Call Michael here to me."
My mother called my father into the kitchen, and my aunt spoke to the two of them together. Spoke in a low voice. And I, watching them, could see that they were impressed by what she said. They were afraid of the fellow with the book, but they had faith in the wisdom of my aunt. Presently my father straightened his shoulders and walked to the door.
"We will wait till we get the summons," he said. "We will not pay now."
"Then you'll have a warm time!" cried the man. "I wish you luck!"
The two turned and walked off down the path to the road, talking between themselves as they marched away. Mad were they with my father, mad indeed. And my father was not altogether easy in his mind, as I could see when he returned to the kitchen to speak with my mother and my aunt. And all through that day he looked worried, glancing occasionally at the path leading down to the road, as if he expected someone from Washington to arrive carrying the summons for the nine dollars and sixty cents. A simple soul was my father. Much imagination had he, too much for a man who was earning his living by tilling the ground.
It was late that evening when we heard the news. The two men were what my aunt thought they were. A pair of fine rogues, and they had robbed the countryside with their big book and their tale of the Department of Agriculture. Out of our neighbors they had bullied small sums, five dollars here, six there, ten and eleven in other places, but from us they had got nothing, thanks to the strange power that my aunt had of hearing the heart of a man in his voice.
Near Caller Bridge there lived an old man who led a
lonely life. His name was Crandon, so people thought,
although no one was certain of it because he received no
letters and he had very little to say to anyone. But this
matter of the pair of rogues who had robbed the countryside
of small sums interested him, and when I was passing his
house on an errand to the village he stopped me.
"Why did your aunt think the men were rogues?" he asked. "She couldn't see their faces, she being blind."
"She heard their voices, sir," I said.
"Ho, ho," he said, beating with his stick on the fence. "She heard their voices and knew that they were scoundrels?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "She thinks a voice has a color."
He leaned over the fence, pushing his wrinkled face forward till it was close to mine. "Ask her what color she thinks Murray's voice is! Ask her that when you get home. Don't forget! Just say that I would like to know the color of William Murray's voice. And, listen, if it isn't a dirty mud color—a damned dirty mud color—I'll give you a quarter the next time you go by. Come and tell me what your aunt says. What's your name?"
"Jimmy, sir," I answered.
"Well, come and tell me tomorrow!" he cried. "If she could get the voices of those two crooks she'll have Murray's labelled. Ask her, boy! Ask her!"
When I was a hundred yards from him he shouted after me: "If it isn't a damned dirty mud color you'll get a quarter."
That evening when we were sitting together I told my
aunt about Mr. Crandon and of what he had said regarding
Mr. Murray's voice. I didn't use the word "damned;" I just
said a dirty mud color. She listened quietly, smiling when
I said that Mr. Crandon would give me a quarter if she
thought the voice another color.
"It isn't a mud color, Jimmy," she said. "It is only idiots that have voices that color. And Mr. Murray is not an idiot, is he?"
"I don't think so," I answered.
"Well, then," murmured my aunt, "that settles the question. You have only to say it isn't mud colored."
"But he'll ask what color it really is," I said.
Aunt Morna laughed. "He didn't ask that," she cried. "He only wanted a denial regarding the color he thought it was. But listen, Jimmy, I wouldn't take his quarter. If you really want a quarter I'll give you one. And—and perhaps it would be better not to talk about Mr. Murray."
Next day Mr. Crandon was waiting inside his fence and when he saw me coming he cried out to me. "I'll bet you don't get the quarter!" he shouted. "Not if your aunt guessed him as well as she did the stock-taking crooks. It's mud colored, isn't it?"
"My aunt said it wasn't, Mr. Crandon," I said, "but I don't want the quarter, thank you."
I started to walk on but Mr. Crandon stopped me. "You don't want the quarter? Why?"
I told him what my aunt had said. He grinned slyly, then he pushed himself through the fence and hobbled up to me. "I won't give you the quarter," he whispered, "but I'll tell you something that's worth more than twenty-five cents. A lot more than twenty-five cents! I was in the pines when your brother fought with Murray's chauffeur. I saw it all. And it was the fault of the chauffeur. He started the argument and it was he who called your brother into the pines and struck the first blow. I saw it all because I was there getting herbs. Go and tell your father that. And tell your aunt she's wrong. That is, unless she knows of a dirtier color than mud."
I ran all the way home and told my father. He went and saw a lawyer named Mr. Briggs who lived in the village, and the lawyer went with my father to see Mr. Crandon. Mr. Briggs drew up a statement which Mr. Crandon signed, and this was sent to the State's Attorney, and eight days later my brother Will was released from prison and came home to the farm.
Often have I wondered about that matter. The coming of the two well-dressed crooks to our house, in an indirect way, brought about the release of my brother Will from prison, and, of the great influence which their petty trickery had in preventing happenings that I feared, I can only guess. For if Mr. Crandon had not been interested in the way my aunt found out a man's character from his voice he would not have spoken to me, he not speaking to a person from year's end to year's end, and we would never have known that he was a witness to the fight. And if we hadn't known that fact it is possible that the grand friends of Mr. Murray would have done something for Will and we would have all gone down on our knees and thanked Mr. Murray for what he had done.
"Jimmy," said my aunt, after Will came home, "I hope
they never catch those two men who were taking the stock
census."
"I hope they don't," I said. "They might have got enough to turn honest." And Aunt Morna laughed when I said that.
My brother Will brought home some fine stories from the jail. He said that they all happened during the three weeks that he was there, but Will had an awful desire to be considered an eye witness, and if an accident happened hours before he was on the spot he would say that he had seen it.
Some of his stories made us laugh. He said that an ex-warden had died while he was in the jail and that the authorities put some crepe in the chapel. One old deaf prisoner sobbed all through the service, and the other prisoners were annoyed, thinking the deaf one was sobbing so as to ingratiate himself with the authorities. After the service they abused him and asked him why he cried for the dead warden.
"Warden?" he gasped. "Dead warden? Is that what the crepe is for? Gosh, I'm happy! I thought the brutes were going to put someone on the electric chair!"
But one of his stories made a deep impression upon my aunt and gave me for an instant a peep into the hidden chamber of her heart that she kept closed against all. It frightened my aunt because, in a curious manner, it reflected her own life.
In the prison to which they had sent Will there was a laughing prisoner who persisted in breaking all the rules. As ordinary punishment had no effect upon him the authorities locked him in a dark cell, a cell that was so black that you couldn't see your finger if you held it up quite close to your nose.
Will told us that the prisoners who were sent to the dark cells had thought out a method of passing the time, a method which, in a way, would keep them occupied so that their minds would not be affected by the darkness. They would tear a button from their jacket and toss it into the air, and when they heard it fall on the stone floor they would get down on their hands and knees and hunt for it. When they found it they would toss it up again, and again hunt for it. Thus the dreary hours would pass.
I saw the lips of my aunt move softly as Will told of this in detail. It horrified my aunt, she being always in the great darkness. In the terrible appalling darkness. I made a signal to Will, suggesting that he should change the subject, but he looked at me stupidly and went on with the tale.
It seems that they put this poor devil in the dark cell and he started to amuse himself by tossing a button into the air and finding it when it struck the floor. For a whole day and half the night he did this, then, in the very middle of the night the prison was awakened by terrible cries that came from the dark cell. Cries of fear that curdled the blood in the veins of the other prisoners. Terrible cries, said my brother, the like of which he had never heard before.
Guards ran to the dark cell and opened it, and there they found the prisoner crazed with fear. He had tossed the button into the air and it had not come down aqain! He had listened but he could not hear it strike the stone floor. Down on his knees he went in search for it. A thousand times he went over every inch of the floor, but he could not find it. Then the hag of terror sprang on his shoulders. The hag of terror bred by the great blackness. He started to run around the cell, thinking that something he couldn't see was pursuing him, and he screamed so that he woke every prisoner in the jail.
When the guards pulled him out he was insane. From his wild jabberings they had a dim idea of what had happened. They brought lights and found that the button from his coat had become entangled in a thick cobweb near the ceiling, a cobweb that had prevented it from falling after he had tossed it into the air. They showed it to the poor fool who was still screaming, showed it to him as proof that it was not a demon of the darkness that had snatched it from him, but it was too late to reason with him then. He was hopelessly insane.
The story startled my aunt. Startled her greatly. Watching her I could see her moisten her dry lips as she murmured a prayer to the Almighty. And I knew for whom the prayer was uttered. She was praying for the poor devil whose reason had been taken from him by the great fear of the blackness into which he had been thrust.
And watching her, I thought of the darkness in which my Aunt Morna and I were fighting. Darkness and loneliness. Somewhere in the great big stretches of the world was the love that my aunt longed for. The love that I knew she craved, although her pride, her great pride had thrust it from her when she thought the giving of it would have wrought an injury to the giver. And, after my brother Will went away to do some chores, I cried softly as I thought of her troubles.
"You're crying, Jimmy," she said quietly. "Why?"
"I—I thought we were all stumbling round in the arkness," I blubbered.
"No," said my aunt, "we must have faith. We must always have faith. Didn't someone come forward to save Will when he was put in jail wrongfully? Shamuseen beg, nothing goes wrong in the world. Nothing at all. We think a road is crooked because we can only see a little bit of it, but if you looked at the road from a great height it would seem like a straight line. Life is like that. We see the annoying little twists and turns and we grumble, but the Almighty has mapped the road and to Him it is straight. Yes, to Him it is straight."
ON the third day of December, Mrs. Parks, the housekeeper at the Murray Place, called at our farm. A tall, bony woman was Mrs. Parks, with a quick tongue, and an eye like a sharpshooter that watched the person she aimed her words at, as if she wanted to see how many of her jabs got home. For Mrs. Parks had a reputation in the county for word-jabbing. A fine reputation. Hardly a person around had not winced at some time or another under her prods.
"Mr. Murray is staying on," she said, eyeing my mother as she delivered the information.
"Staying on?" repeated my mother. "I thought he was going down to New York as usual?"
"Thought wrong!" snapped Mrs. Parks. "He's staying!"
"Well, I never," murmured my mother. "I thought he didn't like the cold weather?"
Mrs. Parks eyed my mother sternly. Marksman that she was, she wished to see the target before and after firing so that she could calculate the effect.
"There's some of us that know the reason!" she said sharply. "There's no one so blind as those that won't see, but there's some that are blind that see more than some that have eyes. Think that over and tell me what the answer is the next time I call." And saying that she went off with a flirt of her skirt, leaving my mother speechless.
The same afternoon there came the letter from Marseilles. My father brought it from the village, and he looked at me with a question on his face as he handed it over.
"It's from France?" he said.
"Yes," I replied. "It's from France." And fearing that he would put more questions to me, grabbed the letter and rushed down to the barn.
It was a short letter written on a piece of yellow paper and it puzzled me greatly. Now I wonder at my stupidity, but the excitement brought by the arrival of the note might have paralysed my reasoning faculties for the moment. The letter ran:
Dear Yimmy: Yes, I think out the name of that saler who pulled de Dutch voman outer de harbor. It was You. Gif my regards to blind lady.
Yore friend, Olaf Hanson.
I thought the Swede must have gone insane.
Twenty times and more I re-read the words. He was having a joke with me. I was all upset. My face was flushed and my ears were burning.
I thrust the letter into my pocket and walked around the barn to find my aunt sitting on the wooden bench, Danny Boone on her lap. It was a curiously soft afternoon, and my aunt, who loved the air, was sitting out in it, much to the annoyance of the cat who thought all sane folk should be inside.
I sat down beside my aunt, making some comment about the weather.
"What is wrong, Jimmy?" asked my aunt, after a little silence, during which, as I well knew, she had reflected upon my voice and found that there was something strange about it. For my Aunt Morna was never deceived about a person's voice. Never.
"There's nothing wrong," I said.
"I thought there was," murmured my aunt. "I thought something had upset you."
I pushed my hands into my pocket and my fingers touched the letter. I was very mad with Olaf Hanson just then. I had taken the pains to write him a nice letter telling him of everything that had happened since he went away from the farm, and he was now trying to make fun of me. I was ashamed to tell my aunt, yet I wanted her sympathy.
"It's that crazy Swede," I said.
"Mr. Hanson?" inquired my aunt.
"Yes," I snapped. "I wrote the fool at Marseilles. You remember you spoke about the Coffin of Hope. Well, I thought I would drop him a line asking him—asking him if he ever remembered name of the young sailor who pulled the Dutch singer out of the water."
"Yes, yes!" whispered my aunt.
"He wrote back a little note making fun of me!" I cried. "I'd like to give him a punch on the nose."
"What did he say?" asked my aunt.
"He says it was me!" I answered. "He says I did it!"
My aunt didn't speak for a few minutes. She sat erect, her face turned toward the slope leading up to the Murray Place. She might have thought at that moment that the Swede had made up the story about the young sailor and the Dutch prima donna and that he was fooling us when he said the sailor was young and strong with brown hair and blue eyes. My report about the contents of the letter would make anyone believe that the Swede was a silly joker. I was real mad with him on account of all the dreams I had dreamed about ships plunging toward Marseilles with a tall young man on the bridge who had brown hair and blue eyes.
"Would you read me the letter, Jimmy?" whispered my aunt. "I cannot believe Mr. Hanson would make fun of you. You see—you see I listened to him and—and I know his voice."
"I'll read it," I said, and taking the note from my pocket I read it aloud. When I repeated the words: "It was you" my Aunt Morna gave a little cry, a curious little cry of delight mixed with fear, and then I knew. I knew. The poor Swede couldn't spell Hugh, but when I read it aloud my aunt didn't see the word as it appeared on the paper. She only heard the name of her sweetheart to whom she had lied so bravely in Belfast town some fifteen months before!
We sat there together, holding each other's hands. My
aunt cried softly, yet I knew that a great delight had come
to her. I knew that.
For hours we sat, forgetful of the chill in the air. Danny Boone rose from the lap of my aunt, looked at her reproachfully and stalked toward the kitchen, but my aunt and I sat on. And the world grew small with the thoughts that were ours. Thoughts that leaped across continents and made places visible to us. Startlingly visible. Since that day I have read much regarding the harbor of Batavia where Hugh Renshaw pulled the Dutch prima donna from the water, flung her back into it and rescued her for the second time to prove that her pride had got the better of her commonsense, but I have not learned more than I knew on that December afternoon. For I saw it then in the soft mist of the late fall. Saw it in all its splendid beauty, so that what I read later did not seem new to me at all. Blue, blue water and white sunlight, palms banked against the skyline, strange ships from strange ports. Ocean tramps that wandered up and down the lonely sea lanes that lead to the world's outposts; Malays, Sudanese, Javanese, and all the mixed races of the East tearing things from the stomachs of arriving ships and thrusting stuff into the stomachs of others that were going away. Yelling and shouting as they toiled....
It was dusk when my mother came and called Aunt Morna and me to our supper.
MR. MURRAY stayed on as Mrs. Parks had said he would. Never before since he had taken the Murray Place had he stayed north during the month of December. Never. And his presence brought to me a feeling of terror. Of great terror. For, within my mind, was a fixed belief that I was a person appointed by the Fates to watch over Aunt Morna. To guard her against men like Mr. Murray and keep her for someone who was far away. For someone in search of whom I rode the mist of dreams and strained the ports of space.
The presence of Mr. Murray created nightmares. For now the thing that I had know for months became known to my father and mother. And it didn't startle them. I heard my mother repeat to my father the remark Mrs. Parks had made concerning the reason for Mr. Murray delaying his journey southward, and I watched the effect of it upon my father. For a few seconds my father and mother looked at each other, then they smiled knowingly, and within me rose a hate. A hate for my parents. A hate that I could not put from me although I knew that it was a terrible thing for a small boy to nurse within his breast.
But the hate grew and grew. Because, watching my parents closely, I saw that they found pleasure in the thing which terrified me. In their day-dreams they saw Aunt Morna the wife of a very rich man. They saw themselves visiting her at the Murray Place, strolling up the grand avenue to the big house that was chockful of fine furniture that had been brought up from New York. I should not have hated my parents for having these dreams, but I did. I did!
And the confidence in the grey eyes of Mr. Murray showed plainer because of the pictures that were in the minds of my father and mother. He knew he had their support. He would jeer at me whenever he met me away from the farm, making silly remarks about poetry. "And how is the bucolic poet?" he would ask. "Any winter verse going out? Easy stuff, winter verse. Blows and snows and throes and flows—all the best rhymes, Jimmy."
During that December I became a great friend of Mr.
Crandon, the hermit who lived near Caller Bridge. Perhaps
we were drawn together by our dislike for Mr. Murray, but I
think Mr. Crandon was interested in that strange gift that
my aunt had of finding out the character of folk by their
voices. On this matter he would question me at length every
time he saw me. Once or twice during December he had asked
me into his house, something he had never been known to do
before, although he had lived near Caller Bridge for five
years.
He found a name for Mr. Murray because I had told him that my aunt thought it wasn't nice for a small boy to discuss the owner of the Murray Place. Mr. Crandon thought Aunt Morna was right. "We won't mention his name, Jimmy," he said. "Never again." So, instead of saying the name, he would allude to Mr. Murray as "the chap with the mud-colored voice" and he would laugh each time he used the words.
I liked Mr. Crandon a lot. He told me that he had been an editor of a big newspaper in Philadelphia, but one day he had become suddenly tired with all the rush and hustle that was going on about him, and that evening he handed in his resignation and started to search for some place where he could live quietly. He had come up into our part of the country and had seen the red house near Caller Bridge and had bought it. Three times a week a woman came from the village and cleaned up for him, and outside myself, he had no visitors.
It seemed to me that Mr. Crandon had heard of Mr. Murray before he came to live at Caller Bridge. I wasn't sure of this, but now and then he would say something that made me think so. "I'll bet your aunt knows the color of that chap's voice," he would say. "I'll bet you! She's right about that. Things that one says—lying things leave their mark on the accent the same as actions mark the features. And that chap with the mud-colored voice has done some rare things. Do you think the Borgias had nice voices, Jimmy?"
"No, Mr. Crandon," I answered.
"Or Nero?" he asked.
"No," I replied.
"Or Jesse James?" continued Mr. Crandon.
I laughed. "Of course not!" I said, "but they were dreadful people."
"Sure, sure," said Mr. Crandon. "Listen, Jimmy. Some day in the spring I wish you'd bring your aunt along by my house. I'd like to talk to her. I just would."
"I'll bring her," I said.
I told my aunt about my talks with Mr. Crandon and how he believed as she did that there was a color to every voice. And I told her what he had said about the voices of Nero, the Borgias, and Jesse James.
"How did they come into the conversation?" asked my aunt.
"Oh he just asked me if I thought they had nice voices," I stammered, trying hard to stop my aunt from thinking that the comparisons had anything to do with Mr. Murray. But I don't think I succeeded very well.
I had written to Olaf Hanson the day after I had read the Swede's letter to my aunt. I thanked him for his kindness in sending the name of the sailor, and then, without telling my aunt, I gave the full name of her sweetheart. I told the Swede I would be grateful to him for any news of Hugh Renshaw that he could send me. I begged him to keep the matter secret, and if he met Mr. Renshaw not to mention to him that anyone in New Hampshire was interested in what he was doing. I think my aunt knew that I had written, but she asked no questions. Wonderfully clever was my aunt in finding out things without putting direct queries.
January came, and in the first week of January Mr. Murray called at the farm and drove my aunt up to the Murray Place to hear a great pianist who had come up from New York. Aunt Morna was to have tea in the fine salon with the big butler waiting on her. Awfully sweet she looked that afternoon. For, and this was strange, my Aunt Morna had such a wonderful imagination that she visualized herself in her dresses. Little could anyone tell her as to how this or that suited her, because she had already painted in her mind the picture of herself in the costume, and painted it truthfully. Having her own money she dressed well, and suits and coats were sent up to her by the big houses of Boston. It was not vanity that moved her, it was a great desire to look nice in the eyes of those who loved her and who might easily let their love turn into pity because of her blindness. For my Aunt Morna disliked the word pity. Disliked it greatly.
Mr. Murray was in fine humor when he came for my aunt. His grey eyes had a twinkle in them as he looked at me. A twinkle that said plainly: "Jimmy, my little boy, you are a small matter in the affairs of great men. You had better get out of the way or you'll be hurt."
The grey eyes made me feel so sad that I wandered off by myself after they had driven away. It was a very depressing day, and sad thoughts rushed through my mind as I tramped through the slush. I wished I had never heard the story of Hugh Renshaw. What did I care for him anyhow? Why was he so silly as to believe that Morna O'Neill was coming over to America to hunt for a millionaire? Why didn't he stay in Belfast till he heard whether she had found one?
"He is a fool!" I cried, as I climbed up through the pines by the old Garland place and down by the trail that leads to the river. "Why didn't he leave an address in Belfast so that his family could send him any news that came from our farm?"
I was wet and cold. My fingers and toes were numbed, and the world seemed an awful lonely place. I had a strange hate for my father and mother because I could see that they wished my aunt to marry Mr. Murray, and I thought my brothers and my sister Joan were stupid because they didn't seem to notice what was happening around them. Each time that my brother Joe accepted a quarter from Mr. Murray, he and I had a row. I thought it dreadful of Joe to take small tips from Mr. Murray, but Joe couldn't see that there was anything wrong in accepting the money.
My rage against the world increased as I came toward Caller Bridge. Just for a moment, just for one single terrible moment I was sorry that my Aunt Morna had come to our farm. For my temper was such that I forgot during one minute of fearful disloyalty all the romance that she had brought into my life. Forgot all the splendid stuff of dreams that she had given me, all the fine dripping color that her looks and her words and her stories had squeezed into my thirsty little soul. Always and always will I regret that moment of treason. Now, even, I look back at it and wonder what red devil of treachery took possession of me.
I thought I would go and talk with Mr. Crandon. I crossed the road near Caller Bridge and walked along the fence that separated Mr. Crandon's grounds from the main road. Then, as I was moving in the direction of the gate, I heard the sound of sleigh bells and turned around to see who was coming. It was Mr. Murray, driving at great speed toward the village.
When he saw me he reined up and leapt from the sleigh. He had his whip in his right hand as he rushed at me, and his face was so black and angry that I was frightened. I started to run, but I slipped on the ice and fell. Mr. Murray was upon me before I could get to my feet. He seized me by my coat collar and lifted me up.
"You little lying hound!" he yelled. "I'm going to flail the life out of you!"
"Don't you hit me!" I screamed. "Don't you hit me! I never did anything to you!
"I'm going to take the pelt off your back!" he cried. "I'm going to teach you to keep your mouth shut about grown-up folk! You've been chattering too much and I've put up with it! Now you'll catch it!"
He made a slash at my legs with the whip, but I clawed at his face and the whip barely touched me.
I slipped my arms through the sleeves of my coat, leaving the coat in Mr. Murray's hands, then I ran as fast as my legs could carry me for the gate.
Mr. Murray was after me, slashing like a madman. Six times he brought the whip around my legs.
I was at the gate then. I rushed through it, and, as I did so, Mr. Crandon, who was crouching behind the hedge, rose and struck with his stick at Mr. Murray who was at my heels. A terrible Mr. Crandon at that moment. His face was aflame with temper, and I was surprised at the manner in which he used the stick.
And, as he hit at Mr. Murray, he shouted at him. Shouted words that I had never heard before and whose meaning I did not understand. Now I know. They were the names of certain stocks in the selling of which Mr. Murray had interested himself, and, as Mr. Crandon shouted them one after the other, they seemed to me to have the effect of blows upon the man with the whip. He staggered back from Mr. Crandon, looking at him curiously, then, after kicking my coat out of his way, he ran back to the sleigh and drove off.
Mr. Crandon got my coat and took me into the house. He rubbed some ointment on the back of my right leg where the lash of the whip had cut the skin, and he spoke to me as he did so. "Don't say anything about this, Jimmy," he said. "Keep your mouth shut unless you are asked by your father and mother. We're not ready for that bird yet. What upset him today anyhow?"
"I don't know," I answered. "He—he took my aunt up to his house after dinner so that she could hear a big pianist play. I haven't seen him for hours. He wasn't mad with me then. He just grinned at me."
"His grin didn't get him anywhere then," growled Mr. Crandon. "Don't worry, Jimmy. You go on home and keep quiet."
I went on home. It was nearly dark when I got to the farm. I asked where my aunt was and my mother told me she was in her room. She did not come to supper. My mother and father were very quiet. They looked at each other from time to time and spoke in half whispers.
Next morning Mrs. Parks came bustling down from the Murray Place. Her face was all smiles. She told us that Mr. Murray had left the night before for New York, and from there he would sail immediately for Europe.
"There are lots of traps for foxes in the country," said Mrs. Parks, as she was leaving, "but there are a lot of old foxes still at large."
My mother and father did not know what she meant by the remark, neither did Will and Jack who were listening. My Aunt Morna was not there.
AS I have written, I hated Mr. William Murray with a great hate, but I will always remember the letters that he wrote to my aunt during the months that followed. The letters that I read to her. For the power of putting words upon paper so that they made images was one known to Mr. Murray. Clever indeed was he with a pen, and a great letter writer. None better have I ever heard of. For he took fine tinted words and flung them carelessly on the paper so that the very color of them splattered across the sheets and made pictures. Wonderful pictures. Pictures that my aunt who listened saw. For, glancing up from the sheet, I would often see her red lips part softly with the joy that his descriptions brought to her.
Ah, cunning as a builder of words was Mr. Murray. And my aunt loved words, she being in the darkness and they coming to her like jewelled things that made up for the loss of her eyes. Mr. Murray brought France to us with his letters. In that early springtime we saw Paris, saw it through his eyes. Witchery was in his pen, for he was writing for her with words that were like diamond dust, so shining were they. We saw the Madeleine—the flower stalls sheltering in the shadow of the house of God, the Arc de Triomphe upon which are the names of all the great marshalls and generals of France, the Bois, Versailles and the Petit Trianon, the Quais, and the Seine flowing softly to the sea!
Fine stuff to come to a blind lady sitting in a little farmhouse in New Hampshire! Fine stuff for dreams. And I hated it as I read it although I was thrilled by the words. For they were little threads that were sent out to wind themselves around the heart of my aunt. Little colorful threads that tugged cunningly, hinting at the loneliness that was hers, the silence into which, if she were wise, there might come the crashing music of the Opera of Paris to which Mr. Murray went every evening during his stay. And of all the grand operas and of all the fine singers he told. He wished that my aunt could have heard Melba! That evening he was going to hear Duse! Saw her that morning in the Rue de Paix. She was buying jewelry. He wrote of her face, full of sorrow and tragedy. The President of the Republic was to attend the performance.... And around our farm were roads that were knee deep in slush!
Never have I hated words so much, and yet they thrilled me. For I, too, saw the Place de la Concorde strung with beams of light as the sun threshed up from the fields of Champagne and looked at the city that he loves! I saw the Tuileries in their amethystine mist, the stringed lights of Montmartre, and the solemn splendor that sits upon St. Cloud!... Once in a fit of temper I tore up a clever letter that Mr. Murray wrote about a trip to St. Cloud. A very devil of a letter that made my aunt cry. And I cried as I begged her forgiveness for tearing it into little pieces....
In droves came the letters. Mr. Murray swinging southward through the Land of the Troubadours. To places with singing names! Castelsarrasin, Castelnaudary, and Carcassonne! Grey-walled Carcassonne with its fifty-four towers rearing into the blue sky of the Midi!... "The roads are drying up," said my father, coming upon my aunt and me who were sitting silent after I had read a letter from Mr. Murray telling us how he had sat on the ramparts and dreamed dreams of the English Black Prince charging up the slope at the head of his armored hosts, and how in spite, because he could not take the Cité on the hill, the Prince had burned the lower town, the Ville Basse, where lived the common folk. "A few more weeks of had weather," said my father, "then well he able to move around a little. This slush is annoying."
A great horror was upon me that my aunt would weaken. For of very pleasant places Mr. Murray wrote. Of little towns that sat with their feet in the Mediterranean, the soft winds of Africa in their noses. Not the tourist-ridden places. Clever was Mr. Murray. He wrote of Fréjus, to which place Augustus sent the galleys he took from Antony and Cleopatra at Actium.... The flower-covered slopes of the Roquevignon where the league-long stretches of baby roses suck in the fragrance which is robbed from them in the bandit-like perfume distilleries of Grasses.... Of Bordighera where they tie up the heads of the palm-trees so that the leaves may be blanched white for Palm Sunday and for the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles.... And of five score other spots where Romance lingers....
I had grown to hate foreign stamps. To hate them because they jeered at me. Then one day there came a letter from Europe that was not for my aunt. It was for me.
I read it in the barn. Read it again and again. It was not a colorful letter like those of Mr. Murray, but it was a very beautiful letter to me. It read:
Dear Yimmy:
I mak many question bout yore frend Hugh Renshaw. He is officer now. I spik to saler on same boat as heem. He say fine man, verry kind, fight like hell. No like women at all. Strong, high and much walebone. I stay Marseilles quite a lot now. Work for french line have many ships runin algiers and tunis. Write me soon. My regards to the blind lady.
Yore frend, Olaf.
My aunt was sitting on the wooden bench. I took the letter and sat down beside her. It was the second week of May, a May that had come in fine and splendid with what my father called cat-warmth.
"I have a letter from Olaf Hanson," I said.
"Oh," murmured my aunt. "Is he well?
"Yes," I said. Then, as I had not told her what I had written to the Swede, I made a little explanation. "I thought," I stammered, "that I would ask Olaf if he knew anyone who knew the sailor. You remember? The young sailor who saved the Dutch singer?"
"Yes, yes," gasped my aunt, and her hand went out quickly and touched my wrist, the long white fingers clinging to me as if afraid I would move away before telling what the Swede had written.
"He has a sailor friend who has met him," I said.
"He writes—"
"Read me what he says, Jimmy!" cried my aunt. "Oh, Shamuseen beg, read me what he says!"
I was a little startled at the manner in which my aunt spoke, but I read the letter to her. Read it twice. Then in a soft voice she repeated the words that Hanson had written regarding Hugh Renshaw. Repeated them as I had read them.
"He is officer now. I speak to sailor on the same boat as heem. He say fine man, very kind, fight like hell."
And, after a little while, she murmured: "Strong, high, and much whalebone."
Her voice gave a glamor to the poor English of the Swede. Gave a glory to the words. "He is officer now!" It was a little chant that possessed some strange sorcery. Possibly my aunt saw what I saw. A tall, sun-tanned officer in white drill, gold bars upon his shoulders, taking a steamer through the tortuous passages of the Malay....
Later on that same afternoon my father brought another letter that had been overlooked when Will called for our mail in the middle of the day. It was date-stamped San Remo, Italia, and I saw that it was from Mr. Murray.
"Will I read it to you?" I asked.
"Not now, Jimmy, thank you," answered my aunt. "We'll keep it for some other time. We—we have had one fine letter today, haven't we?"
"Yes," I said. "He is a nice man, Olaf Hanson."
"He writes the nicest letters in the world," murmured my aunt. Then, as I watched her, I saw that her lips were moving softly and I thought that she was repeating the words of the Swede. He is officer now. Fine words to her, for she loved Hugh Renshaw, whom she had thrust away from her side because of her great pride.... I was very happy on that afternoon.
It was in the early part of May that I brought my aunt
along by Caller Bridge so that she could speak to Mr.
Crandon. The old man was very nice to my aunt. He was
awfully excited, rushing around to find an easy chair for
her, and begging her to drink some of his raspberry wine
because he thought she looked pale.
He told my Aunt Morna quite a lot about himself. He said he had worked for years on the Philadelphia paper, and he had put away every cent he could. There was himself, his wife, and one boy. They loved the boy, but he went to the Philippine Islands, contracted fever and died. And the mother died from sorrow.
"I was a little silly then," said Mr. Crandon, speaking slowly to my aunt. "A little silly with the trouble of it all. And the money I had saved was of no use to me. So one day a man came along and got me to invest it all in some mines.... I lost nearly all of it.... It didn't matter much because I had no wife or boy. The little that I got out of the wreck I used to buy this place. I like it. And I like Jimmy and you. It is nice to have you so close."
I knew that my aunt liked Mr. Crandon from the very moment she heard his voice. I could always tell from the expression on her face when she liked anyone greatly. Coming back to our farm she spoke about him.
"I think he is a very nice man, Jimmy," she said. "He has a voice that rings true."
"I'm glad you like him," I cried. "It was his word that got Will out of prison, and he has been very kind to me."
"I think he has been kind to everyone all through life," said my aunt. "I am sure he has. His voice is much like the voice of my uncle who lived in London."
The next time I met Mr. Crandon he smiled and asked me playfully if Aunt Morna liked the color of his voice. I told him that she did, and that she had compared it with the voice of her uncle, the big judge in London, whom she thought the finest man that had ever lived. Mr. Crandon was much touched when I told him that. Tears came into his old eyes and his voice shook. He seemed to think that it was a great compliment, and in the days that followed I know that he was much comforted by what my aunt had said. And it really was a fine compliment, because, as I have written, my aunt, Morna O'Neill, used the voice of a man as a medium by which she could see his soul. Never have I known her to be wrong. Like a great doctor who listens to the heart of a sick person to tell the state of his health, my aunt listened to the voice of a speaker to tell the state of his soul. It was a gift from God to her. A strange gift.
NOW Belfast, the city from which my aunt came, is a great port. And a great port is an ear that hears all that happens in the world and lots of things that don't happen but which are spread about by tongues that love to waggle. The big shipbuilding yards of Harland and Wolff who make the fine ships that cross the Atlantic to America are in Belfast, and sailors from the ports of space come to the banks of the Lagan and talk as sailors do.
One of these sailors came home from China with a story that he told in the little public-houses around the Alexandra Dock. And the tale had the wee feet that good tales always have, so it crept up into Royal Avenue and from there out into the suburb of White Abbey where the O'Neills and the Renshaws lived.
It went in the ears of a girl who was coming to America, a girl named Ellen Brady who knew my aunt slightly. This girl came to Dover to visit some friends and she wrote asking if she could come to the farm to see Morna O'Neill. Inside of her was a lump of gossip that wouldn't let her rest.
She chose a nice moment for delivering the morsel. We were all sitting on the grassy stretch near the barn, and there came a moment of silence. Of fat silence. Ellen Brady straightened herself, looked at my aunt, and spoke.
"It's a fine story that they're telling in Belfast about a friend of yours, Miss O'Neill," she said.
"What friend?" asked my aunt.
"Hugh Renshaw," replied Ellen Brady.
My aunt was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, her face slightly uptilted, her big sightless eyes turned towards the maple trees on the rise leading up to the Murray Place. It always seemed to me that she could really see those trees, they having made such an impression upon her just before the darkness fell.
When Ellen Brady mentioned the name of Hugh Renshaw my mother and father looked at my aunt, but she gave no sign that the words of the visitor had startled her. Fine pride had my aunt. Splendid pride.
"What story are they telling in Belfast about Hugh Renshaw?" she asked, and there wasn't a quaver in her voice as she put the question.
Ellen Brady had come all the way from Dover to deliver her thrust, so she wanted to get the most of it. She grinned and pouted and rubbed her hands, proud of the silence that waited to receive her words. "It might hurt you," she said. "It might, seeing that you knew him before the trouble fell upon you?"
"What is the story?" demanded my aunt.
"Well," began Ellen Brady, straightening herself and raising her voice, "a sailor of Belfast named Tommy Moriarty has come back from China and places that are out there, and he says that he saw Hugh Renshaw and spoke to him. He's married."
"That's interesting," said my aunt, and I marveiled at her courage. "That's very interesting."
"It is," grinned Ellen Brady, "but it's more interesting than you think. He's married to a native woman, a woman as yellow as a golden guinea, and they have a baby that Tommy Moriarty says is yellower than his mother, yellower than the flag that the Belfast Orangemen march behind on the twelfth of July."
Bravely my aunt came up against the blow.
"I have heard," she said, and there was a proud note in her voice, "I have heard that many white men in the Malay take native wives. It's quite a common thing."
Ellen Brady giggled, a little taken back by the manner in which my aunt had received the news, and while she was trying to think of some other peppery detail my father swung the conversation in another direction. But I knew that the words of Ellen Brady had dropped into the heart of Aunt Morna like a handful of hot shot. Ah, I knew.
My aunt went into the house before the others, and I
followed her. She paused at the door of her room, her white
hand touching the knob, her head up, her sightless eyes
upon the long passage. And I had a strange feeling as I
watched her. A strange, strange feeling. I thought that she
was looking across the world. Looking out across seas and
mountains and deserts to the island in the Malay where,
according to the wicked tongue of Ellen Brady, the man she
loved was living with a native woman "as yellow as a golden
guinea."
Cautiously I crept toward her, but she sensed my approach.
"Shamuseen beg?" she whispered.
"Yes," I answered, and then I slid up to her and took her hand.
Again she murmured my name in the soft Gaelic which God made for the saints to say their prayers in, and I thought no name could sound sweeter. For when my aunt called me Shamuseen beg her voice had in it a crooning note that thrilled me.
"It's a lie!" I gasped, holding her hand. "It's a lie!"
"And why shouldn't it be the truth?" she asked.
"Because I know it isn't!" I cried. "I know! I know!"
"How do you know?" she asked.
"I can't tell!" I answered. "I can't tell! There's something—something—I don't know what! It's because of your coming here to us and it's all mixed up with lots and lots of people. With the Swede, with the men that came about the stock, with Mr. Crandon, and lots of others. Lots of others who didn't—who didn't live at all."
"Who do you mean?" asked my aunt.
"People in books," I stammered. "People who only lived in the minds of writers but—but who help just as much as—as real people! Why Huck Finn helps! And Tom Sawyer helps! And Buck Grangerford, and the Black Knight, and ... and...."
I stopped then, feeling very foolish, dropped the hand of my aunt and ran out of the house.
I was very sad. I went for a long walk by the river and I thought of a lot of ways of killing Ellen Brady. Ways that would make the Borgias look very ordinary killers if I had possessed the courage to try them out. But this I discovered during that mad tramp. I knew that dreams were stronger than actions! That dreamers moulded the world! That Romance and all the splendid figures of Romance made the trail that we followed. They carried the Flag, the old-gold Flag, and the world swept after them.... I came back to the house feeling certain that Ellen Brady or the sailor from whom Ellen Brady had got the story about Hugh Renshaw had lied. I was certain of that. I wanted to tell my aunt what I thought, but when I knocked at her door she did not answer.
Next day Ellen Brady left our farm to go back to her
friends in Dover, and I drove her to the village. She was
so pleased with herself over the jab that she had given my
aunt that she made me forget the grand discovery that I
had made on the previous afternoon. I lost my temper with
her.
I put all her baggage in the coach and saw that she had a good place, then, before I could stop them, the words of temper shot out of me. And I was as surprised as she was at what I said.
"A black lie was that which you told my aunt!" I cried. "A lie that you made up to hurt her!"
"Why, Jimmy!" she gasped, the breath knocked out of her for a moment by the passion in my words.
"Why, Jimmy, the moment I get to Dover I'll write your mother and she'll flog the life out of you for saying that!"
"Write what you like!" I screamed, and the driver of the coach heard me. "Write what you like, but all the whaling I get won't wash the wickedness from your mind! The wickedness that made you come miles to tell my aunt something that would hurt her!" And I was so mad that I made a kick at her shins as I climbed out of the coach.
I got the flogging as Ellen Brady said I would. My father gave it to me when her letter came from Dover telling what I had said and how I had tried to kick her when I was climbing out of the coach. But my aunt didn't know why I got the hiding, and I didn't tell her. Neither did my father or mother tell her the reason, and I was very thankful to them for keeping quiet. Very thankful indeed.
That evening, when I was locked in my room, I wrote a letter to Olaf Hanson at Frisco Dick's in Marseilles. I told him what Ellen Brady had said, and I asked him to write me as soon as he got my letter and tell me if there was any truth in her story. The writing of the letter took away all the pain of the flogging, although my father, being a strong man, could get the most out of a switch.
MY aunt's birthday came in the first week of August. She was twenty-one years of age, and for nearly two years she had been in the dreadful darkness, but during all that time I had never heard her murmur. She was always good tempered, and that splendid graciousness which was hers never left her.
The birthday was upon a Sunday, and my aunt decided that we would have a special dinner with things that she would buy for us. And to each one of us, including my father and mother, she gave a present. Presents that had come up from Boston, I having written the letters to the stores at my aunt's dictation.
On the day I had written for the presents that my aunt wished sent to her, I walked with her in the lower field and she spoke of Alice. "I wish I could do something for Alice, Shamuseen beg," said my aunt. "I always think of that prayer that she said for me when she was so close to God. He must have heard it, Jimmy, for she was close to His knees when she spoke."
"Yes," I said, "He must have heard it." Then as we walked along I wondered why, if it was such a good prayer, it remained unanswered. It seemed to me that it should have been answered right away, but I didn't like to say that to my aunt.
We had dinner outside. A splendid dinner.
Everyone was pleased with the presents that had come up from Boston, and we thanked Aunt Morna in return for her generosity. But I knew that she was thinking of my sister Alice and regretting Alice was not there. That little note that Alice had written on the afternoon before she was killed was very precious to my aunt. And I could understand why. It seemed strange that Alice should write that she was praying to God for my aunt's happiness when she, Alice, was so close to the other world.
After dinner, Will and Jack walked off in the direction of the village, my father and mother, my aunt, Joan, Tom, Joe, and myself sat in the shade. There was a soft drowsiness upon the countryside; a little opal mist on the far-off White Mountains.
We had been sitting there for some hours when there came to us from the main road a great noise made by persons talking loudly, and above all the talk was the sound of sobs, a woman's sobs. A little frightening to us who had been sitting in the silence of the Sunday afternoon.
My father sprang to his feet and walked to the corner of the house, from which point he could see the road. Standing there, he gave a curious cry of surprise, and all of us, except my Aunt Morna, ran to see what it was that had startled him.
Coming up the little avenue, leading a small procession of our neighbors, was my brother Will, and hanging upon Will's arm was a girl named Elsie Brock, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a queer silent couple who had a small farm some two miles away. The girl was weeping, and Will looked as if he was frightened out of his wits. His eyes were wide with fear, and his jaws were hanging apart as he came up the avenue. Elsie Brock's clothes were all wet and muddy; her hair, which was long and flaxen-colored, was also wet, and, hanging over her face, it gave her a funny expression as she came slowly toward us. Behind Will and Elsie were twelve or fifteen of our neighbors, old and young, hanging back a little, but still dragged along by the air of tragedy that hung over my brother and the girl.
Slowly my father walked toward Will and Elsie Brock. A big man was my father, standing six feet in his stockings, and he looked bigger as he went to meet the procession. Much bigger. And there was something about him that slowed up the little crowd that followed my brother.
When Will and the girl were within ten feet of my father, they halted. And my father halted. There in the middle of the avenue leading up from the road the three stood, while the little crowd crept closer, like jackals eager to be in on the feast of scandal, yet a little timid of my father.
"Well?" said my father, and his voice was cold as he eyed Will. "Well?" he cried again, and the word, black and challenging, rumbled away in the hot silence of the afternoon.
Weak and trembling was Will's voice as he answered. "It is Elsie Brock," he said.
"I know it is Elsie Brock!" cried my father. "I know that much! But what has happened? Tell me! Quick!"
"She—she," stammered Will, "she was turned out of her house and—and she threw herself in the river!"
Two or three of the neighbors nodded their heads solemnly as if they wished to back up Will's statement, but my father glanced at them with small pleasure on his face. Angry was my father at the great show that was being made of him and his farm on a Sunday afternoon.
My father stepped closer to Will and the girl. "What has it to do with you?" he asked.
"Because," began Will, "I—I—" He stopped then, his mouth open, his eyes upon my father's face. My father had lifted his hand as if he would strike a blow, and Will and the girl cowered before him. Poor Elsie Brock in her wet and muddy clothes looked awfully forlorn. There formed around her shoes a little pool of water, and although it was a warm afternoon her teeth chattered dreadfully. She would have fallen if she let go her clutch on the arm of my brother.
"You get out of here!" cried my father, speaking to Will. "Take her along with you and never come back!"
Then, as he roared out the words, I saw that my Aunt Morna had reached the side of my father. She was speaking to him in the quiet way that she had, a half whisper that had a soothing quality about it, and he and my mother listened attentively to her as they always listened to anything she said. For they knew that my aunt was a woman of great wisdom, a wisdom that startled them at times, as I well know.
A fine show it was for the folk who had followed Will and the girl. Oh, a fine free show for them. Not a blink in the eyes of one of them. They wished to record everything so that they could tell of the happening in detail over the Sunday supper table.
After my aunt had spoken to my father and mother for a few minutes she turned toward Will and Elsie Brock. I have written that my aunt, although completely blind, had about her movements a sort of confidence that I have never seen in a person deprived of sight. She was never nervous, putting her feet down with a sureness that was surprising. And on that Sunday afternoon she seemed more certain of herself than ever. Like a silken wind she moved swiftly and quickly toward the poor sobbing girl.
Elsie Brock saw her coming. Poor wet Elsie. She saw the look upon the beautiful face of my aunt. The blessed light of charity that came out like the soft hands of angels and brushed her sorrow away. The girl gave a little cry of joy, and next instant my aunt had her in her arms.
Fine were our neighbors at that moment. Fine, indeed. The fever of curiosity was upon them but they realized that the show, as far as they were concerned, was over. They drifted silently away, and my aunt led Elsie Brock into the house.
Will, after watching my aunt and the girl disappear into the house, rushed away to the barn. My father and mother followed Aunt Morna, speaking quietly together. I knew that something had been done that afternoon in memory of my sister Alice. Something splendid....
Elsie Brock, Aunt Morna, and Will were absent from the
supper table. Will stayed in the barn and refused to come
out. Elsie Brock was in bed in the attic room, and my aunt
kept her company. Mother took some food to Elsie, but
Aunt Morna ate nothing. Never was my aunt a great eater.
She nibbled at things, and although she was never ill or
sickly, it was always a mystery as to how she could keep
body and soul together on the small amount of nourishment
she took.
Nothing was said at the table about the startling affair of the afternoon, but, later, my sister Joan told Joe and me that Aunt Morna had agreed to pay the board and lodging of Elsie Brock and all expenses connected with her stay at our house. We didn't know what expenses there would be, but we, being children, thought it would be something connected with the cleaning and drying of Elsie's clothes.
We had three visitors on the Monday following. There
was in the village a man named Bliven, who, though not an
ordained minister, went around the countryside preaching to
any group of persons that would listen to him. Folk said
that he knew the Bible from beginning to end, but that
was about all he did know. He was a thin-faced man with
weak eyes, and his beard was scanty, the hairs growing far
apart from each other like a poor barley crop in a drought
season.
About eleven on that Monday morning Mr. Bliven came up the avenue from the main road. He was wearing a long white silk coat over his broadcloth vest and trousers, and he carried a high hat in his hands. And he walked slowly, his face upturned.
Aunt Morna had led Elsie Brock out into our garden, and Elsie was picking flowers and handing them to my aunt when Mr. Bliven came up the path. Mr. Bliven saw Elsie and he stopped. Carefully he placed his high hat on the ground, then clasping his hands together and rolling his eyes he cried out in a loud voice: "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death!"
Frightening was Mr. Bliven. He had a queer voice, a voice that seemed to leap and jump in the air, and his words always hung around an awful long time after he had said them.
"Who is that?" asked my aunt. "Who said that?"
I answered her, because Elsie Brock could not speak. "It's Preacher Bliven from the village," I said.
"Why does he come here?" cried my aunt. "Jimmy, tell your father to order him out!"
I told Aunt Morna that my father was not at the house, he having gone down to the Garland place. Mr. Bliven looked as if he had no intention of going away till he had finished his piece. He dropped upon both knees, just missing his hat, then, in a still louder voice, he spoke again: "But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence!"
My mother, my sister Joan and my brother Joe had rushed out of the house when they heard Preacher Bliven's first frenzied yell, and now we all stood and looked at him without knowing what to do. The curious thing about it was that Mr. Bliven took no notice of us, although he was on my father's land. He was looking at the sky, his arms uplifted, the sleeves of the silk coat falling back from his bony wrists. He was "wrestling," as he called it, "wrestling" for the soul of Elsie Brock that he thought had been grabbed by the devil.
He had started another verse when my aunt acted. She thrust the frightened Elsie aside and moved swiftly toward the spot where Preacher Bliven was kneeling. His voice guided her accurately; she stopped within three feet of him.
"Hypocrite!" cried my aunt. "Go away from here! Your voice—your voice gives the lie to your words! Go away!"
Mr. Bliven rose to his feet, his little red eyes fixed upon the face of my aunt. He was a trifle rattled by my aunt's attack, but he wasn't vanquished. He had possibly heard a few opinions of others concerning himself before that August morning.
"Blind woman," he cried, "stand not in my way! Did not the angel of the Lord say to the apostles: Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life! And this girl who has sinned—"
Then, and then only, did I see my aunt show anger. Her white hand flashed out and struck the blathering ranter across the mouth. An extraordinary thing for my aunt to do. Always there was about her a gentleness that was indescribable, but the attack of Mr. Bliven on Elsie Brock had stirred her in a curious way. The fighting blood of the O'Neills showed itself at that moment.
"Your voice makes a lie of your words!" cried my aunt, as Mr. Bliven backed away from her. "You—you are a sinner! A great sinner! I know! I know by the color of your voice!"
Mr. Bliven was on the defensive then. He lost his impudence before the statements of my aunt, the statements that seemed to have about them a basis of truth so great that all who listened wondered how Aunt Morna had found out things about the private life of a man whom she had not heard of till that morning. There was no doubt that Mr. Bliven was a hypocrite. The words of my aunt were stayed with the invisible pillars of truth.
"The color of my voice?" bleated Bliven. "How—how do you know by the color of my voice?"
"God has colored it for those who cannot see," said my aunt softly. "Go away! You and your words are not wanted."
Mr. Bliven was beaten. There was upon his face a look of astonishment, of bewilderment, of fear. He backed away from my aunt, keeping his small eyes fixed upon her face for some fifteen feet or more, then he turned hurriedly and made for the road.
No one ever saw Mr. Bliven in the village after that day. He took the coach in the afternoon and rode off without leaving an address. The small amount of furniture that he had in his cottage on Spring Street was claimed by Mr. Briggs, the lawyer, who had his note for money loaned. Lots of rumors spread around the countryside. It was said that his name was not Bliven, and that he had served several terms in prison for fraud, but I do not know if these stories were true.
That same afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Brock, the mother and father of Elsie, came over to our farm. They were dressed up in their Sunday clothes and they looked very solemn. My father and mother received them in the parlor, and, later, when Mrs. Brock's voice hinted that she was a little hysterical, my aunt went into the room. Once when I passed the window of the parlor I heard the soft voice of my aunt struggling with the screechy voice of Mrs. Brock, struggling with it, overpowering it with the very beauty and sweetness that came from every word uttered by Aunt Morna, quieting it completely by making Mrs. Brock curiously aware of the hysteria that was in her statements.
My father came out of the parlor, harnessed Gipsy and drove to the village. He brought back the Rev. Mr. Falkner, a grey-haired, little man who was loved by all the countryside. A very nice man was Mr. Falkner. He never thought anyone was worse than what they were, and that's a good way to win the heart of a boy.
Will got into his best clothes, and Elsie Brock wore a dress of my sister Joan. They went into the parlor together and there they were married by Mr. Falkner. A kind man was Mr. Falkner. He came out later holding Elsie's hand in his and speaking to her softly. And he made Mr. and Mrs. Brock smile, although smiling was not their usual occupation. I knew that Mr. Falkner was a good man by watching my aunt's face as she talked to him. My aunt knew.
We had a beautiful supper that evening, Will and Elsie sitting together and laughing at everything that my father and mother said to them.
LETTERS continued to come from Mr. Murray. Letters from great, colorful cities that throbbed with life, letters from little out-of-the-way places in which at some time in the dead centuries Romance had blossomed and had left for ever its undying perfume. Clever, indeed, was Mr. Murray as a letter writer.
Up through the Tyrol he went, and my aunt and I followed him with "the thousand eyes of imagination." Through tiny towns that by some curious chance had been made into stages for great happenings. And each of these little spots was turned into a lute string by Mr. Murray, a lute string that he used to gain the attention of my aunt. On the great dark walls that were ever before her he drew pictures in color. In splendid color.
He pulled her through the shady arcades of Trento and Botzen, up over the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck to see the gilded copper roof the Goldene Dachl shining in the morning light. His letters thrilled me although I hated him with a great hate, and I know that they thrilled my aunt much more than they did me. For my aunt was certain that she would never see the wonders of which Mr. Murray wrote, while I, with that cocksureness of youth, thought that in good time I might see all the wonders of the world.
Letters and letters. From St. Moritz, where the rich play and grow more bored with their playing; from Chamonix, where the churchyard holds the bodies of many who died because they taunted the gods of the high places who sit on the terrible peaks above the village; from five-score hamlets along the Rhine where the stones of old castles breathe legends....
The leaves of the maples turned yellow and red, and through the quiet afternoons of the fall whispered to my aunt of the change in their dress. For my aunt loved the maples greatly and was never tired of hearing about them. "Sometimes, Jimmy," she would say, "I feel that I can see them still! You remember—you remember they made the last splendid splash of color for me before the night came down."
"Yes, I remember," I would answer, and a feeling of great sadness would come to me as I recalled that day on which my aunt asked me to be her eyes. How bravely she had marched into the terrible darkness.
All through September and October I waited for a letter
from Olaf Hanson. I became uneasy about Olaf. I wondered if
he was resting somewhere in the slime below the great sea
lanes, up and down which go the ships of the world. And I
wondered if my letter, like the one that contained the two
thousand dollars for the sailor who never called for it,
was growing shabbier and shabbier at the Coffin of Hope.
Then in the first week of December came a letter, from the Swede. A letter whose little words shone like gold before my eyes. Fine and triumphant were the words, and the sentences as I chanted them aloud were like the music of silver trumpets blown on hilltops. Never was there such a letter.
This is what Olaf Hanson wrote to me:
Dear Yimmy:
The Irisher woman tole a beeg whopin lie. Hugh Renshaw heem not maried at all. Heem singel mans who no likes womens a bit. I speak to one norwegin sailor who work tree munths for Captain Hugh. He is trader now with fine schooner he own heemself. He buy evryting, copra, sandalwood, perls, raw rubber, evryting. Make a hell of a lot of money. Heem sail his schooner to all the leetil Hands twene Singapore an New Zeland. Heem buy things from the niggers and make a heep of dollars. I go to Constanteenopel come back tree munths. My regards to the blind lady.
Yore frend, Olaf Hanson.
P.S. Captain Hugh name his schooner the Morna.
My aunt was alone in the parlor when I brought the letter to her. Alone in the soft gloom of the December afternoon. Very beautiful she looked as I tiptoed to the door and stood for a moment watching her. I hardly breathed, but my presence was made known to her.
"Shamuseen," she murmured. Then, as I did not answer, she said: "What is it? You have something to tell me."
"I have had a letter from Olaf Hanson," I cried.
There was no need to tell my aunt that it was a pleasant letter, for that she knew by my voice, came close to her and read it slowly, very slowly. And, as I read, I saw the soft flush of pleasure steal across her face. It brought her dreams, fine and splendid dreams. But the postscript I clung to, clung to for long minutes. I was afraid, a little afraid of the effect it would have upon my aunt.
"There is a little postscript," I said, after a long period of silence.
My aunt did not speak. From my voice she knew that it was something important.
"It is only a line," I whispered. "Olaf writes this: 'P.S. Captain Hugh name his schooner the Morna.'"
There came from the red lips of my aunt, those lips that were a proud exultant red in their own right, a strange little cry. A cry that startled me because of the sweet pain and joy that was in it. The body of the letter had come to her soul like myrrh and frankincense, but the postscript was startling, a little terrifying, yet, withal, carrying an unbelievable thrill.
"Say that again, Shatnuseen!" she breathed. "Again!"
And I repeated the words again. And a third time I poured them into the silence of the parlor. For they thrilled me as they passed between my lips. No words that I had ever heard had their value. They were scarlet and gold. They were filled with a beautiful sorcery. They had the wonder-working magic of those powerful words in the Book of the Dead which, when uttered by the right person, can send souls to hell or to heaven.
On that day and the next, and for many days after,
my Aunt Morna and I travelled. Travelled in the ship of
dreams. Through all the little islands between Singapore
and New Zealand. Down through the hot Malay! Through the
Coral Sea! Threading our way through the fifty thousand
isles and atolls of the Pacific! The route of Captain Hugh
Renshaw and the schooner Morna!
I found an atlas which I brought to my aunt. Softly she spoke to me.
"Read me the names of the little islands and the towns, Shamuseen beg," she pleaded. "Read me their names."
And I read her the names of tiny spots that were little spadefuls of earth that God had dropped when building continents. Green atolls that He spread here and there as footstools for the angels. I read them to my aunt. And I knew from her face that my reading painted beautiful pictures for her soul that had a million eyes. Yes, a million eyes.
Down through the Karimata Strait into the Java Sea went the dream ship that we had bought with the postscript of poor Olaf Hanson. Spice winds sweeping us along. Wee islands popping up like the heads of green seals. Villages of nipa-palm waving little flags to welcome us. Dyaks and Klings, Papuans, Javanese, Fijians, and Samoans selling us the winds for our cobweb sails....
I read to my aunt the names of towns at which we called. Names that dripped romance. Banjermasin, Soerabaja, Semarang, Makassar, Kuching, Gorontolo, and a thousand more. By the very ropes of desire we dragged the Malay and Polynesia to our New Hampshire farmhouse. Dragged it by dream cables that are stronger than all the chains forged by man.... We followed the Morna, a white, white schooner that roved through the Isles of the Blest....
We called at the little glittering atolls of the Louisiade. Rose-pink pearls would be there.... We struck away to the south, heading for the isles of Fiji.
"Copra, there," I would whisper. "Tons and tons of copra."
And my aunt would smile. Together we blessed the Swede. Blessed his scrawled letter that had built the dream ship in which we sailed.
We called at the Samoan Group. We climbed the hill to see the tomb of Robert Louis Stevenson. We wondered if Hugh Renshaw had been there. Perhaps. We pictured him reading the lines, wondering a little if he would ever gain the peace by returning, like "the sailor home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill"....
Happy indeed was I during those first weeks of December.
Very, very happy. And I knew that my aunt was happier than
she had been during the whole time of her stay with us. She
and I rode the wild mounts of the wind-gods that laugh at
space.
I wonder how anyone can dream dreams in cities. It seems impossible. One is in a box into which the winds of the world cannot enter, and one requires the winds for dreams. To me during those years came a feeling that I was sitting on the broad lap of a splendid America that ran wide and untrammeled to the seas. Not hemmed in by mean streets and tenements was I. Glory be, no! The breezes that came to our farm in the soft night watches were breezes that had crossed the continent. Vagabond winds that had snatched up the perfumes of Californian orange groves, filched the sweet odors of the wheatfields of Wyoming and Dakota, in which they rolled like playful puppies, stored cunningly the warm smell of desert stretches over which they had whooped in high glee.
My aunt told me once of a town in Ireland that was cursed by a holy man to whom the inhabitants had been unkind. He ordered the winds to turn aside when they came to the town, and the winds obeyed him. Never did they enter the town, and for hundreds and hundreds of years the dwellers in the place had no dreams. No dreams at all.
When I was ready to answer that letter of Olaf Hanson's,
my aunt spoke to me. "Jimmy," she said, "would you please
read to me anything you write to Olaf that concerns me?
Just the little bits that that you put in about me?"
"Why, yes," I stammered, a little taken back by my aunt's question. For I knew well what she meant. To her had come a great fear lest my questioning of the Swede would prompt him at some time or another to get in touch with Captain Hugh Renshaw, and, although this was what I hoped would come about, it was not what my aunt wanted.
"You understand, Jimmy?" she said softly.
"Sure, I understand," I answered. "Of course I understand."
But I wasn't pleased at that order. I had put together in my mind quite a fine letter that I was going to write to Olaf Hanson. A letter that I thought would fix up the trouble that existed between my aunt and Hugh Renshaw. I was going to do it this way. I was going to get Olaf to write to the Norwegian sailor who had shipped with Captain Hugh and get from him a list of the ports that the schooner Morna called at, and then, when I got those, I would send an unsigned note to Hugh Renshaw. Just a short note. I would write something like this: "Morna O'Neill didn't go to America to find a millionaire. She went because she was going blind. She lives at the Old Mill Farm, Chesterbury, New Hampshire, U.S.A."
But the order of my aunt stopped me from doing anything like that. Of course she had not mentioned the name of Hugh Renshaw, but I knew well what she meant. Aunt Morna had a way of telling you something in a few soft words that meant an awful lot, something that another person couldn't tell you in a week of talking.
The letter which I wished to write nearly drove me mad. I couldn't put it out of my mind. It was with me all my waking hours, and in the nights it crept into my dreams. While I slept it would rise up before me and I would see the envelope that I had addressed carefully to Captain Hugh Renshaw, Schooner Morna, c/o Harbor Master, such and such a port, and each night the name of the port would be different on the dream letter. One night it would be Benkoelen, Sumatra, and the next night it would be Levuka, Fiji Islands, or Makassar, Celebes, or something else. The unwritten letter worried me so much that at times I was a little angry with my aunt.
In my dreams I would see the Harbor Master at some enchanted port handing the letter to the tall captain of the schooner Morna who had just come ashore. I would see Hugh Renshaw glance at the stamps and the handwriting, wondering a little what American boy had written to him. I would see his face as he read the note, see the look of astonishment turn to one of great joy. Splendid joy because the black thoughts that he had held regarding Morna O'Neill had been swept away by the words I had written.
I would see him leaping back into the boat that had brought him from the schooner to the wharf. I would hear his voice as he urged the sailors to pull as swiftly as they could back to the Morna. Up the swinging ladder to the deck, orders flying from his lips. Up with the anchor! Shake out the sails! Swing her head to sea! Where to? Why to the United States, of course! To New York! No, no, not to New York! Boston! Yes, yes, Boston! Boston is nearer to New Hampshire! Nearer to her!...
All this I would dream. Night after night I would see it happening as I was sure it would happen if I was allowed to write the letter. The harbor master would always be fat and untidy while Captain Renshaw would be dressed in white drill with white cap and canvas shoes. And some of the ports were a little frightening. Lost ports on the shores of space. Ports where sun-baked trading-houses stood knee-deep in the water to lure the passing ships. Lewd ports. Ports where the devil's standard—a pack of cards, a bottle of rum, and a grinning dancing girl—was clinched to the harbor buoy!
And there were ports where bumboat men sold little carven things to sailormen. Rickshaws carved in tortoise shell, tiny krisses in silver, wee bronze Buddhas perched on lotus leaves, teakwood elephants with toes stained with cochineal. And always I would wake thinking that Hugh Renshaw had brought a load of these little gewgaws to my beautiful Aunt Morna. Masses of them that he poured at her feet.... I was but twelve years of age at the time, and boys of twelve dream strange dreams....
ON Christmas morning I carried the milk to Mrs. Parks, the housekeeper of the Murray Place, and when I reached the terrace that led to the kitchen I got a great surprise. For Mr. Murray himself stepped out of the big salon that was all decorated in green and gold, and, with his hands thrust in his pockets, stood in front of me, grinning as he noted the surprise upon my face.
"Hello, Jimmy!" he cried. "How is everyone at the farm?"
When I recovered my breath, which had been knocked out of me by his sudden appearance, I told him that we were all in good health, he grinning as he listened.
"And Aunt Morna is quite well?" he asked.
"Quite well, thank you," I answered.
"I sent her some letters while I was away in Europe," he went on. "I suppose you read them to her?"
"Yes, I read them to her," I said. Mr. Murray was rocking backwards and forwards on his heels and toes, watching me with his clever grey eyes. I made a movement to pass him so that I could reach the kitchen, but he blocked me.
"You are a sort of fidus Achates to your aunt, are you not?" he said. "Do you know what I mean?"
"No, Mr. Murray," I replied. "I don't know what you mean."
"Well, you seem to be a sort of small watchdog for Aunt Morna," he explained. "A bit of a terrier running round her and snapping at people that you think have not the right to approach her. Sit down here and let me talk to you."
I didn't sit down because Mr. Murray, who continued to stand, appeared, to my way of thinking, too far above me as it was, and after a little silence, during which he studied me carefully, he started to speak in a low voice, glancing from time to time at the salon as if he was afraid that Mrs. Parks would overhear what he was saying.
"Listen, Jimmy," he began, "you don't like me and you carry your dislike to your aunt. You put it into her mind. You drop your damned hate—Wait a moment till I finish talking, then you can speak! You drop your damned hate into her head, confound you, and I'm blocked! Wait a moment! I've been away nearly a year and I can't get Aunt Morna out of my head. I'm confessing to you because I want your help. I've travelled all over Europe and North Africa trying to push the picture of her out of my mind, and here I am back in New Hampshire worse off than ever. Do you understand? I'm back, and ... and....
"Listen to me, Jimmy! It's going to be peace or war between you and me. Peace or war! Get that into your small head. I'm going to make your aunt like me, and—and if you are wise you'll work on my side. Are you listening?"
"Yes, Mr. Murray," I answered.
"Good," he snapped, straightening himself and looking down at me as I stood with the milk can in front of him. "I'm going to make a proposition to you. I'll help you with your education and when you are ready to work I'll find you a good job. I'll do more. I'll buy you an interest in any business that you take a liking to. When you grow up a bit you might like to get hold of some small newspaper. You want to write, don't you? Well I'll fix it. You might own a paper like the Dover Daily Democrat if you're clever enough to sing my praises to your aunt. I'll be your friend, and Bill Murray is a friend that a lot of folk would like to have behind them."
"Yes, Mr. Murray," I said as he paused and looked at me.
"If I'm your enemy," continued Mr. Murray, and there was an ugly frown on his face as he spoke, "you'll be mighty sorry, Jimmy. I've got a lot of power in this part of the world, and if any small boy starts to throw wrenches into my plans he'll live to regret it."
"Yes," I said again, not meaning anything at all by the word, but thinking that I should say something when Mr. Murray paused and looked at me with his cunning grey eyes.
"Well, what is your answer?" cried Mr. Murray. "What have you got to say to my proposition? Are you going to be my friend or my enemy?"
"I'm going to be neither," I stammered. "I—I couldn't praise you to my aunt! I couldn't!"
"Why not?" he cried angrily.
"Because," I gasped, "because I can't!"
"You young devil!" he cried, and his face was white with anger as he leaned over me. "You young devil! If I catch you telling tales about me I'll thrash the life out of you! I'll—" He pulled himself up, took a big breath of air and tried to choke back the fury that had gripped him.
"It's all right, Jimmy," he said, after a short pause, and he tried to smile down at me as he spoke, "if we can't be close friends we needn't be deadly enemies. If you feel that you cannot work for me you needn't work against me. Just let the matter rest at that. And you needn't say anything about this, Jimmy. I mean about our little talk. You understand? Here, can you do anything with a five dollar bill?"
"No, Mr. Murray," I answered.
He swore softly, put the bill back in his pocket, stepped into the salon and banged the door. I went round to the kitchen and gave the milk to Mrs. Parks. She looked at me in a funny way but she asked no questions.
When I got back to our farm the family were at breakfast. I sat down opposite my aunt where I could see her face, and after my mother had given me a plate of porridge I spoke. "Mr. Murray is at the big house," I said.
"Is he?" cried my mother, astonished at the news.
"Yes," I said, still keeping a watch on my aunt. "He asked about everyone, and I told him that we were all in good health."
"Well, well," said my father. "It's strange of him coming up here on Christmas Day. Are there any friends with him?"
"I didn't see any," I answered. "I think he's alone."
Now the quiet, beautiful face of my aunt told me nothing. Nothing at all. It did not change as she listened to the questions that were asked by my mother and father. She just sat silent, nibbling a piece of dry toast and sipping a cup of tea, that being all she needed for her breakfast. She showed no interest at all in the arrival, and this seemed strange to me after the talk between Mr. Murray and myself.
During the morning I wondered much about the threats made by Mr. Murray. I was a little afraid of him because he was a grown man and very rich, while I was a small boy whose parents were poor. I walked around in a sort of daze, wondering a lot what he could do to me if he got really angry. I thought, being little, he might have the power to put me in prison, and visions of the dark cell that my brother Will had told about sprang into my mind and frightened me greatly.
Before dinner I read to my aunt, and while I read I felt that my aunt was listening to my voice instead of the words that I read to her.
"What is wrong, Jimmy?" she asked. "You are not happy."
"Oh, I'm all right," I said. "I'm fine."
"I thought," said my aunt softly, "that you were a little worried, a little afraid."
"Not me," I said, trying to laugh but knowing well that I couldn't fool my aunt by laughing.
"If you don't wish to tell me about it you needn't," she murmured. "But don't be afraid. Fear is only the hunger of courage. If we feed our courage we will never know it."
"And how can you feed your courage?" I asked.
"By doing only what you think is right," answered my aunt, and she patted my hand as she spoke.
We were just about to sit down to our Christmas dinner
when Mr. Murray appeared at the door of the kitchen. Behind
him was Mr. Hemmings, the gardener at the Murray Place, and
Mr. Hemmings was carrying a basket that held six bottles of
wine.
After shaking hands with my mother and father and my aunt, Mr. Murray turned to my mother and spoke.
"I got lonely up at my house," he said. "There is no one there there and I would have to eat my Christmas dinner alone. I thought about the jolly company down here and I wondered if I could squeeze in. I've brought half a dozen bottles of wine to pay for my seat."
My mother assured him that he would be welcome if he came empty-handed, and after we had been pushed here and there to make more room, he sat down close to my aunt.
Mr. Murray could talk as well as he could write. Words hopped from his lips like popcorn from a roaster. Clever words that one's ears seemed to hunger for. He told during the meal of places that he had seen, and we listened in silence because they were places of which we knew little. Now, years later, I can recall his words at that Christmas dinner. His words about Venice and the fine palaces on the Grand Canal with the gondolas rushing backwards and forwards, all of which was very interesting to my father. Of course my father knew about Venice, he having read about it in books, but my father had the Irish liking for human speech. Spoken words were so much more to him than books, for the Irish, although great talkers, are also great listeners.
"And< all the streets are water?" said my father. "And that's strange."
"All the streets are water," said Mr. Murray smiling.
Then, as a contrast to Venice, he told of a trip he had made from Oran, in Algeria, through the dry wastes running southward to Beni-Ounif, a little town that sits on the very lip of the terrible Sahara. And this story, although a simple one, had a great effect upon our lives in the months that followed. A tremendous effect. For the telling of it gave Mr. Murray an idea, a fine idea as to how he could thrust himself into the affairs of my father. And it was strange that he did not know the value of the story till he had told it. It was then, as he glanced at my father, that he saw the opening which it gave him.
He told it well. A pleasant voice he had and, as I have written, many words to do its bidding. "They told me at Oran that there were four hundred thousand date palms at Beni-Ounif," began Mr. Murray, "and Beni-Ounif is in the wastes. As we rode southward I told myself that they had lied to me. I laughed as I looked at the hot desert country through which the little train ran. Not a blade of grass visible! Mud villages crouching in the fierce sunshine that cracked the walls of the little huts! 'There are no four hundred thousand date palms down here,' I said to myself. 'The fools who saw them were drunk! They saw a mirage!' There was nothing but sand, Michael! Nothing but sand and rock for miles and miles! Could you believe a story like that when you were running through a desert that couldn't support a goat? And then—then up out of the sand they rose! Up out of the sea of white sand!"
My father gurgled with astonishment, for he loved a well-told story. And Mr. Murray was telling of that trip in fine style.
"Up out of the wastes! Like the green hair of a god! Waving their tufted crowns to high heaven! Green, green, gloriously green! It wasn't a mirage! It was truth! Slowly, ever so slowly, the little train puffed towards them! Four hundred thousand date palms! The splendid, waving palms of Beni-Ounif"....
After a little while my father spoke. "And how does it happen?" he asked.
Mr. Murray laughed. "There is an underground river that supplies the oasis," he explained, "and God does the rest."
My father sighed. "Then I wish I was farming in Africa instead of farming in New Hampshire," he said.
It was then that the idea sprang into the mind of Mr. Murray. I was watching him at the moment. His grey eyes were upon my father. My father, who was a little tired with his endless battle against the not-too-generous soil of New Hampshire. And the fatigue that was upon my father, together with the interest he showed in the palms that grew without effort and trouble, made Mr. Murray see a way to horn in on the affairs of our family. And he was not slow to put it into execution. Not slow at all.
MY father went up to the Murray Place on the day after Christmas. He spent the morning with Mr. Murray in the library, and when he came home to dinner he was much excited. Dreadfully excited. He tried to keep the reason for his excitement a secret, but that was a difficult thing for my father to do. A very difficult thing, for, like the great majority of the Irish, he thought that two things—whisky and good news—should be shared with all the world. From the scraps that he let fall during the meal—the little scraps that broke through the guard of secrecy—we knew that Mr. William Murray had shown a sudden interest in our small farm and had offered to advance money for its development!
Startling news to me, and, I think, a little startling to my Aunt Morna, although her face as she sat and listened to my father's excited remarks gave no clue to her thoughts. Once only did she say something that made me think that the idea was distasteful to her. "I have a little money that I could give you for machinery and things," said my aunt quietly.
"A little?" said my father. "But this will take a lot! Thousands! And why should you take the risk with your bit of money when he has a million or more?"
"Who says he has a million?" asked my aunt.
"The whole countryside knows he has!" cried my father. "He told me himself today of the great profits that his company makes down in New York. They sell and buy stocks and on every one they touch they make anything from a quarter to ten dollars! It's the finest business that I ever heard of!"
My aunt saw that it was useless to talk to my father. He was in a sort of trance brought about by the smooth words of Mr. Murray, words that had pictured the possibilities of our farm if capital was put into it. Strange, indeed, it was how the new state of things had been brought about. Mr. Murray had taken a trip to the edge of the Sahara; he had been impressed by the oasis and the growing palms; he had given a fine account of it to my father, and the delight of my father in hearing how Arabs got a living by sitting in the shade and letting the date palms work for them had brought the idea into the mind of Mr. Murray. He couldn't give my father ten thousand date palms because the climate of New Hampshire was not suitable for date palms, but he could tell him how labor could be avoided with machinery, and he could offer to supply the money to buy the machinery.
Busy days were those that followed the long talk that
my father had with Mr. Murray in the library of the Murray
Place. Our little farm had been run on very simple lines.
My father was not a modern farmer. He knew little of
scientific methods and of the clever ways to increase his
crops. He farmed in a sort of slipshod fashion, and at the
end of the year there was little or nothing on the right
side of the ledger.
Mr. Murray put an end to those sleepy years. On the day following the conference he arrived at our place with his secretary who had come up from Boston in response to a telegraphed order. The secretary carried a large notebook, and he followed my father and Mr. Murray around the farm, taking from time to time notes as to the changes that were to be effected and the implements and machinery that would be needed. And at a distance my brother Joe and I followed.
"Gee, this'll be great!" said Joe. "We're goin' to get machines for doing everything. We can just sit in the shade an' watch them work."
I hated Joe when he said that. Hated him with a strange hate that frightened me.
All through that day and the next Mr. Murray, my father, and the secretary plodded around the farm. The news spread over the countryside. The Hutchinsons and the Mannings were interested. They walked over to our place on silly errands and listened around, wondering much what Mr. Murray and his secretary were doing. My mother was a little nervous; my aunt said nothing after her offer to loan money to my father had been refused.
"Dreams," said my aunt once, "are the holiday hours of
the soul." And in the bustling days that had come suddenly
to our farm I realized that my aunt had spoken a great
truth. To both of us, who hated the new era, the dreams
we dreamed made the life bearable. For Mr. Murray had the
freedom of our house now, and because of the things that he
was doing for my father my aunt had to be nice to him. Yes,
she had to be nice to him. For Morna O'Neill was a sweet
woman, and, although she had her own opinion about the
interference of Mr. Murray, it was foreign to her nature
to breathe the slightest criticism on what was being done.
So we went forward with great leaps and plunges that were
a little startling and a little terrifying. Sometimes I
thought I saw fear on the face of my father, and once I
found my mother crying bitterly, her apron covering her
face. My brother Will, who worked very hard, said nothing.
Will was not a talkative fellow.
I continued to read books to my aunt, and I told her many things that I found out from the atlas and from books that were written about the parts of the world in which the schooner Morna with its captain, Hugh Renshaw, sailed. Strange bits I found about the ports at which the Morna might call.
Little colored scraps of information that made us forget the new state of things upon the farm. That made us forget the continuous presence of Mr. Murray. Scraps that might seem to have no value, but which to my aunt and me were verbal lifebuoys to which our souls clung. Bits about ports that spewed strange goods of trade. Of Kuching, where the casuarina trees make a rustling sound as the winds play over them, so that the natives call them "talking trees;" of Batavia where at the Penang Gateway there is an old cannon that is worshiped by the natives and the Chinese; women bringing offerings of rice, flowers, perfumes, and trinkets; of Soerabaja where the natives weave a cloth so beautiful that it is called "running water;" of the island of Bali that is famous for its cows which are exported to other islands, they being fat and beautiful with large white spots on the haunches....
"We mustn't tell about those cows," said my aunt, smiling, when I read her the description of the island of Bali.
"Why?" I asked.
"Mr. Murray might wish to import a few for the farm," she answered. "And that would be a costly experiment."
We visited Mr. Crandon quite a number of times during those months of spring and early summer. Mr. Crandon was always delighted to see my aunt. He would run around her in the curious way that old men sometimes have, bringing her footstools and flowers and drinks that she didn't want, but which she accepted with that sweet grace of hers that made those who did a favor for her love her greatly.
Mr. Crandon never mentioned Mr. Murray to my aunt, but whenever I saw him alone he would say something about Mr. Murray. He would never mention the name. He spoke of him always as "the chap with the mud-colored voice," and he thought this a fine joke.
"Well, Jimmy," he said one day, "the chap with the mud-colored voice is hustling things along?"
"Yes, Mr. Crandon," I answered.
"That's splendid," he murmured. "That's splendid, Jimmy. Do you read the Bible much, Jimmy?"
"I read it to my Aunt Morna," I replied.
"There's a little verse in Ecclesiastes that always pleases me," said Mr. Crandon. "It runs: Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God. That's a fine comforting bit, Jimmy. I've seen the Almighty let out a left jolt on many a gentleman who thought he had cleared up the ring and had no one else to beat. A great scrapper is the Almighty. Lots of fellows think they're heavyweight champions of the universe, and, bing! He unlooses a punch and they're in dreamland."
Three days after Mr. Crandon told me of the verse in Ecclesiastes Mr. Murray got a tap in the face that didn't please him. The girl, Fanny Learning, who had once been a maid at the Murray Place, returned to the village with a child. A very sick child. Dr. Walcott did all he could for the little one, but it had been badly nourished and all that the doctor did was of no avail. It pined away and died.
Its death upset Fanny Learning. She screamed dreadfully, and neighbors feared that she would lose her reason. Along about dark on the day the infant died, the butler at the Murray Place brought a letter to Fanny, and in the letter was a one-hundred-dollar bill. Just the bill and nothing more.
Fanny Learning said nothing, but when it came dark she slipped away from her mother who had dropped off to sleep, she having been up three nights with the child. Fanny took the dead body of the little girl and walked up over Sheep Hill and by our house up to the Murray Place. She climbed over the fence and crept quietly up to the big entrance door. She put the dead infant on the steps and pinned the one-hundred-dollar bill to the little dress. Mrs. Parks, the housekeeper at the Murray Place, found the body and the bill next morning.
There was an awful lot of talk about the matter. There were some who thought that Fanny Learning would be sent to jail, but nothing happened to her.
Mrs. Parks, so it was said, kept the money that was pinned to the baby's dress. I do know that she tried to change a one-hundred-dollar bill at Mellor's store, but Mr. Mellor wouldn't change it. He said it would bring him bad luck if he kept it in the house. And the Misses Curley who kept the candy store wouldn't change it. Miss Ellen Curley in telling about the matter of Mrs. Parks asking for change of the bill, said her father had once changed a bill that a thief had taken from the pocket of a dead man, and when her father opened the till the next morning the bill had turned into a piece of charred paper although the other bills that were tied up with it were as good as new. No one ever found out what Mrs. Parks did with that hundred dollar note.
IN early summer Will's wife, Elsie, gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl. The boy was christened William, and the girl received my aunt's name, Morna. For Elsie never forgot the kindness of my aunt on that Sunday afternoon when Will brought her all wet and dripping to our farm.
Wonderful babies they were, wonderful to all of us, but especially to my aunt. She loved them with a great love. Hour after hour she would sit with one or the other of them in her arms, and this love for the little mites had a strange effect upon Danny Boone, the cat who knew that my aunt was blind.
Up to the coming of the twins, Danny Boone, whenever he wished to doze in comfort, would climb onto my aunt's lap, curl himself up with a little purr which informed my aunt that farm life was mighty hard on an elderly cat, and go to sleep. The arrival of the twins upset Danny's routine. He found that the twins had a liking for my aunt's knees and he resented the intrusion. He would walk around the house, moaning to himself in a curious manner, and he became so annoyed with my aunt that he would deliberately place himself in her way when she was walking from room to room. And this was strange, for he had, from the first day of her blindness, been careful to keep out of her path, he having found out in some marvelous manner that she could not see.
Strange, indeed, was this exhibition of the old cat's jealousy. It surprised us all. When he first got in my aunt's way and she stumbled slightly, we thought that old age had made him a little stupid, but when he continued to trip her up we knew that he was attempting to take revenge for her love of the twins. Then on a very warm afternoon in August Danny Boone did a singular thing. He sat before my aunt's chair for an hour or more, waiting patiently till Elsie took one of the twins from my aunt's knee, then, slowly and with great difficulty, he climbed into the lap of Aunt Morna. I was watching him at the moment. He tapped the hand of my aunt with his paw, tapped it softly as if he was bidding her farewell, then with a little moan he rolled over and lay quiet.
"Jimmy," said my aunt, "what is up with Danny?"
I walked over and lifted him from her lap. Danny Boone was dead.
Mr. Murray disliked cats, and he disliked Danny Boone in particular. When we were burying Danny the next day he made some comments that annoyed Aunt Morna greatly. For my aunt loved the cat for the strange wisdom that he had shown when she came to live with us, and the habit that he'd had of tapping her hand as if he wished to show approval of her courage in facing the darkness.
Working on the farm at the moment was a man called Bruton, who was a sort of spy for Mr. Murray, and this man, in an effort to please his master, kicked the shoe box in which I had placed Danny Boone. I cried out to him, and although I did not say what he had done, my aunt knew. She knew! She took a step in the direction of Bruton and stared at him, stared at him with her big sightless eyes! She didn't speak! She just stood, her white face turned full upon him, her big eyes level with his.
"Don't look at me like that!" cried Bruton. "Don't!"
"Someone might kick the box you are buried in," said my aunt softly. "Someone might. Just for fun, you know."
Bruton was awfully scared. He sneaked away on tiptoes as if he didn't wish my aunt to know in what direction he was going, and he looked back from time to time over his shoulder at her. But Mr. Murray only grinned.
During the summer Mr. Murray's control of the farm
became more and more apparent. It seemed as if my father
had dropped into the position of a hired man. Mr. Murray
gave his orders to Bruton, and Bruton delivered them to my
father.
It was curious to note how this interference on the part of Mr. Murray affected our family. My father, my mother, and my brother Will were, I could see, much upset by the ever-growing authority of our rich neighbor. My father talked a lot in a low tone to my mother, who seemed frightened and depressed. Will, at times, showed temper, and once, in the early part of September, he came to blows with Bruton, the man who brought the orders from Mr. Murray. In the exchange Bruton got a black eye, and the next day Mr. Murray came down to our place and spoke sharply to Will. He reminded my brother of the fight that Will had with Voerkens, the chauffeur, and of how badly Will had fared before old Judge Copley. I think my brother would have quit the farm that morning if my aunt had not talked with him and pointed out that it would be foolish to leave with his wife and his little babies.
My two brothers, Jack and Joe, liked the new era. They enjoyed the bustle and noise; my sister, Joan, was indifferent. My aunt said nothing, but I do know that the growing power of Mr. Murray made it difficult for her to dream dreams. Very difficult, indeed. This I knew from my own experience. Before that day on which my father had come to an arrangement with Mr. Murray it was easy to reach out in fancy and bring fine colorful pictures of the Orient to our little New Hampshire farm, but with each day that passed it became less easy to do this. Sometimes while reading to my aunt sweet words that brought pictures to both of us, we would hear a shouted order issued by Burton, or there came the voice of Mr. Murray, asking in his quiet forceful way why this or that hadn't been done as he had directed, and our visions fled. The voices of our new masters would wipe out the pictures of little green islands in colorful seas, seas through which a gallant white schooner carried a man that my aunt loved greatly.
"Did Olaf Hanson say the schooner was painted white?" said my aunt, one day as I read to her.
"No," I answered, "but I have always thought of the Morna as a white boat.
"I have, too," said my aunt. "That is strange."
Sometimes, as I watched my aunt, I thought that the new state of things had brought a shadow to her face. That glorious courage that she had shown from the moment misfortune fell upon her seemed to waver under the new life. A little fear was upon her, a fear for my mother and father whom she loved, a fear lest Will might lose his temper and thrash Bruton or Mr. Murray. For Will went around grumbling to himself in much the same manner that Danny Boone grumbled when the old cat found one of the twins on my aunt's lap.
I, too, felt that all the joy had gone out of our lives and that soon we would be the slaves of Mr. Murray who would marry my aunt and take her away so that I would never see her again. I was very depressed, indeed. Then, when I thought life unbearable, there came a letter from the Swede. An extraordinary letter. It had been posted in Barcelona, Spain, and the contents startled me. It ran:
Dear Yimmy:
I work on American boat now. She name Susquehanna now in port Barceloan. We go to Liverpool pretty soon den we go Boston. Captain tell bosun we only stay one day Boston. Yimmy I wisht I see you Boston. I make many questions to salers bote yore frend Hugh Renshaw. Hundreds a questions. I find Fort Said one lascar Captain Hugh kick off boat cause he one beeg thief. I buy from lascar somethink he stole a Captain Hugh who not know lascar stole it. I keep it for you. Doant tell blind lady. You come Boston see me Yimmy. I make yore eyes popped outer yore hed.
Yore frend Olaf Hanson.
It was a surprising letter to me. Again and again I read it. In the three days following its arrival I must have read it a thousand times. What had Olaf Hanson bought from the thieving Lascar who had sailed on the Morna? Why would the article make my eyes pop out of my head? Why had I to keep the matter a secret from my aunt? It was all very upsetting to a small boy. If I could have talked over the letter with Aunt Morna I would have been happy, but the Swede had stressed his order for secrecy, so I kept the arrival of the letter from my aunt, although the desire to tell her was such that I had to guard my tongue through every moment of the day.
On the afternoon of the third day I walked down to Caller Bridge and saw Mr. Crandon. I had to tell someone about the letter or I would have gone insane. And I knew that Mr. Crandon liked me and liked my aunt, and that he would help me if he could.
Sitting in the sunshine in front of Mr. Crandon's house I told him of the strange things connected with my aunt's life. Of the coming of the darkness to her, of her splendid courage when she lied bravely to Hugh Renshaw regarding the reason for her voyage to America, of Renshaw's anger when she convinced him that she was seeking a wealthy man, although the real reason was her desire to free him from a helpless sweetheart. And Mr. Crandon was much moved by this part of my story.
I told of the tale that Olaf Hanson had related concerning the young sailor who had rescued the Dutch prima donna in the harbor of Batavia, and of the efforts the poor Swede made to remember the name, which he did recall months and months later in Marseilles; and of the great joy that came to my aunt when Olaf Hanson wrote that he had met a man who sailed with Captain Hugh Renshaw on a schooner called the Morna.
From time to time told of little matters that concerned Mr. Murray. How he pestered my aunt, how he had written the fine letters when he was abroad, and how, at the moment, he seemed to control our farm and the lives of all who lived on it. All this I told to Mr. Crandon, for he was a man to whom a small boy could speak without fear. Then, when I had told him everything, I showed him the letter that Olaf Hanson had mailed at Barcelona.
Mr. Crandon read the letter three times, then he spoke. "This is a strange letter, Jimmy," he said, "and it's a strange story that you have told me about your aunt. It's a fine bit of weaving that the Almighty is doing."
"My aunt says that life is just a piece of tapestry woven by the fingers of God," I said.
"She is not far wrong, Jimmy," murmured Mr. Crandon, still staring at the letter that Olaf Hanson had written. "The Almighty has a great loom. A fine loom indeed. And now and then he runs the splendid thread of a woman like your aunt beside a grey thread that doesn't mean much to Him. A grey thread whose owner might think it's the finest thing in the pattern but which to the Almighty has been a nuisance ever since it got into the weft."
"Yes, Mr. Crandon," I said, although I didn't exactly know what he was talking about. But I did think that my aunt's life, if it was represented by a thread, would make a very beautiful thread indeed. Of a color that a great artist might dream about and yet not be able to produce.
Mr. Crandon sat for a long time thinking, then he turned and spoke to me. "We must go to Boston, Jimmy!" he said. "You and I must go. The Lord has picked you to mind His loom for a few minutes, and there might be a little job for me. Someone—someone, Jimmy, must throw out the snippings of grey thread that He cuts from the pattern."
"But I cannot go to Boston!" I cried.
"Why not?" asked Mr. Crandon.
"Because my mother wouldn't let me," I answered. "And I have no money to buy my ticket."
"I will ask permission of your mother to take you for a little trip," said Mr. Crandon. "And I have plenty of money. This is a big matter, Jimmy. What does Mr. Hanson say? 'I buy from lascar sometink he stole a Captain Hugh who do not know lascar stole it. Doant tell blind lady. You come Boston see me, Yimmy. I make yore eyes popped outer yore head.'"
The words of the Swede seemed very mysterious as Mr. Crandon read them aloud. Very mysterious, indeed. And yet they were words that I thought might be written about the affairs of my aunt, because, as I have said, there was a glamorous mystery connected with everything relating to my aunt. Nothing commonplace or stupid could be associated with her. And the little white feet of Romance walked before her. I think that into the dull world, from time to time, there comes a person like my aunt. A person that makes us think that realism is but the mud on yesterday's shoes while Romance is the dream of the soul, and is, unfortunately for most of us, always out of reach of our spiritual fingertips.
"Have you any idea what it can be?" asked Mr. Crandon.
"No, Mr. Crandon," I answered. "I have worried my head for three days and I cannot think what it is that he wishes to give me."
"Well, Jimmy, we must find out," said Mr. Crandon. "I know a shipping reporter in Boston. I will write him this afternoon and ask him to let us know when the Susquehanna is near port, then we'll slip down and see the Swede. Don't you worry, Jimmy. I'll get permission from your parents. This is a big matter because—because we are fighting the chap with the mud-colored voice. And I've got an account—" Mr. Crandon choked back something that he was going to tell me, and after a little silence I said goodbye to him and went back to the farm.
ON the fifteenth of October I was passing Caller Bridge on my way to the village when Mr. Crandon rushed out of his house waving a slip of paper. The slip was a telegram just arrived, and it came from the shipping reporter at Boston. It told Mr. Crandon that the Susquehanna was sighted some five hundred miles off the coast and that she would probably dock sometime on the evening of the seventeenth. Mr. Crandon was much excited, and I was thrilled greatly by reading the words on the form.
"I'll walk along with you and ask permission of your father and mother," said Mr. Crandon.
"I'm afraid they won't let me go," I said.
"Oh, yes, they will, Jimmy!" he cried. "This is a business that the Lord has taken in hand, and when He is interested everything goes fine."
My mother and father were a little puzzled by Mr. Crandon's request. They saw no reason why I should go to Boston, and I think they were on the point of refusing when my aunt appeared. My aunt shook hands with Mr. Crandon and talked to him, because she liked him a lot, then, when she heard the reason of his visit, she begged my father and mother to let me go. After a little while they consented.
We left early the next morning, and wonderful, indeed, was that trip to me. I had never been to Boston, and all the little towns that we passed were new and strange to me. For Romance of the wee white feet walked with us, and the world was a dream world. God was spinning tapestries out of the lives of men and women, and to me He had given the great privilege of seeing a little of the pattern that He was weaving. A small corner of the great fabric that runs up and down the world and which is made out of the thoughts and dreams and actions of men and women, youths and maids, and even little babies. For the tiniest dream that a child can dream goes into the pattern, and might run side by side with the darkest deed that a man can do. The child's dream, a thread of baby blue, and the other a frightening black line in the great design.
And, in each of the towns that we passed, the woof and weft were being busily interlaced with each minute that passed. Night and day the work went on. And the smallest happening might produce a thread that would play a great part in the pattern. I thought of this as we ran into Haverhill, for in Haverhill, John Whittier, "the Quaker Poet," was born, and the words of Whittier had an effect upon the lives of thousands in every corner of the earth. And in Andover, that we passed before reaching Boston, Harriet Beecher Stowe spent many years of her colorful life....
We reached the North Station, and, after we had
eaten, we drove to Constitution Wharf at the foot of
Commercial Street, the shipping reporter having said that
the Susquehanna would dock there. I was very excited,
wondering all the time what it was that Olaf Hanson was
bringing that would make my eyes pop out of my head. And
Mr. Crandon, although he tried hard to keep his curiosity
in check, would ask me again and again if I had any idea
what the Swede meant by the words in his letter. Each time
I would answer no, but he would not be satisfied.
We reached the Constitution Wharf where there was a great tangle of traffic, and Mr. Crandon asked a man at the dock if the Susquehanna was in. The man said she had not arrived, but she was expected. He had an idea that she would come in some time before sunset.
Mr. Crandon and I climbed up on some big bales and sat there watching the busy street. And we talked of my Aunt Morna, and of my father and mother, and of Mr. Murray. It was then that I told Mr. Crandon how I had torn up the letter which Mr. Murray wrote from St. Cloud because it was written so beautifully that it made my Aunt Morna sad with longing to see what he described.
"Yes," said Mr. Crandon, "that chap can write fine letters, Jimmy. He can made you see things that don't exist at all."
"Have you seen any of his letters?" I asked, surprised at his remark.
"I have," snapped Mr. Crandon. "I've seen lots of them. It was the training that he got in writing letters to fools like me that made it possible for him to write the swirling stuff to your aunt."
Mr. Crandon didn't say any more, and I didn't question him, but I wondered why Mr. Murray had written letters to him. Later I found out the reason for the correspondence.
All through the afternoon we waited. Big boats butted their way up out of Massachusetts Bay and snuggled down against wharves like cats against window sills, but the Susquehanna didn't come. The man at the dock to whom Mr. Crandon spoke from time to time came up to us at six o'clock and said that a message had come saying the ship wouldn't dock till the morning, so, much disappointed, we went away to find something to eat and a place to sleep.
At a little after nine o'clock, when we were thinking of going to bed so that we could be up bright and early in the morning, Mr. Crandon thought we should make another visit to the wharf.
"She might be in, Jimmy," he said, "and as she will only stay a few hours it would be terrible if we missed Mr. Hanson. Let's go over and have another look before we go to bed."
It was raining hard, and a great wind was blowing in from the Bay. There was not so much traffic along Commercial Street now, but Constitution Wharf was all lit up with big arc lights, and great cranes were pulling things out of the hold of a ship. A great black ship that reared up out of the water. As we climbed out of the cab we saw her name. She was the Susquehanna!
Mr. Crandon pushed himself through the crowd of longshoremen and found the boatswain. He told the boatswain that we wished to see Olaf Hanson, but the boatswain swore so fiercely when he heard the name of the Swede that Mr. Crandon walked away from him.
We found another sailor and questioned him. He said that the Swede had gone ashore the moment the ship berthed and that we would probably find him in some saloon along the waterfront. "He's thirsty," said the sailor. "Been thirsty all the way across the pond. You'll catch him where they serve the mostest beer for the leastest money."
Mr. Crandon thanked the sailor, and then we started to hunt for Olaf. The rain was coming down in sheets, but we didn't care. The words that the Swede had written were continually before our eyes; the strange words which puzzled us greatly. And always there were thoughts of Aunt Morna, thoughts in which Mr. Crandon shared, for he liked my aunt, recalling always the words that she had said about his voice when she compared it to the voice of her uncle, the great judge in London.
We would peep into every saloon that we came to; Mr. Crandon holding my hand, for I was very small, and, if I went in alone, a barkeeper would chase me out. Mr. Crandon had seen Olaf Hanson when he worked at our farm but he had forgotten what he looked like, so it was I who would have to pick him out.
After two hours of searching we found the Swede in a saloon on Causeway Street. I peeped in the door and saw a man, whose back was turned towards me, tapping his chest with the forefinger of his right hand and crying out at the top of his voice: "There be eight! Count 'em!" And before he turned his head in answer to my shout of joy I knew that Olaf Hanson had married again.
The Swede knew me, but he was very drunk. Very drunk,
indeed. He staggered over to the door near which Mr.
Crandon and I were standing, but when he tried to take my
hand he stumbled and fell against the wall.
"Yimmy!" he cried. "Leetle Yimmy! Yimmy Ah bane married agin! Eight! Count 'em!"
He pulled open his shirt and, rocking backwards and forwards on his feet, he showed to Mr. Crandon and myself the names that were tattooed on his chest. There had been an addition to the seven that he carried when he worked for my father. At the bottom of the list, in ink that was of a more intense blue than that used for the lady's predecessors, were the words: "Fifi St. John, Colombo, Ceylon."
I was ashamed because the Swede was intoxicated, and because he insisted that Mr. Crandon should read the names of all his other wives and the ports where he married them. But Mr. Crandon was a nice man. He didn't seem a bit upset about the matter, and his only concern was to get Olaf out of the saloon and back to the ship.
"We'll get him back to his boat and come and see him first thing in the morning," whispered Mr. Crandon. "He's not in a fit state to tell us anything now."
I was awfully disappointed, but Mr. Crandon said it would be all right. He hailed a cab, and with the help of the driver we got Olaf Hanson into the vehicle. It was rather frightening along the waterfront. It was raining worse than ever, and there were drunken sailors trying to find their ships, screaming out to each other and singing mad songs. And now and then there would come a splash from the wharves that made me think one of the drunks had fallen into the harbor.
We had great difficulty in holding the Swede in the cab. At each saloon we passed he tried to stop the cab so that he could buy Mr. Crandon and me a drink, although we told him again and again that we didn't want any. And he pulled my hair and pinched and punched me playfully, so that I was a little sorry I had come to Boston. I wanted to do everything that I could for my aunt, but the Swede's conduct in front of Mr. Crandon made me ashamed, because I had said over and over again to Mr. Crandon that he was the nicest man in the world. And I had told how the Swede would watch my aunt, his body tense and his fingers crooked, ready to make a spring forward if she stumbled. In the cab I had a belief that his latest wife, this Fifi St. John of Colombo, Ceylon, had not improved his manners.
We reached Constitution Wharf, and the cabman, Mr. Crandon, and a dock worker managed to get Olaf out of the cab and upon his feet. He could hardly walk now. Mr. Crandon was at his wit's end to know what to do with him when two sailors from the Susquehanna came along and offered to take him aboard.
The Swede didn't wish to go aboard. He fought with his shipmates, rolled upon the ground and kicked at them when they tried to catch hold of his legs and arms. And all the while he was screaming at me. "Wait, Yimmy! Wait! Ah bane tell you sometink! Wait, leetle Yimmy! I tink it soon! Wait!"
The two sailors rushed in on him and pinioned his arms and legs, then they lifted him up and started towards the gangplank. Mr. Crandon wiped his forehead, then he took my hand and led me back towards the cab which was waiting for us.
We had nearly reached the cab when he heard a great noise and much shouting. We turned and saw the Swede tear himself from the clutch of the two sailors. Right and left he hurled them, then yelling: "Yimmy! Yimmy!" he came at a drunken gallop along the dock, the two sailors in pursuit.
Mr. Crandon ran to meet Olaf, but the Swede lurched by him and staggered to my side. "Ah remember, Yimmy!" he shouted. "Ah remember!"
Dragging his right hand from his pocket he thrust something wrapped in tissue paper into my hands. My fingers closed on it, then the poor Swede, as if a sudden contentment had come to him, gave a drunken lurch and curled up at my feet. When the two sailors reached him he was snoring, and, without any objections from him, they picked him up and carried him aboard the ship.
Mr. Crandon and I stood looking after them, then thought of the object that the Swede had thrust into my hands. It was something of an oval shape, not more than four inches long and some three inches wide. In the light of the cab lamp we stood while I unwrapped it. Fold after fold of paper took from the object, then, suddenly, it flashed before us. It was a beautifully painted miniature, set in a frame of silver. The face of a girl, extraordinarily sweet and delicate. I gave a little cry of astonishment as I held it up to the lamp. It was the face of my aunt, Morna O'Neill!
IT was after midnight when we reached the little hotel where we had taken rooms. But we had no thoughts of bed. We sat and stared at the picture of my aunt, wondering greatly as to how it had come into the possession of the Swede. Olaf Hanson had written the truth when he threatened to make me pop-eyed if I came to Boston to see him.
I had heard of this miniature of my aunt. She had told me that when she visited her uncle, the great London judge, he had engaged a miniature-painter who lived in St. John's Wood to paint her picture, and he, the judge, had presented it to her. I had asked my aunt at the time if she still had the painting, and she told me that it had been given to someone long before she left Belfast. She didn't tell me the name of the person to whom it had been given.
But my aunt had said nothing about a frame, and when I looked at the beautiful frame I knew that she would have spoken about it if it had enclosed the miniature at the time she gave it away. For the frame had the beauty of the face it enclosed. It was a marvelous piece of work that I would not have been able to appreciate properly if Mr. Crandon had not been there to explain it to me. I being but a small boy who knew nothing of the value of works of art.
The frame was three quarters of an inch in breadth, and it was covered with tiny carvings of men and towns and trees and animals, all done with surprising exactness and care. Mr. Crandon was thrilled with it. He examined it through a small magnifying glass that he carried, and he gurgled with joy as he did so. "It is extraordinary, Jimmy!" he cried. "It's a glorious piece of silver-work! Something that Cellini himself might be proud of! It represents the life of Buddha from his birth to his death!"
Mr. Crandon was a very learned man, he having been for many years the editor of a paper, and he explained each little scene to me. There was the palace in which Buddha was born; the marriage to his cousin, Yasodhara; little bits showing the life of luxury that he led up to the moment when he saw strange visions. There followed tiny pictures that told of his conversion when he became suddenly disgusted with the dancing of the Nautch girls in his palace; other little carvings showing his wanderings, his disputes with learned men, the miraculous taming of a man-eating tiger that attacked him as he sat resting beneath a Bo-tree.
Very wonderful indeed was the frame, but, in spite of its beauty, my eyes were held by the picture of my aunt. For the artist who had painted her was one who had seen into the soul, her sweet pure soul, and he had pictured that. He had put it on the tiny oval of ivory so that all could see, and as I looked at the face I felt how hard it must have been for Hugh Renshaw to believe the lie that my aunt had told him, the glorious lie prompted by her pride. I felt that he had never really believed it! Not in his soul! Her words had ordered him away from her, they had thrust him out of her life, they had echoed in his ears as he flung family ties to the wind and took himself off in a search of the peace that would come only when he could forget her completely, yet the picture of her that he carried, the picture that Mr. Crandon and I stared at, the picture that I knew she had given him, gave the lie to her lie! Gave the lie to her lie! For Hugh Renshaw, or any other person, looking at the face of Morna O'Neill as it was painted on that scrap of ivory could not think of her as a woman who would sell herself to the highest bidder, and make mock love for gold....
Long after one o'clock it was when I went to bed. I put the miniature under my pillow and tried hard to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come to me. Through my mind dashed mad thoughts that kept slumber away. Of course my aunt had given the picture to Hugh Renshaw at some time before the accident which made her blind! And Hugh Renshaw, though cursing the fickleness of women, had carried it with him to the Ports of Space. Worshiping the face of Morna O'Neill and trying, at the same time, to hate her for the words that she had spoken. In my fancy I saw him staring for hours at the face that he had put in the most beautiful frame that he could find, trying to reconcile her words with the spiritual glory that was upon her features.
Towards dawn I slept a little, and through my dreams went an immense Buddha busily tying up the threads that joined persons who loved each other.
And all the threads that he tied were of gorgeous colors—azure and crimson, crocus, lavender, and bishop's purple, but the dark threads of persons who lacked a soul he did not touch at all.
Mr. Crandon knocked at my door a few minutes before
six o'clock. "Hurry up and dress, Jimmy!" he shouted. "We
must get down early. They may have finished the loading in
quicker time that they thought last evening. Hurry!"
I dressed in five minutes, put the miniature inside my shirt, next to my bare skin, then I ran down the stairs to where Mr. Crandon was waiting for me. He called a cab and we drove off to Constitution Wharf. I prayed on the way, prayed that Olaf Hanson would be sober so that he could tell us the history of the miniature before his ship sailed away.
The Susquehanna was still tied up at the wharf, and when we got out of the cab the Swede hailed us from the deck. "Yimmy, Ah come down!" he shouted. "Joost one minute, Yimmy!"
He was a different Olaf to the one we had met the night before. He was perfectly sober, and he was nicely shaved and had on a clean shirt and trousers. He seemed a little ashamed when he shook hands with Mr. Crandon, but Mr. Crandon had a nice way with him, and he made the Swede feel that the wild ride of the previous evening had been completely forgotten.
"But Jimmy wants to learn all about the miniature in the silver frame," said Mr. Crandon. "Won't you tell us how it got into your possession?"
We went outside the dock shed and sat upon some bales of wool, and there the Swede told us a strange story. A very curious story indeed. And yet, as I listened to Olaf Hanson, I was not surprised. For, as I wrote in the beginning of this narrative, there was a sort of glamorous mystery about everything connected with Morna O'Neill, an elusive glamour that is hard to convey to the reader. Very hard indeed.
"Yimmy," began Olaf Hanson, "Ah will tell you. When you write me, Yimmy, Ah mak hundreds o' questions 'bout Cappen Hugh Renshaw. Hundreds an' hundreds o' questions. All sailormens Ah meet Ah ask 'bout Cappen Hugh an' de Morna. At Singapore, Manilla, Makassar, Bangkok Ah spik to sailors, an' at Colombo where Ah marry my new wife Ah stay one long time an' talk wit lots o' sailormen. Always Ah tink o' de blind lady who was kind to me. Ah say to myself, 'Olaf, de blind lady an leetle Yimmy want to know 'bout Cappen Hugh an' you must find out mooch to tell de blind lady an' Yimmy.'
"Lots o' sailors Ah meet know de Morna. Good ship, good cappen, good grub. Cappen Hugh mak plenty dollars. Heem trade wit de niggers, Yimmy. Heem come up to Singapore wit plenty stuff in de boat. Copra, rubber, gum, sandalwood—plenty stuff. Heem tall, six feets, an' fight like hell. Once a time close Anambas Islands in de China Sea de pirates come at de Morna. Plenty pirates, sixty, seventy, two hundred! All de sailors on de Morna skeered. De Chinks haf de stink bombs they throw on de schooner! De sailors run! Cappen Hugh not run, Yimmy! He stand an' fight. One sailor-man at Bangkok tell me how Cappen Hugh fight. He give 'em helly, Yimmy!
"Bang, bang, bang! Cappen Hugh blaze away at de Chinks. Bang, bang! Chinks tumble over, one, two, three! They skeered, Yimmy! They tink it beeg magic! They get sick in de stomicks! They run! When they all gone Cappen Hugh tumble on de deck.
"De sailors carry heem to his cabin, heem pretty sick wit a bullet in de chest, but he not care one tarn bit. He ask de sailors to gif heem picture one nice lady on de table. He kiss de picture an' go to sleep. Next day he get up an' boss de ship. Heem quite well.
"Now, Yimmy, Ah tell you 'bout dat picture of de lady. Ah come up to Port Said. Bad town, Port Said. Ah get drunk, sing songs on de street, hit a pleeceman an' get locked up. Ah wake in de mornin', Yimmy, an' find a nigger in de cell wit me. De nigger locked up for stickin' a knife into another nigger. He haf no money but he tells me dat he haf a picture dat work magic. It mak a man plenty strong so heem can fight sixty, seventy peoples. A nigger steal it from one man who fight two hundred an' when he shot he get well plenty quick joost by kissing de picture. Yimmy, de nigger showed me de picture. Ah gif heem all de moneys Ah had for it. All de moneys but de fine Ah pay for being drunk."
Olaf Hanson paused. He looked at me and grinned. The breeze coming in from the bay blew back the collar of his shirt, and the names of his many wives peeped out at us. My lips were dry so that I could not speak; Mr. Crandon was silent.
After a long interval the Swede spoke. "Cappen Hugh mooch diff'rent to me, Yimmy," he said, smiling at me. "He love once an' never change. Never. Me, Ah like ole King Solomon, change mooch. Yimmy, Ah go aboard now."
I looked at Mr. Crandon, hoping that he might do something in the matter. I thought there should be some recompense for Olaf Hanson.
Mr. Crandon cleared his throat and spoke. "But, Mr. Hanson," he began, "this picture is very valuable. I mean that it has a great money value. The frame is a beautiful thing and would sell for a lot of money. Jimmy cannot offer you a fair return for it, but I—I am interested in this affair and I can offer you—"
The blue eyes of the Swede halted Mr. Crandon. They had hardened suddenly, and Mr. Crandon's tongue refused to push out any more words.
"Ah gif de picture to Yimmy," said the Swede quietly. "Yimmy an' de blind lady were kind to me. Now Ah go. Ship start mighty quick now."
Mr. Crandon and I walked to the gangplank of the Susquehanna with Olaf Hanson. He took my hand in his big strong paw and shook it till my arm ached. "Goodbye, leetle Yimmy," he said. "Gif my regards to de blind lady. Nex' time you see me Ah marry once more, p'raps. Goodbye."
Mr. Crandon and I stood around till the Susquehanna threw off her ropes and pushed away from the wharf. As she moved out the Swede sprang onto the rail, and clutching the cable of a crane, pulled off his cap and waved it to us. His yellow hair shone in the sunlight and his white teeth flashed. I thought him a very romantic man as he clung to the hawser, and I didn't wonder that a lot of women fell in love with him. There was a fine streak of romance about the Swede.
I never saw or heard of Olaf Hanson after that morning. Five letters I wrote to the Coffin of Hope in the Rue du Panier at Marseilles, but after many months they were returned to me through the Dead Letter Office, the envelopes marked with the fingerprints of a thousand sailors who had looked at them in Frisco Dick's boarding-house. I have a great fear that Olaf Hanson was drowned somewhere in the great sea lanes that map the world of waters, and that round-eyed fishes swimming in the great depths stared in amazement at the list of names tattooed on his broad chest....
MR. CRANDON and I went back to our little hotel, packed the small amount of baggage that we had brought with us, and rode off to the North Station. I still carried the painting of my aunt within my shirt, and from time to time I touched it with my fingers. It was a very precious thing to me on that October morning. Very precious, indeed.
We hardly spoke as we drove to the station, and we had little conversation on the train. The story of the Swede had given us quite a lot to digest in secret. For me, I know that it created dreams that startled me. By closing my eyes for an instant could see far-off beaches that shone like white fire in the sunlight and like strips of blue silk in the tropic nights. Beaches to which came marching lines of natives that swung out of the jungles like monster serpents, laden down with raw products that they bartered with a tall, sun-tanned man who had brown hair and blue eyes. Beaches over which swept breezes odorous with faint primeval perfumes. Odors of musk, of benzoin, of crushed marigolds. Possibly, too, the fragrance of that strange white Flower of Love, of which there is but one tree, planted in some unknown quarter by the great Buddha, and which will not be seen by human eyes till all men show a desire for peace and goodwill.
The train ran through Melrose and Wakefield, but, instead of the quiet countryside, I saw the lonely Anambas Islands in the China Sea. A white schooner rocked in the center of a swarm of junks, whose yellow occupants fought with a lone white man who held the deck of the schooner against all their attempts to board. The words of the Swede beat a tattoo within my brain. "Bang, bang, bang! Cappen Hugh blaze away at de Chinks! Bang, bangi Chinks tumble over, one, two, three! They skeered, Yimmy! They tink it beeg magic! They get sick in de stomicks! They run!" ...
I saw the frightened sailors carrying their captain down to his cabin after the pirates had fled. I saw him look towards the picture on his table, the picture of a girl whose face was alight with a spiritual glory.... My fingers would creep into my shirt and touch the miniature in its frame of silver....
We had reached Exeter when Mr. Crandon roused me from the dreamland into which I had slipped.
"What are we going to do, Jimmy?" he asked. "What will you say about the painting?"
"I don't know," I answered. "I have thought and thought, but I can't make up my mind."
"Do you wish to give it to your aunt?" asked Mr. Crandon.
"No," I answered.
"It would please her to know," said Mr. Crandon. "Please her to know that he kept it with him, and—and there is the story of how the natives believed that the miniature gave a man strength to fight hundreds."
"I am wondering if that—if that wouldn't sadden my aunt," I said.
"Well, what will you do with it?" asked Mr. Crandon. "We are nearly home and you will have to do something. If you take it to your house it will be difficult for you to hide it from your brothers and sisters."
My fingers were on the miniature at that moment. Touching it gently, and, as I waited to find an answer for Mr. Crandon, the little painting of my aunt seemed to whisper to me. Seemed to whisper to my finger tips which conveyed the message to my brain.
"I think," I began, "I think we must send the painting back to Captain Hugh."
Mr. Crandon looked at me in astonishment. He seemed surprised, then a flood of words came to me, a flood of words to support my decision. "He'll want it!" I cried. "He'll want it! Don't you see it was the picture of her face that made him have doubts always about what she said to him! What she said about coming to America to find a millionaire! He told himself it was true when he—when he recalled her words, but when he looked at her face he couldn't believe that she would do such a thing! And now I'm afraid! I'm afraid that—that he will believe her words! He—he hasn't got the picture to—to prove them lies!"
I started to blubber like a baby, because the decision I had come to excited me greatly, but Mr. Crandon comforted me. He said there was quite a lot of sense in my argument. A very nice man was Mr. Crandon, and he knew a lot about small boys.
"Where will we send it to?" he asked. "I mean what address?"
"The Swede said the Morna always came up to Singapore with the stuff she gathered in the islands!" I cried. "The harbor-master at Singapore will know the schooner! He will know Captain Hugh! We will send it in care of the harbor-master and he will hold it till the Morna comes into port!"
Often I had dreamed of writing a note to that same harbor-master, but my aunt's orders as to what I should write concerning her had stopped me. But this business of the miniature had nothing to do with my aunt. Olaf Hanson had given me an object which I knew had been stolen from Captain Hugh Renshaw, and it would only be decent honesty on my part to restore it to the owner. The painting, it is true, had been given to the captain by Morna O'Neill, but it and the frame were his property.
As the train rushed along all my doubts as to what I should do were swept away. Happy was I; awfully happy. For I saw the weaving of God in what had happened, the intricate weaving that none can understand because we lack the great wisdom that is possessed by Him alone.
"We'll send it back at once!" I cried.
"Yes, Jimmy," said Mr. Crandon. "You should send it at once. It was given to you, and you can do what you like with it."
After we left the train we took the coach to the village, then we walked to Mr. Crandon's house at Caller Bridge. I didn't wish to take the miniature to our farm. It seemed so wonderful to me that I thought I could never hide it from the eyes of my family. It whispered to my fingers that clung to it as we walked along the road.
At Mr. Crandon's house we wrapped it in a lot of soft tissue paper, then, after much talk we composed a note that was to go inside the packet. Mr. Crandon wrote the note. It read:
Dear Captain Renshaw:
I am sending to you a painting that has by a strange chance fallen into my hands. I have a belief that its return will be pleasing to you.
Very sincerely yours,
A Friend in America.
Mr. Crandon and I walked back to the village to register the packet. The young woman at the post office asked Mr. Crandon to write the name and address of the sender on the wrapper, and Mr. Crandon, a little startled by the order, looked at me.
"Who is sending this, Jimmy?" he asked.
"Mr. Johnson," I said, using the first name that came to my mind, and it was Johnson that was put upon the wrapper.
It cost one dollar and forty-five cents to send the miniature, and this Mr. Crandon paid. I asked him to keep the receipt. We walked back to his house, and, after I had thanked him for all he had done for me, I came onto our farm. I felt a little frightened, but, mixed with the fear that was upon me, were thrills of pleasure that made me think the world was very wonderful.
My father and mother and my brothers and sisters asked me a lot of questions as to what I had seen in Boston. Questions that worried me greatly because I had seen nothing but Constitution Wharf and the saloons along Commercial and Causeway Streets. I hadn't thought of the cross-examination to which I would be put, and their curiosity rattled me.
"Did you see the State House?" asked my father.
"I think I did," I answered.
"And the Common?" said my mother.
"I think so," I stammered.
"Did Mr. Crandon show you Faneuil Hall?" demanded my father. "He surely would have taken you to see an important place like that?"
"I believe I saw it," I muttered, a little annoyed at my own stupidity in not looking at a few places on our rides to the wharf and back. For my mind had been so much on the matters connected with Olaf Hanson and the miniature that I hadn't given a thought to the interesting sights of Boston, and this lack of interest I regretted greatly when I found myself under the crossfire of questions unloosed by my family.
"Well," said my father, looking at me in astonishment, "you beat all the travelers that I ever heard of. You went to Boston and you saw nothing!"
"P'raps it wasn't Boston that he went to," said Will. "It might have been Dover or Exeter. Did you see a sign at the depot with the word Boston painted on it?"
All the family laughed loudly, except my aunt. No questions did she put to me, and she turned the conversation cleverly when my father and my brother Will wished to continue the baiting. And for that and for many other kindnesses I was her slave.
DURING the latter part of October and the first weeks of November the relations between Mr. Murray and my father seemed somewhat strained. Mr. Murray found fault with everything that my father did, and my father, on his side, discovered that the coming of capital did not make an easy life for him. My brother Will did not like the situation at all. He refused to take orders from Bruton, and when Bruton spoke to him he would not answer.
Now the fault-finding of Mr. Murray brought about a happening that I have often puzzled over. Unusual it was, without a doubt, yet, complicated as it appeared to be, it seems as if it was designed to lead up to the climax that followed. Never have I heard of a trick such as that which was played upon my father.
It happened in the second week of November. Just before dark there came up the rise from the river a man who rode a broomstick as a child rides a wooden horse, that is, he had the stick between his legs with a piece of string threaded through the end of the stick as a bridle. And while his right hand held the piece of string, his left hand held five other strings that were attached to the tops of five other broomsticks that he dragged after him along the dusty road. A grown man at that. Forty or more, upstanding and strong.
When he saw my father he made the broomstick that he straddled cavort wildly, as if he thought it a real horse. And he spoke to it soothingly as it capered. Sideways he jumped in the dust, jerking the strings of the broomsticks that he was leading, giving a fine imitation of a rider mounted on an unruly horse and leading a bunch of others that were nearly as troublesome. My father and Will, my sister Joan and I watched him.
"He is crazy," said my father, speaking in a low voice to my brother.
"Sure," said Will. "Crazy as a loon."
The man on the broomstick reined his wooden horse with a great effort and saluted my father. My father returned the salute. The man, with apparent difficulty, guided the broomsticks to the fence, then, with many "Whoas," he halted his "steed" and the five he led. He wiped his forehead and addressed my father.
"Could I, kind sir, put my six horses in the field for the evening?" he said, pointing to the lower field, which had fine grass in it, although the summer had been particularly dry. "I'm camped down by the river," continued the stranger, "but there is no food there for the horses."
Now my father was pleased at something of a humorous nature coming up after a day of irritation, and he smiled pleasantly at the fellow on the broomstick. "Put them in there," he said, "they won't eat much."
"They're heavy feeders," protested the man.
"Sure," said my father, humoring him, for my father was certain that he was a harmless crazy. "They look big eaters."
The man thanked my father, turned his broomstick, and with many "Gees" and "Get-ups" he took his bunch of broomsticks down to the gate leading to the lower field. Here he dismounted carefully, let the wooden steeds into the field and laid them down carefully in the fine green grass. Then he shut the gate and went away in the direction of the river.
When he was out of sight Will and Joan and I went down to the lower field and looked at the six broomsticks with their reins made out of bits of worn string. Looked at them with a little awe because we had seen a grown man act like a small child. The night came down as we were looking at them. Mother called us in to supper, and we went, leaving the wooden horses in the grass.
My father spoke of the man at the supper table, telling
my mother and my aunt how he capered on the broomstick,
kicking up the dust on the road and jangling the strings
that he had on the other bits of wood that he dragged after
him.
"Crazy as they are made," said my father.
"God bless us!" said my mother, that being a favorite phrase of hers when she was affected by a story of misfortune. My aunt said nothing.
It was nine o'clock when the man hailed the house from the path leading down to the road. He walked to the door of the kitchen, standing in the strip of light that came from the lamp on the kitchen table. I can see him now as he stood there on that November evening. A tall, gaunt man, dressed shabbily, holding a tin cup in his hand. When my mother came to the door he asked if she could spare him a little milk for his coffee in the morning.
Mother gave him the milk, then my father, who was sitting reading the Boston paper, called out and asked if the "horses" were feeding well.
"They're doing splendid, sir," said the man. "They're heavy feeders, sir, and I thank you again for your kindness."
"It's all right if they don't clean up the patch," said my father, laughing loudly. "We have a sleeping partner on this farm and he is keeping that field for his riding horses." And this was true, for Mr. Murray had asked my father to save the grass in the lower field for his two saddle horses.
The man bade us good night and walked away into the darkness. There was an interval of silence after the sound of his footsteps died away, then my aunt spoke.
"That man is not mad," said my aunt, quietly.
"Of course he is," said my father, lowering the paper and looking across the kitchen at the spot where she was seated. "I tell you he came up the road riding a broomstick like a three-year-old child. Why would he want to put broomsticks in the grass if he was sane?"
"All the same," said my aunt, "he is not a crazy man. I should think him a very cunning man from his voice." After a little pause she added: "Very cunning, indeed. He is full of deceit. His voice is tinted yellow."
"Yellow?" asked my father, and he laughed as he repeated the word.
"Yes," said my aunt.
"It should be green," cried my father, and he laughed loudly at his own joke. "It's a pity his voice doesn't match his actions, which are as green as the flag of Ireland." And gurgling at his humor he went back to his paper.
We were having breakfast the following morning when Mr.
Murray turned in from the main road and came at a trot down
the avenue. He pulled up before the door of the kitchen and
cried out to my father. He seemed in a great temper.
When my father appeared, Mr. Murray spoke sharply to him. "What's the idea of turning half a dozen horses into the lower field?" he cried. "Didn't I tell you to keep stock out of it? Yet you go and give permission to a teamster to put his horses into it?"
"They were wooden horses!" cried my father. "Broomsticks can't eat grass!"
"Wooden horses?" shouted Mr. Murray, and he looked at my father as if he thought he had gone suddenly insane. "What the devil are you talking about? Broomsticks? Wooden horses?"
My father and Will ran to the side of the barn and looked down at the lower field. There were six horses grazing in it! Six hungry-looking horses who were wasting no time, their heads thrust down on the fine grass!
"The cunning devil!" cried my father. "The dirty trickster!"
My father was very angry. The trick of the teamster and the jeers of Mr. Murray were too much for him. He ran down the avenue leading onto the main road, turned and rushed full speed towards the gate leading into the lower field. The gate through which the supposed crazy man had led his broomsticks. Will and Jack and I followed my father.
When we reached the gate Will spied the owner of the horses coming up the rise from the river. He pointed him out to my father. My brother Jack and I ran into the field and rounded up the six horses.
The man came at a half-trot towards the gate where my father was waiting. He was grinning and rubbing his hands together as if he thought the matter a fine joke. But it was no joke to my father, he being very angry over the jeers of Mr. Murray.
"What the devil do you mean putting your horses in here?" cried my father.
"I asked your permission," said the man, still grinning at my father. "I told you they were heavy feeders and you said it was all right. What are you squealing about now? Can't you take a joke?"
Now I know my father would not have lost his temper if the trick had been discovered by any other person but Mr. Murray, for my father was a quiet man who seldom gave way to anger. But the fact that Mr. Murray had been the first to see the horses in the lower field, and his own words that he had used to Murray when he said "Broomsticks can't eat grass" upset him completely. When the owner of the horses pushed my father aside to enter the field my father thrust him backward. The tall, gaunt man struck at my father and a fight was on.
A great strength had my father, a strength that was a little frightening. Men knew of it for miles around our farm.
The owner of the horses rushed in swinging both fists. Afterwards, my brother Will said that the teamster knew how to box, and I think Will was right in saying so, for in the first exchange he landed three blows to my father's face. Three smart blows that jerked my father's head back, surprising him greatly and bringing blood from his nose. Mr. Murray, who was sitting on his horse, viewing the battle, grinned as he saw my father wipe the blood from his nose, and I think my father saw the smile on Mr. Murray's face.
The owner of the broomsticks rushed in again, swinging his fists. My father stood still, but, suddenly, he thrust out his right fist. It leapt out with all his great strength behind it, it broke through the guard of the other and landed with a tremendous wallop between the fellow's eyes. He dropped face downward on the grass.
Will turned the man over, pulled him into a sitting position near the fence and told Jack to get some water. When Will sprinkled water over his face he revived a little and opened his eyes. My father, seeing that the man had recovered consciousness, started to walk back towards the house. He was still very angry, but he was also annoyed because he had been drawn into a fight, fighting not being a game that he was interested in.
My father was about twenty feet from the sitting teamster when Will cried out in alarm. "Look out!" he screamed. "He's got a gun!"
Will sprang at the fellow but he was too late.
The teamster pulled the trigger, my father staggered and dropped on the road. The bullet had hit him in the thigh, shattering the bone.
That was a very sad day at our farm. Doctor Shorthouse, who was called from the village, said it would be six months or more before my father would be up and about. The teamster was locked up, charged with attempted murder.
In the afternoon of that day I overheard Mr. Murray talking to old Judge Copley. "It was all Michael's fault," said Mr. Murray. "He shouldn't have let the fellow fool him with the wooden horses." I had a great hate for Mr. Murray when I heard him make that remark. For it was not my father's fault at all. He had thought the man a little crazy and had tried to humor him, and I knew well he would not have lost his temper with the fellow if Mr. Murray had not taunted him.
NOW my father had acted as a buffer between Mr. Murray's man, Bruton, and my brother, Will, but with my father in bed, trouble was not slow in making a visit to our farm. Not slow indeed.
Three days after the shooting of my father, Bruton brought an order from Mr. Murray. He delivered it to Will, his hands on his hips, his head thrown up defiantly. "Do it at once!" he yelled.
Now my brother also had great strength, he being much like my father in build, and when Bruton roared the order at him, he dropped the shovel that he was using and sprang upon him with a suddenness that startled the other. Will put his arms around Bruton, picked him up as if he was sack of potatoes, and, carrying him with ease, he walked slowly down the avenue and dumped the fellow on the main road.
"Now," said Will, as Bruton, much frightened, got to his feet, "don't you ever venture onto this farm again! I give you warning! The next time you bring an order here they'll carry you off on a plank!"
Bruton was dreadfully scared. He stood for a moment, his little wicked eyes fixed upon my brother's face, then he turned and started to run swiftly up the slope towards the Murray Place. Will watched him till he turned a corner of the road, then my brother laughed and walked back to the house. Coming up the avenue he spoke to Jack. "Now we'll have a showdown," he said. "I'm tired of that slimy crook."
I came around the side of the house and found my aunt sitting there. She had heard the squeals of Bruton as Will had carried him down the avenue.
"What has happened, Shamuseen?" she asked.
"Will put Bruton off the farm," I answered. "Carried him out to the road and told him to get."
"Where has he gone?" said Aunt Morna.
"He's running full speed for the Murray Place," I told her. "He's nearly there."
My aunt sighed softly, rose and went into the house. I knew from the look upon her face that the happening troubled her greatly.
Will decided to quit work for the day. He sat himself down on a chair outside the kitchen door and talked in a whisper to Elsie. My mother went in and spoke to my father. All work was suspended. The two hired men sneaked up to the back of the barn and stood together exchanging views, their eyes fixed upon the Murray Place. Upon the farm there fell a fat expectancy. A dreadful, nerve-racking expectancy that grew and grew as the minutes passed.
Dinner time came with the foreboding of trouble still upon us. My mother's eyes were red as she served the meal. My aunt did not come to the table. There was no conversation; very little food was eaten.
The afternoon dragged slowly along. The two hired men stood in the shelter of the barn, smoking cigarettes and watching the big house on the rise. Will played with the twins.
It was nearly five o'clock when one of the hired men came up from the barn and whispered to Will. "He's coming now," said the hired man, but Will took no notice of the man's remark.
I went around the corner of the house and I saw Mr. Murray coming down the slope. He wore a light suit with a light grey hat and tan shoes, and he had a red flower in his buttonhole. He carried a cane which he twirled as he walked. Some ten paces behind him marched Bruton and Mr. Hemmings, the gardener at the Murray Place.
My sister, Joan, was in the avenue when Mr. Murray came towards the house. Bruton had stopped on the roadway, but Hemmings had followed his master. Mr. Murray spoke to Joan and asked her to tell my aunt that he wished to speak to her. He stood in the avenue waiting while Joan went to find Aunt Morna; Hemmings was some distance from him. I peeped at him from the angle of the house. He seemed in a bad temper, striking with his cane at the weeds that grew beside the path.
My Aunt Morna came out the front door of the house and walked across the little patch of flower garden to the spot where Mr. Murray was standing. Slim and sweet and wonderful was my aunt as she walked out to meet Mr. Murray. And about her was the strange glamour that I have mentioned before, the glamour that I could never understand. For, again and again, I tried to define the magic that was hers, and, again and again, I failed. As I have said in this story, there are certain blessed persons to whom the torch of Romance is given. They carry it through years that are sad and dreary and filled with sordid happenings. Carry it through the centuries, handing it from one to another, across seas and continents maybe. For one of the torch-bearers may live in America while the one who takes the torch from her may be in France, or England, or Egypt, or somewhere else.... And they walk as my aunt walked, in a soft twilight with little winds kissing them, and the flowers whispering to them, and the dreams of the world coming to them. And they have neither hate nor envy in their souls. Nor pride nor covetousness. Nor mean thoughts nor wicked ones. For the Almighty hunts the world over for the torch-bearers and those that He chooses have hearts that are filled with love. And thus Romance stays in the world. Ay, thus Romance stays with us in spite of all the bludgeonings of those hard-souled folk who would trample it beneath the big shoes of Realism....
Without blinking my eyes I watched my aunt walk towards the spot where Mr. Murray stood. And he seemed awed by the beauty that was hers on that quiet November afternoon. His head was thrust forward, his grey eyes upon her slim figure. I heard the faint echo of the words he addressed to her, but I could not understand what they were.
He took the hand of my aunt, and, as he did so, a great fear came to me. A terrible fear. For I knew that my aunt was to be put through a test. I knew that she would be asked to sacrifice herself for us, for my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and myself! And I wanted to scream out to her, but my lips were dry. I wanted to scream the story of the miniature that had about it the glorious frame of silver carved with the scenes in the life of Buddha. I wanted to tell her of the great fight with the Chinese pirates at Anambas Islands, when Captain Hugh Renshaw fought alone till the very fury of his counter-attack frightened the yellow devils who were trying to take his ship! I wanted to tell her how they had carried him down to his cabin and how he had asked them to bring him the miniature so that he might kiss it, and how his quick recovery from his wounds had made the Lascar cabin-boy think there was magic in her picture, such magic that made him thieve it. All this I wanted to cry out to my aunt while Mr. Murray was talking to her, but I couldn't form the words. And like a dumb, dumb fool I stood and watched him pleading with her.
He had taken her hand and held it in spite of her efforts. I could see his full red lips as they whispered to her. I prayed. Prayed without uttering a word. Prayed that my aunt would have strength to fight him. To fight his threats. What did it matter if we were thrust out on the road without house or home as long as the Torch that she carried burned brightly?
Suddenly, my aunt broke away from Mr. Murray. Broke away from him with a final shake of her head. With hands outstretched she stumbled across the garden patch and into the house. Mr. Murray stood looking after her. When she disappeared he straightened himself, struck viciously at a bush that was close to him, turned, and walked towards the road where Mr. Hemmings and Bruton were waiting for him. In the order in which they had come down the slope they returned to the big house on the hill.
My aunt did not appear at the supper table, but late
that evening she spoke to me. With my mother she had
visited my father's room and had talked with him at some
length.
"Shamuseen," she whispered, "I want you to go to the village tomorrow morning and deliver a message to Mr. Briggs, the lawyer."
"Yes, aunt," I said.
"Ask him to come out and see me," she continued. "Tell him that it is very important."
"I'll go immediately after breakfast," I said.
"You are a good boy, Shamuseen beg," murmured my aunt. "You are not sad, are you? You voice tells me that you are a little sad."
"No, I'm not," I lied. "I'm not sad now."
"We don't spend enough time dreaming," said my aunt. "Tomorrow, Shamuseen, we will start to dream dreams in real earnest."
"That will be fine," I cried. "I'll find new books about the little islands and the colored seas."
After breakfast on the following morning I started for
the village to tell Mr. Briggs that my aunt wished to see
him. When I got to Caller Bridge Mr. Crandon called out
to me, and I walked over to the hedge that separated his
property from the road.
Mr. Crandon had in his hand a paper published in New York that was filled with prices of stock and bonds, with little bits of gossip about the houses that sold them and the companies that issued them. He subscribed regularly to it, and he read every number from start to finish.
When I reached the hedge I saw that he was very excited. He pushed the paper in front of my face and pointed to a small paragraph.
"Read that, Jimmy!" he cried. "Read it!"
I read the paragraph but I couldn't understand why it had got Mr. Crandon excited. It was only a few lines saying that a certain House in Wall Street wasn't fixed as firmly in the Mortar of Clean Finance as it should be.
"I don't know what it means," I said.
"It's the house of Old Mud-Voice!" cried Mr. Crandon.
"But it doesn't mention Mr. Murray's name," I protested.
"They can't mention his name!" snapped Mr. Crandon. "That would make them liable for a suit! But it's him! I know it's him, Jimmy! I got a private letter from New York yesterday! There are rumors in the Street. He's wabbling! Gosh, boy, he's wabbling! They expect a crash!"
"What will make him crash?" I asked.
"Lack of money, Jimmy!" shouted Mr. Crandon. "Lack of money that has struck him because the Lord is on his trail! The Lord is on his trail! Listen, Jimmy! When the Lord gets after you there isn't a hole or a corner or a hollow log in the world that you can hide in!"
I was a little startled at the way Mr. Crandon acted. The paragraph stirred him greatly. He read it again and again, and each time he read it he was more certain than ever that it concerned Mr. Murray. He quoted verses fom the Bible as to what would happen to wicked men, and he beat the hedge with his stick.
When he quieted down a little I told him what had happened at the farm on the previous day. How Will had put Bruton out, and how Mr. Murray had come down with a bodyguard and spoken to my aunt. He was much interested. After a little while I went on into the village and found Mr. Briggs. Mr. Briggs had nothing to do that morning, so he drove back to our farm with me. A nice man was Mr. Briggs. He asked me about my trip to Boston. He had gone to Boston on his honeymoon, and he and Mrs. Briggs had stayed at the Parker House. Whenever he mentioned Boston he began with the words: "When I stayed at the Parker House with Mrs. Briggs." But people liked him although they had heard him say those words hundreds of times.
Mr. Briggs sat with my aunt in the parlor for over an hour, then he came out and drove up to the Murray Place. On his way back he stopped again at our farm and had a long talk with my aunt. It was after midday when he went on to the village, heard him telling my aunt that he would leave for Boston that afternoon. He told her proudly that his address would be the Parker House. He whipped his old white mare into a gallop as he drove away.
My Aunt Morna seemed much happier after the visit of Mr. Briggs. She had a long talk with Will, and Will immediately fell upon the two hired men who were loafing behind the barn. Will gave them to understand that the feeling of weird expectancy that had come upon the farm after he threw Bruton out had now lifted and that he wanted some work done.
My mother and father seemed happier. Mr. Murray's name was not mentioned. Bruton did not come near the farm.
Three days after the visit of Mr. Briggs I stopped at
Caller Bridge to talk to Mr. Crandon. He had a later issue
of the Wall Street paper, and in it was another paragraph
hinting at a crash. Although there was no name mentioned,
Mr. Crandon assured me that it was the house of Murray and
Company. There were, in this second paragraph, a few words
that made Mr. Crandon quite certain that it was aimed at
Mr. Murray. These words were: "The head of this house has
not been seen in Wall Street for some time, and it is said
that he is busy on an experimental farm in the country
where he grows lemons for thirsty suckers."
"But Mr. Murray is not growing lemons," I said. "Lemons don't grow well in New Hampshire."
"They grow everywhere," said Mr. Crandon, laughing at me. "And suckers are waiting round to snatch at them. I was one myself, Jimmy."
That afternoon, Sam Frazer, the owner of the livery
stable in the village, drove by our farm. He nodded to Will
and pulled up his old horse. Sam Frazer was known as the
man who talked less than any other man in New Hampshire.
He had been known to go for a whole week without saying
a word. There was another man at Exeter who was pretty
quiet, but Sam Frazer complained that the Exeter man was
a terrible talker. Sam and the other had spent a whole
afternoon together fishing. For four hours they said
nothing, then the Exeter man accidentally dropped his knife
in the river and said "Damn!"
Sam Frazer sat in his trap and listened to Will for about ten minutes, Will doing all the talking, then Sam shook his reins, pointed up to the Murray Place and made a motion with his right hand that suggested he was going up to the big house to collect money. Then, to the astonishment of Will, he spoke two words. "He's broke," he grunted, and he drove off hurriedly as if ashamed at his own talkativeness.
Will rushed into the house and told my father and mother. "Sam Frazer says that Mr. Murray is broke!" he cried. "Sam Frazer says so! He's gone up to collect a bill!"
My father and mother could not believe the story. They stared at Will, and I thought the moment a fine one to tell about the paragraphs that Mr. Crandon showed me in the paper that came from New York. I repeated both paragraphs word for word, but all the thanks I got was a bang in the ear from my father, I being fool enough to go close to the bed to repeat a word that he pretended he couldn't hear.
"You'll get yourself into trouble by listening to things you know nothing about!" he cried. "You're a child and you should mind your own business."
"But he was shown the paper," said my aunt. "He couldn't be impolite to Mr. Crandon."
Late that evening a man named Will Byrne came by the farm. He said that there was a great commotion in the village. A newspaper man had arrived from New York and had driven lickety-split to the Murray Place. The newspaper man said that the house of Murray and Company had failed for half a million dollars. Will Byrne had never owned five dollars in his life, but anyone listening to him would think from the manner in which he screamed the news, that his life savings had been in the hands of Mr. Murray. He hurried away from our place in the direction of the Manning farm, eager to find a new audience.
The news was leaping across the countryside that evening. From farm to farm it went. It ran like a fire in dry bush. Mr. William Murray who was thought by all to be worth a million dollars was a bankrupt!
I lay awake thinking of the words of Mr. Crandon. "The Lord is on his trail, Jimmy! When the Lord gets after you there isn't a hole or a corner or a hollow log in the world that you can hide in!"
Twice through the night I was awakened by the noise made by vehicles passing up the slope towards the Murray Place. They went by at a gallop. It was a strange night. A lost wind played around the farmhouse; Diamond howled a little as if he remembered Alice.
ON the day following that on which we received news of the collapse of the house of Murray and Company, Mr. Briggs returned from Boston and immediately drove out to our farm. He and my Aunt Morna had a long talk in the parlor, then my aunt called me.
"You go with Mr. Briggs, Shamuseen," she said. "He will give you some papers that you will bring back to me."
I followed Mr. Briggs out to his trap and climbed in beside him. We drove up the slope to the Murray Place. It was a cold wet morning.
In the entrance hall of the big house there were three men waiting to see Mr. Murray. They looked like reporters. When we arrived, Mrs. Parks was busy informing them that they could not see the owner of the house, he having given orders that he would see no visitors. But when Mr. Briggs sent in his name we were taken immediately to the library where Mr. Murray awaited us.
A different Mr. Murray from the one who had visited our farm a few days before. He was wrapped in a big quilted dressing gown, with felt slippers on his feet. He was unshaven, and his hair was rumpled. And his grey eyes, that had always looked as if they knew everything worth knowing, did not seem so convinced of their cleverness.
"Have you brought it, Briggs?" shouted Mr. Murray, the moment we were in the room.
"Yes, Mr. Murray," said the lawyer, and from the inside pocket of his vest Mr. Briggs took out a great roll of bills and laid them on the table.
Mr. Murray grabbed the roll and started to count. The amount evidently was satisfactory to him, for he thrust the roll into the pocket of the dressing gown, then, opening a despatch case, he took out half a dozen slips and handed them to Mr. Briggs. The lawyer checked them, turned, and placed them in my hands.
"Take these back to the farm and give them to your aunt, Jimmy," he said. "Don't lose them."
I glanced at the top slip. It was a printed form, and the words that caught my eye were "I promise to pay." At the bottom of the slip was my father's signature. I was sick and troubled as I put them carefully into my jacket pocket.
Mr. Murray was on his feet now. He poured out a half tumbler of whiskey, tossed it off, and turned to Mr. Briggs.
"How many of those bloodhounds are at the door?" he snarled.
"Three," said Mr. Briggs.
"Look here, Briggs," growled Mr. Murray, "if they ask you anything when you're going out say that I am in bed, ill, and cannot move. Understand, Briggs? I'm going to make a bolt out the back way. You brought me this at the moment I needed it most. I hadn't a cent, Briggs. Not a damned cent!"
Mr. Murray hurried towards the stairs; Mr. Briggs and I walked towards the hall entrance. The three reporters did question Mr. Briggs. They asked him if he had seen Mr. Murray but he made no reply to their questions.
Driving down the slope Mr. Briggs spoke to me. "Do you love your Aunt Morna, Jimmy?" he asked.
"Yes, Mr. Briggs," I answered.
"If you didn't love her before, you should now," he said. "She has made herself a pauper for you and your brothers and sisters. That devil hooked your father into signing a lot of notes and your aunt has paid them. I wanted her to wait and fight it out with the bankruptcy court, but she wouldn't."
"Has she—has she nothing?" I gasped.
"Not a cent!" cried Mr. Briggs.
Just before we reached our farm Mr. Briggs spoke again. "Do you think Murray wished to marry your aunt?" he asked.
"I—I don't know," I answered.
"That's all right," said Mr. Briggs. "It doesn't matter. I was just wondering. He said the other day that he had offered to give her the promissory notes and she had refused to take them. I was wondering if he was in love with her."
I didn't answer. I was thinking of the interview between my aunt and Mr. Murray in the avenue.
I got down at our farm and took the papers to my aunt. She thanked me, and carried them in to my father.
The countryside knew that afternoon that Mr. William
Murray had made a bolt of it. He had sneaked out of the
servant's entrance of the big house and had mounted a horse
that Bruton had saddled for him. He was seen galloping away
in the direction of Dover. There was great excitement in
the village. Two detectives had come up from New York to
arrest Mr. Murray and they were very angry when they found
he had slipped away from them.
Mr. Crandon was delighted with the news of the crash. For the first time during the years that he had lived at Caller Bridge he chatted freely with the folk in the village. He told them how he had known for many days that the house of Murray and Company was shaky, and again and again I heard him repeat those words that he had said to me: "The Lord is on his trail, and, when that happens, there isn't a hole or corner or a hollow log in the country that can hide him!"
We knew then that Mr. Crandon had been swindled out of all his savings by Mr. Murray. The clever letters that Mr. Murray had written to him years before had made him place all his money in some mines in Mexico that, according to the letters, were richer than the mines of Golconda, but which returned nothing at all for the Crandon dollars. It was those letters that he had hinted at as we waited for Olaf Hanson near the wharf in Boston.
January and February passed without news of Mr. Murray,
but in the first week of March Mr. Crandon fought his way
through the snow to our farm. He carried a New York paper,
and, in our kitchen, he read in a loud voice a story from
the front page. Mr. William Murray had been traced by
detectives to Richmond, and from there to Jacksonville. He
had fled an hour before the sleuths raided the house he
occupied, but a partly-destroyed letter gave them a clue
to his new hiding place. They took train to New Orleans
and there, in an old house in Royal Street, in the French
Quarter, they cornered their man. Mr. Murray fled to the
bedroom and locked the door. The detectives called on
him to surrender, and their demand was answered by the
explosion of a revolver within the room. When they broke in
the door they found Mr. Murray dead on the bed.
There were big tears in the eyes of my Aunt Morna when Mr. Crandon finished reading the account in the newspaper. Big tears that rolled hesitatingly down her white cheeks. And her lips, moving softly, told me that she was praying for the soul of Mr. William Murray....
SPRING came to New Hampshire like a timid girl creeping up with noiseless feet to place soft hands upon the eyes of a dreaming lover. Little scouting breezes that had run away from their mother trade-winds that cling to the equator—run away like wilful children who wish to see the world—brought strange odors to our farm. Strange perfumes that were the keys to dream chambers within the minds of those who love romance.
Wonderful are winds. My aunt told me during that springtime of folk who live in the Aran Isles off the coast of Galway, and who see pictures in the winds. Queer people are those islanders of Aran. When the west wind blows across the Atlantic from America they watch the sky over which the rivers of air are flowing and they see great fields of wheat and fine homesteads and food aplenty. Hard and mean is the soil of the little isles of Aranmor, Inishmaan, and Inishere, and the hardness of the life helps the islanders to see visions of great comfort in the winds that come from America.
Many other stories Morna O'Neill told me during that spring and summer. Stories that thrilled me.
The fine story of Deirdre the Beautiful, and the tale of the Children of Lir who were turned into swans and who mourned for hundreds of years, and the splendid narrative of the White Deer of Thomond who, so it is said, has the Lord's Prayer printed in Gaelic on his flank and who can only be shot by a virgin with an arrow of pure gold on a night when the moon is at the full....
But always with my aunt and me were dreams of tropical seas and little green islands and palm-thatched villages to which came a white schooner that rode the waves like a gull. And we talked a lot of the Swede and what he had written to us. Much on my guard was I when we talked of the Swede, for I had never told my aunt of seeing him in Boston when he gave me the miniature in the wonderful frame of silver. About this I kept my mouth shut and waited. For I knew, after the flight of Mr. Murray, that the Lord was weaving His tapestry in His own way, quietly, silently, and with much wisdom.
My father was up and about now. Peace had come back to our farm and we were all happy. The Murray Place had been closed after the flight of its owner, and it was said that it would be sold at auction for the benefit of the creditors as soon as the books of the firm had been audited. Mr. Crandon was no longer a hermit. He again found pleasure in speaking to persons, and he came often to our farm to talk with my aunt. Mr. Crandon worshiped my aunt.
The first sweet tang of the fall came to our farm, the
first blushing leaf appeared upon the maples on the slope
leading up to the Murray Place. And told of this to my
aunt, for she was much interested in the fine dresses that
the maple trees wore during the fall, they having been the
last patch of gorgeous color that she had seen before the
dreadful darkness clutched her. On a Sunday afternoon I
brought her a few of the leaves tinged yellow and red, and
she stroked them with her long tapering fingers, her big
dark eyes turned upon them as if she really could see the
fine coloring of them.
"It is three years since I asked you to be my eyes, Shamuseen beg," she murmured.
"Yes," I said. "It is exactly three years since you came to the farm."
Then, in her voice of honey, she repeated those splendid lines from the Book of the Kings, giving to the words a glory and a sweetness that it is impossible for me to describe:
### QUOTE
"Once in three years came the navy of Tharshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks ..."
And in that soft hush of the fall I thought I could hear the slapping of tinted sails and the slurring sound made by ropes dragged across polished decks as those ships of Tharshish came proudly up the Red Sea from golden Ophir. For in the voice of Morna O'Neill was a strange magic that made one see all that she spoke of.
On the day following I walked to the village to buy some small articles that my mother needed, came back by way of Lincoln Street and was heading for Caller Bridge when a big automobile came roaring out from the village. It passed me, then stopped abruptly, the driver, who was the only person in the car, waiting till I came abreast of him.
"Do you know where a man named Crandon lives?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," I answered. "He lives at Caller Bridge."
"Going that way?" he demanded. "Yes, sir," I said. "I go by his house."
"Hop in," he said. "You can point the place out to me."
He swung open the door of the car and I climbed up beside him. It was a very fine machine, so fine that I, for the first few moments, was more interested in it than I was in the driver. For I had never ridden in a beautiful automobile, and I was so ashamed of my dusty shoes that I tried to hold them off the blue rug that was beneath the feet of the man holding the wheel.
He saw what I was trying to do, and he smiled and told me to put my feet down and make myself comfortable, and when he smiled I knew that I liked him a lot. He was about twenty-seven years of age; he was tall and sun-tanned; and he had a scar on his left cheek, a scar that showed white against the brown of his skin. I wondered a little as to why he was going to Mr. Crandon's house.
We rolled over Caller Bridge, and I pointed to the small red cottage where Mr. Crandon lived. He nodded, and the car swung in towards the gate that opened on the main road. He stopped the machine close to the entrance.
"There's Mr. Crandon now!" I cried. "Look! Just by the hedge."
I waved to Mr. Crandon and he waved back to me as he walked towards the gate. The young man in the car stood up and lifted his hat. I knew then that Mr. Crandon didn't know him, for he looked puzzled, nodding quietly when the driver saluted him.
The young man spoke. "Mr. Crandon," he began, "I'm hunting for a man named Johnson. The girl at the post office where I enquired told me that you would surely know where he lived."
Now Mr. Crandon had a funny lower jaw. It seemed much smaller than the upper, and when the driver of the automobile mentioned the name of Johnson, Mr. Crandon's lower jaw dropped suddenly and refused to come back to its proper position although he seemed to be trying hard to get it back. And while he was trying he turned his eyes on me in a sort of a frightened way, staring at me as if I could help him.
The young man seemed surprised. He looked at Mr. Crandon for a few moments, then, finding Mr. Crandon was staring at me, he turned around and looked down at me as I crouched on the seat.
I was awful scared. Johnson was the name that I had told Mr. Crandon to write upon the wrapper of the miniature that we had sent to Singapore, and I thought that someone had traced the theft of the painting and that Mr. Crandon and I would be grabbed for receiving stolen property. And I think Mr. Crandon thought that too.
For a full minute the three of us remained without speaking, and the silence of the fall seemed to close in about us so that we seemed to be the only three persons in the world. Then, from somewhere away in the back of my head, a thought began to swell and swell till I believed my head would burst. A thought that drove away the fear that gripped me, but which throbbed and throbbed till I wanted to cry out with the pain of it. It thrust my eyes nearly out of my head and dried my throat so that I could not swallow.
When I felt certain I could stand the pain no longer, the young man spoke. And his words stopped the throbbing within my head, stopped the dreadful pain that the thought had brought to me. His words crashed through me like a great wind, bringing tears and sobs of joy.
"My name is Hugh Renshaw," he said, his head turned towards Mr. Crandon. "Someone named Johnson sent me a packet from Chesterbury post office. A packet worth any sum to me. I want to find him and reward him. The girl at the post office told me that you would know where he lived and—Why, what's the matter with the boy?" I was sobbing loudly then. Sobbing as if the whole small body of me wished to dissolve into tears. And sweet thrills ran through me as I wept; ran through me from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. For the world to me, as I dropped to the floor of the machine and laid my head upon the seat, was the most glorious place imaginable. A place filled with colorful dreams that fattened and grew strong with faith till they flowered on quiet days, bringing a joy that was so wonderful that it seemed unbearable.
I heard Mr. Crandon speaking. He had managed to get his lower jaw under control, and he was babbling explanations. And Captain Hugh Renshaw, standing erect and motionless, stared at him with unblinking eyes, the expression on his face showing how hard it was for him to turn the torrent of wild words into the beliefs he craved.
"A Swedish sailor brought it to Jimmy!" cried Mr. Crandon, and through my sobs I heard other words that he shouted excitedly. "We knew the lady that ... Jimmy's aunt.... Yes, yes!... lived with the family for the last three years.... No, no, no! She isn't married.... She's blind! Blind!"
From above me I heard the word blind hurled out with a force that startled me. Hugh Renshaw flung it into the silence in a wrapping of horror and astonishment.
"Blind?" he roared, and the word went out like a missile of sound that leapt towards the White Mountains. "Blind?"
And there came the faint piping of Mr. Crandon, the spectral echo of the word that the other had uttered.
"Blind. Yes, blind ever since she came to the farm three years ago."
"The farm?" roared the voice of thunder. "Where is it?"
Poor, stuttering Mr. Crandon pointed down the road in the direction of our farmhouse. Hugh Renshaw dropped back into the seat and seized the wheel.
The car gave a mighty leap into the middle of the road. I clung to the seat in horror. The wind snatched my hat from my head. I cried out, but Captain Hugh Renshaw took no notice. His eyes were on our white farmhouse that rushed towards us with unbelievable speed. We swayed out on the road for a rumbling waggon, leaped back again and tore onward. My eyes were blinded by the wind....
Morna O'Neill was standing in the flower garden before
our house when the mad car halted at the end of the little
avenue. She had heard the approach of the automobile, and
she had turned, her face toward the road, as Captain Hugh
Renshaw, with me at his heels, came running up the grassy
path.
Tall and slim and wonderful she was in the thin sunlight of the fall. A little unreal as all persons and objects of great beauty are to the eyes of those who know beauty. And about her, like an invisible cloak, was that mysterious glamor of which I have spoken and which I cannot tell of in words. For words are poor things when all is said and done, they being hard and small and kept apart from each other by blank staring spaces, lacking always the leaping length and flame that one needs in order to express out-of-the-way thoughts. For one wanted bands of color to tell of Morna O'Neill! Great ribbons of words welded together to tell of the magic that was hers. For when one looked at her one saw all the fine images that the best of us collect through the years of sordid struggling. The images that came like moths towards the Torch that she carried.
The singing spires of great cathedrals, wheatfields quivering under the breath of God, great sea spaces, and winding sunkissed roads. And figures built by poets: Lancelot, and Guinevere, and Roland! And others more real: The Maid of Orleans; the fierce Malatesta, the lover of Isotta; Queen Joan of Burgundy; and all the fine troop of gallants and ladies that marched beneath the old-gold flag of fine Romance!
Hugh Renshaw stopped when halfway up the avenue. His eyes were upon the woman that he loved, the woman whose face was turned towards him. And I knew as I watched him that he could not believe that Morna O'Neill was blind! He could not believe it all! Her big dark eyes contradicted all that Mr. Crandon had told him, and he waited—waited for her to speak.
Puzzled greatly, he again moved forward. Slowly, ever so slowly, his shoes making no sound on the grassy carpet. And fine thrills ran up and down my body as I watched him. Thrills that I had never know before. A thousand small hands seemed to be tickling my close-cropped scalp!
He was within ten feet of her when he paused again, his body thrown slightly forward, his arms thrust out. My eyes swept them both. The silence was a little frightened; the silence of the blind girl and the watching man, and the soft stillness of the fall.
Morna O'Neill raised a white hand to her cheek. The long tapering fingers stroked it softly. There was a look of puzzled wonder upon her face. Then, suddenly—and this scene will always remain with me as a sheet anchor when Faith weakens—she gave a little cry of joy and thrust out her hands. "Hugh!" she gasped. "Hugh!"
Hugh Renshaw sprang forward and clasped her in his arms as she moved towards him. And I was close to them as she whispered of the miracle. Of the great miracle.
"I thought I heard your footsteps on the grass!" cried my aunt. "I felt certain that they were your footsteps! Then I prayed for my sight for just one instant! For just one tiny instant so that I could see you! And I saw! I saw you! I saw you for just one tiny fleeting instant!"
"Do you see me now?" cried Renshaw. "Morna! Morna, do you see me now?"
"No, no! Not now!" gasped my aunt. "No, not now, Hugh! It is all dark again! All black and and frightening! But I—I did see you! Oh, I must have seen you! For you—for you have altered, Hugh! There is—there is—" She paused, and Hugh Renshaw held her tight, his eyes looking down into her sweet face.
"There is what?" he asked, and his voice was strained as he put the question. "There is what, sweetheart of mine?"
And, although her answer was in a whisper, the words seemed to roar through space. "There is a scar on—on your cheek, Hugh! A white scar! In the little instant God gave me to look at you I saw it! A white scar against the brown of your cheek!"
That afternoon Captain Hugh Renshaw drove his car
to Boston, and late that same night he returned with a
huge bearded man who was the greatest oculist in all New
England. The big man was a little angry with Captain
Hugh, and he told my father and mother that he had been
practically kidnapped, but he consented to stay the night
at our farm and make an examination of my aunt's eyes in
the morning. When he talked for a little while with Morna
O'Neill his bad humor vanished, and he was laughing and
joking when we were sent to bed. It was an amazing day at
our farm, a day of miracles.
The big oculist made the examination on the following morning, and, outside the darkened room, we waited to hear the news. And, of us all, the most excited was Captain Hugh Renshaw, for he knew well that unless Morna O'Neill regained her sight she would never be wife of his! For the pride that had forced her to tell the bitter lie to him was still with her. Just for the one instant of his return she had weakened and allowed him to hold her in his arms, but he was certain as he tramped up and down the passage outside of her room that a great obstacle that only God could remove lay between them.
For two hours the doctor made tests in the darkened room, then he opened the door and walked into the passage. Hugh Renshaw sprang forward, but the doctor was a big placid man who objected to any attempt to hurry him. He walked up and down with his hands behind his back, his big beard brushing his shirt front. After a little while he spoke.
"I think it will be well," he said. "I think so. The fact that she did see Captain Renshaw for an instant proves that the paralysis of the nerve is not permanent. What it could do under a moment of great excitement it might do again after an operation. A delicate operation. I have hopes. We will see what we can do. I have great hopes."
Captain Hugh took the doctor to Boston that afternoon, but he brought him out again on the following day, and my aunt underwent an operation, but of the result of this operation nothing would be known for ten days. During that period she would remain with bandaged eyes in a darkened room. We were all dreadfully excited; the big doctor was hopeful as he went away.
On the ninth day of my aunt's confinement to her room
the Murray Place was put up for public auction to obtain
money for the thousands whose earnings had been lost in the
bankruptcy of the bond house. My father and Captain Hugh
Renshaw were going to the auction, and, at the last minute,
Captain Hugh asked me if I would like to go with them.
Morna O'Neill had told the captain how I had read many
books to her, and he called me by the name that she used,
Shamuseen beg.
Walking up the slope I showed him the maple trees that were looking their very best in all the glorious colors of the fall, and I told him how my aunt had looked at them on the afternoon of the day when the darkness closed in upon her. I told him also the story of the travelling preacher who had frightened Jess Fox by telling him that the trees were dressed up for the coming of the Lord.
Captain Hugh was much interested. Again and again he questioned me as to the words my aunt had used on that afternoon when she had asked me to be her eyes.
We walked through the big entrance of the Murray Place and joined the great crowd of people gathered around the high perch that had been erected for the auctioneer. The auctioneer was a fat man who had come from Portsmouth, and he liked to talk.
"This is the finest property in the State of New Hampshire," he cried, as Captain Hugh, my father, and I joined the crowd. "It is a demesne fit for the richest gentleman in the land. Its beauty is equal to that of the stately homes of England, having, with that beauty, the great advantage of being situated in the Land of the Free; and, furthermore, in the finest section of that land, the glorious state of New Hampshire, whose beauties are unequalled the wide world o'er! I have, gentlemen, a bid of seventy thousand dollars to start the ball. I will ask you to bid promptly. Any advance on seventy thousand?"
There were lots of strangers in the crowd, men who had come from Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Dover, and even from Boston and New York in the hope of getting the place at a bargain.
"Seventy-five thousand!" shouted the auctioneer. "Eighty! Eighty-five! Bid up, gentlemen! Here on this great property you have the White Mountains smiling at Ninety thousand dollars I'm bid! Ninety thousand!
"A mere bagatelle, gentlemen! This place is fit for a prince and a princess! The prettiest place in the old Granite State! A state that gave us the immortal Daniel Webster whose words 'Liberty and Union, now and—Thank you, sir! Ninety-five thousand! Ninety fi—One hundred thousand dollars! One hundred thousand for a palace and a park in a State that has the most colorful history of all the states of the Union! Over at Portsmouth we built the Kearsage, and right close to it we have a river with the longest name of any river in the world, the Quohquinapassakessamanagnog! And in this state close to Concord that splendid American woman, Mrs. Hannah Dustin, killed ten Indians out of a possible twelve and—Thank you, sir! One hundred and five thousand dollars. One hundred and ten! That's right! Bid up lively, gentlemen! One hundred and fifteen! Twenty! Twenty-five! Now we're getting somewhere! And she would have killed the other two if—One hundred and hirty thousand! Remember the words of the great New England poet, Whittier: 'For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.' Tomorrow you will think I could have bought—One hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars! One hundred and thirty-five! I'm not going to give it away! Look at those maples! Look at them! Heavenly Father did anyone ever see trees as beautiful! Why the sight of them is worth—One hundred and forty thousand I'm bid! One hundred and forty thousand! Any advance? Any advance on One hundred and forty thousand? Once! Twice! Third, and last time! Going at One hundred and forty thousand dollars! No advance? Going, Going! Gone! ... What name, sir, please!"
And to my great astonishment a voice above me answered the question of the auctioneer. "Captain Hugh Renshaw," said the voice. "I'm staying for the moment at the Mill Farm just below. I can give you cash for ten thousand and a check on Boston."
My father was stunned. He couldn't speak. The crowd milled around us to catch a glimpse of the man who had bought the Murray Place.
"Jimmy," said Captain Hugh, as we walked down to our farm, "it was your story that made me buy it for Morna. If she gets her sight back, as I pray each moment that she will, I want you to show her the maple trees as her first glimpse of the outside world and to tell her that they are hers as a gift from you and me."
The great oculist came up from Boston on the day after
the sale of the Murray Place. He examined my aunt in the
darkened room, and, after what seemed years, he rushed out
into the passage.
"She can see!" he cried. "She can see! Everything is fine! She can see as well as she ever could!"
Captain Hugh Renshaw stumbled into the room, and, after a few minutes, he came to the door and called out to me.
"Morna wants you, Jimmy!" he said. "She wishes to speak to you!"
I crept into the darkened room and felt my way to the chair on which my aunt was sitting. She put out her hands and drew me towards her. "Shamuseen beg," she murmured, "the doctor says I can have one little peep at the outside world. Hugh says you have something to show me! Something that is mine!"
The doctor drew the corner of the heavy curtain that covered the window, and my aunt looked in the direction I pointed. Looked at the maple trees in all their glory. I tried to tell her that they were hers, but I was crying so hard that I couldn't. But Hugh Renshaw told her. He whispered it in her ear, and great tears of gratitude rolled down her cheeks.
The curtain fell back again. My aunt kissed me, and her words of honey filled my brain. "Shamuseen beg, you have kept your promise," she murmured. "You have been my eyes as I asked you to be. And you have kept my courage and my faith high when it faltered."
And I, crying like a baby, stumbled out into the passage where our family was grouped, frightening them for an instant because they thought that something had happened to spoil the miracle that God had worked for Morna O'Neill. The fine and splendid miracle that He had brought to pass with much careful weaving on the great loom that weaves the fabric of life out of dreams and words and acts and tiny thoughts of youths and maidens, husbands and wives, babies and old greybeards up and down the great world that He has made for us.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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