Читать книгу A Silent Singer - Clara Morris - Страница 5

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Old Thomas Brockwell—sometimes called Bull Brockwell, he of the mighty thews and sinews—had been for some years a widower, and had he remained a widower I should have been the poorer by one good friend—a lowly one—oh, yes—but you know that true friendship is one of the few things the lowly can afford to give.

But the broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced old Briton had married an American wife in the person of the mother of my closest chum—and so I learned many things about the narrow, hard, honest old giant—things that sometimes filled my eyes with tears of laughter; sometimes with stinging drops of anguished pity. The only surprising thing about Brockwell’s second marriage was that it had not taken place years before—for given a working-class Englishman of middle age—owning a house of his own—you have the worst material in the world for a widower. But, like most of his race, he was a bit contrary, and when all his housekeepers and his elderly unmarried friends pursued him openly—without even trying to hide the matrimonial lasso with a few flowers of sentiment or delicacy—he shook his obstinate, old head and plunged away.

Then Emily had arrived upon the scene, whom he described as “a fine figure of a woman” (she weighed something over two hundred), and if she was too inert to join in the general pursuit of him, she was also too inert to avoid pursuit herself—hence the marriage, and though, while praising her housekeeping, he openly expressed his doubts of her soul’s salvation—the new, phlegmatic Mrs. Brockwell remained quite undisturbed. She was an experienced chewer of gum—she said she had to chew it to aid her digestion—but be that as it may, a certain mental clearness, a sort of spiritual calm, seemed to come to her from her steady, cow-like munching. On the occasion of her second marriage she had contentedly chewed until she took her place before the lean, old minister; then, having no bridesmaid to act for her, she stuck her gum on her breast-pin, temporarily, while she promised to accept the big party at her side, and all his belongings, and to nurse him for the rest of his life without further remuneration—and with the nuptial benediction she had resumed her gum and had gone forth a slowly-chewing, contented bride—and on Sunday, he wishing, probably, to do all that was courteous and polite under the circumstances, took his new wife out to the cemetery and proceeded to introduce her—as it were—to the other members of the family.

A hideous chunk of stone stood in the middle of a plot, from which the graves rayed out like the spokes of a wheel—and old Thomas, with a cane, which so surely only appeared on Sundays that a bad little boy once said: “God made the Sabbath day and old Brockwell’s cane!”—with this cane he immediately bored a little hole at the foot of one grave and remarked: “I buried my first wife there”—and Emily brought her jaws to with a snap, and bowed her head slightly, as though acknowledging an introduction. Then she chewed again, and old Thomas yanked out the cane with some effort, as though Mrs. Brockwell No. 1 was holding on to it. Then he bored another little hole at the foot of another grave with the cane and announced: “I buried my eldest son here”—another stoppage of the jaws and another bow—and so the old “borer” went on, till each member of the family had been presented to the new-comer in turn, and then he gave the final touch of brightness to this very original bridal outing by carefully measuring with the cane the space, to see if there was enough left for two more spokes to his family “wheel of death.”

Mrs. Brockwell was wont to declare she would remember that day as long as she lived. Not because her sensibilities were wounded, but because she had not been constructed for rapid action, and she declared she would never have lived through the homeward walk but for the sustaining power of an extra piece of gum, which she luckily had in her pocket—for this was the golden age of the world when women still had pockets.

Old Thomas Brockwell narrowly—very narrowly—escaped being a religious monomaniac. Unquestionably sincere, his religion was yet a thing so warped and bitter as to fill most people with shrinking dread. He studied only the Old Testament, rarely reading the New. In his ears the rolling thunders of Sinai drowned the gentle “Voice” preaching from the “Mount.” He believed in a personal Devil—he believed in a material Hell.

I have never known anyone who got as much satisfaction out of the whole of his religion as he got out of Hell alone. He talked of it, thought of it, and, in regretful tones, told many of his friends that they were going there. All its accessories were dear to him. The “brimstone,” the “burning lake” and that “undying worm,” which seemed, in his imagination, something between a boaconstrictor and a Chinese dragon, while the “bottomless pit” not only gave him two words to roll sweetly under his tongue, but provided an ideal place to shake frightened little boys over at Sunday-school—for he labored faithfully Sunday after Sunday to frighten sinful youth into the church or the idiot asylum.

His God was a bitterly revengeful God! The Bible told him to fear Him and to obey His commandments. The base of his religion was “an eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth!” He knew no “turning of the other cheek”—no “forgiveness of enemies,” and many a time, in his efforts to show his disapproval of the loving, gentle, yet strong teaching of the New Testament, he blasphemed unconsciously. Few things made him so angry as to suggest “a Hell of remorse”—of “tortured conscience”—of “mental agony”—while a hint at “atonement”—a final winning of forgiveness—was a rag so red as to set him madly charging through the harshest and most cruelly just punishments meted out in the Bible—and the worse one promised for the future—Hell! “And their future is now!” he would shout, with glaring eyes! “Now, do you understand? All these disobedient servants of the Lord are in fiery torments now! and will be forever! Ah! it’s a big place—a mighty big place!—far and far away bigger than Heaven! It has to be, there’s so many more to go there!”

Night and morning he read a portion of the Bible, and prayed loud and long—and right there he came in conflict with his Emily. There was just one point they differed on—they did not quarrel, because Emily was too slow in speech. There’s no comfort to be had out of a quarrel, unless it’s quick—very quick; and if Emily had had her choice she would a good deal rather have died than try to be quick.

The point of difference between this otherwise peaceful pair was whether the chewing of gum was un-Christianlike and disrespectful when indulged in during family service. The first time he had caught her in the heinous act he had roared out: “Woman, have you no decency? Would you chaw the ten commandments up into a hunk of gum?”

Emily had mildly stated that she chewed “to keep herself awake,” and after many struggles it had come to a compromise—she was only to chew while he read; not while he prayed.

Emily explained matters to me one day in this way: “You see, Mr. Brockwell, he gets riled up because I chew gum while he’s reading gospel, but it’s really his own fault; if he’d only read one chapter, like an ordinary Christian man! My father, now, was a deacon, and he never read mor’n one chapter at a time at family service; but Mr. Brockwell, when he gets a smiting people hip and thigh, and a raining down plagues and things; why, there’s no stop to him; he goes right along over ever so many chapters—and I don’t take to the stoning and the killing—and so I go off to sleep, unless I chew gum right hard. Why, never once since we’ve been married has Mr. Brockwell been satisfied with the ‘Fall of Jericho’ for one reading. On he goes, and tackles that city of ‘Ai,’ and I always feel sorry when that line comes about the ‘men and women that were slaughtered bein’ twelve thousand.’ But, land sakes! it’s all sweeter than honey to Mr. Brockwell—’specially the hanging of the king, and piling stones on his body for the beginning of an altar—nasty, bad-smelling idea I call it. But when Mr. Brockwell begins with them ‘seven trumpets of rams’ horns’ I begin to chew hard, for I know there’s a lot to be gone over before praying begins. If he’d read oftener about Hannah and little Samuel I’d keep awake. Ain’t that a nice little Samuel on the mantel—his left foot’s broken, but kneeling like that you’d never know it, unless you turn him around.” That being the sort of tangent Mrs. Emily was apt to go off on during a conversation.

The old man might have lived without working at that time, but he held idleness as sinful, so he, without any feeling of shame, acted as night watchman in a large building down town. One winter there were many burglaries, and his employer grew a bit uneasy, knowing his was a tempting establishment and remembering that Thomas Brockwell was an elderly man. So he asked his watchman if he would not like to have some one to help him during the rest of the winter. And Brockwell was hot with anger and answered that he could take care of his employer’s property, but he didn’t want to protect some young nincompoop besides. “I am able to take care of any burglars that come my way. A man of the Lord can always lick a law-breaker,” and looking at the really splendid old body of his watchman, the gentleman had laughingly declared he “believed old Brockwell would be up to two or three younger men!” and let him go his obstinate, lonely way, and like many another word spoken in jest, these words proved true.

One bitter night, after reading with great enjoyment of the prompt action of the bears in the taking off of those ribald little boys who had made unpleasant remarks about the scarcity of hair among the prophets (surprising how alike the boys of to-day are with the boys of the scriptural epoch), and had prayed till Emily had fallen asleep, with her face squelched in the seat of the chair she knelt by, and had awakened and acknowledged her fault. “For,” as she said to me, “after he had fallen over my legs without waking me, he might have thought I was lying if I had said I was just thinking.”

And I had quite agreed with her and complimented her on her truthful nature—and he had taken his tin pail of coffee in his mittened hand and his package of sandwiches in his pocket and gone forth to his night’s watch. He had been a sailor in his early manhood, and, in addition to the tattooed anchor and star on the backs of his hands, he still retained a few words from his sailor’s vocabulary which he used now and then with bewildering effect upon the landsmen. Mrs. Brockwell found that habit particularly trying. She was one of those women who always get drabbled when they walk. Long street dresses were worn in her day, and had she possessed six hands instead of two, she would have failed still to keep her dress out of the wet or the mud. On Sundays when she was crowded into her best gown and was clutching her skirt in the most useless places, trying to pick her way across a muddy street, old Thomas was wont to exclaim from the rear: “Take a reef in the la’board side of your petticoat, Emily!” and Emily would hoist high the right side instead, and the left would go trailing through the mud, while the old man pounded the walk with his Sunday cane, crying: “La’board—la’board—la’board, not sta’board. Now just look at your sails! Oh, woman, the ignorance of you at forty-six, not to know your la’board from your sta’board side!” And meek Emily never suggested that left and right were the generally accepted terms for use on shore.

And as old Thomas walked through the biting cold, he congratulated himself on the honesty his wife had shown in admitting she had fallen asleep during prayers, and said to himself that it was the end of her day’s work and he supposed she was tired—and—“great guns, how cold it was!” And so he maundered on and reached his store and entered and made his rounds, and finally at about two o’clock he took his coffee from the heater and began to drink it, when he paused—to listen. Then he put the coffee gently down and stole softly to the office—and saw two men at the safe, and with a cry, “Avast there!” he was upon them, striving to grasp them both! The smaller one was like an eel and had slipped from his clutch, but the larger one he held on to, and after a short struggle, he got his head “in chancery.” He had just put in a couple of good blows—when he heard an ominous click behind him—at the same instant the man he was pounding fiercely growled: “No, no, don’t use the ‘barker’—you fool, you’ll ‘jug’ us all yet! Choke the devil off, so I can do something—choke him, I say!”

With beautiful obedience and the spring of a wild-cat, No. 2 was on Brockwell’s back, and doing his best to carry out orders. But it was that neck—that had given rise to the name Bull Brockwell; and the small ruffian tried in vain to get his clever thief’s fingers in a choking grasp about the massive throat; but his weight was disturbing and distressing, and old Brockwell loosed No. 1 for a moment, while he reached up and tore the incubus from his shoulders. In the effort he wheeled half round and found himself facing a third man in the doorway. He had just time to note that the man had a bull’s-eye lantern in one hand, some weapon in the other, and wore a half-mask on his face—when he received a crushing blow upon the head. He felt the hot blood leap forth in swift response to that savage gash. He staggered a bit, too, but did not fall, to the amazement of the brawny scoundrel, who exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned!” Those words were like a veritable “slogan” to old Brockwell. “Aye, aye,” he cried, “right you are, my hearty! Damned you will be, sure, and the burning lake of brimstone you’ll get for this night’s work!” and then they were upon him. He threw No. 3 out of the doorway and took that place himself, thus keeping all of them before him, and like an old bear “baited” by a pack of snapping, snarling dogs, he was slowly driven back until he found himself in the room again where stood his coffee. While he placed many blows where they would do the most good, still a great many more had fallen short. He felt his wind was going, and the streaming blood from his head impaired his sight, and just at that moment of threatened weakness the little thief struck him in the face, not with his fist but with his open hand—slapped him, in fact. With a roar of rage, old Brockwell caught up the pail and dashed the hot coffee full into his assailant’s face, then shouting, “You little whelp, you cur, you worm!” with a mighty blow he drove the tin pail hard and tight on to the thief’s head, half cutting off his ears with its rim, and as the other men made at him, by a happy fluke, he caught each man by the back of the neck and with every ounce of power to be had from his great arms and shoulders, he drove their two heads together in a smashing blow, and dropped their bodies as a well-bred terrier drops the rats he has shaken the life from. Then he turned for the little foe, just in time to catch upon his arm the blow that had been meant for his heart, and, by the hot smarting of his skin, he knew he had been cut by the little ruffian, whom he hammered into submission easily. Then Bull Brockwell sounded his whistle at the door for the police, and when they came he laid his hand on one of the officers’ shoulder and faintly asked: “Why—don’t—you—hold still—officer? You keep—going up—and down—,” and then old Thomas went down, and for a time knew neither prayer, nor burglar, nor even burning brimstone, but only darkness.

When his senses came back to him he gave an exhibition of what might be called pig-headed honesty. There was a drug store and a doctor’s office about two blocks away, and the policeman, on seeing the sorry condition of the old man, urged him to go and have his hurts cared for. They would see that all was safe during his absence, but he refused point blank, saying: “If a man was a watchman, he watched! If he was a night watchman he watched till the night was gone, or deserved the ‘cat.’ His employer paid him to stay in that building till daylight, and he’d stay, and be tended to afterwards.”

Half angrily the policeman exclaimed: “You obstinate, old bull! Do you want to bleed to death, then?” And the “bull,” with some embarrassment, had acknowledged that he did not really desire death, but with a sigh of satisfaction, he suddenly announced: “The Lord will settle all that. All I’ve got to do—is my duty—and though I don’t feel just what you might call—hearty—I—I—guess—I’ll hold out—till time’s up and—” and his gray white lips trembled into silence.

The policeman, finding him immovable in his determination, sent for help, and soon the battered “old Brockwell” was being washed and strapped and bandaged and stitched, and had a few feet of plaster over some strained muscles, and was generally “made over.” And then the stunned burglars had recovered their scattered senses and received a smiling and joyous welcome from the policemen, such as is only offered when the lost is found—and indeed one of these gentlemen had been lost—from the penitentiary—for several months. When the party of three were rounded up, ready for an early morning stroll to the station house, No. 1 had turned to Brockwell and growled: “See here, you old slugger, next time I come up against you just hit me over the head with a loaded cane, or the butt-end of a revolver or something soft like that, will you? I don’t want to be ‘put out’ no more with another ‘mug’s’ head, now I tell you fair!”

“A—a—ah!” cried the little fellow, “he’s a fightin’ freak, he is! He ought to be a doin’ time for jamming a tin pail over a man’s head and half cutting off his ears!”

And so they went forth, cursing the night they had tackled “old Bull Brockwell!”

And then he had returned home, “sans buttons et sans reproche,” and finding a barrel of flour standing at the side door, had picked it up and carried it into the house, apparently to convince himself that he was not much hurt. Then, beginning to feel stiff and lame, he put himself into Emily’s hands, and she promptly put him into his bed, and scrambled through the “Fall of Jericho,” stuck her gum upon the bed-post while she did it, then she had looked at his head and said, “she’d no idea a man could sew so neatly!” and then old Brockwell got hot and feverish, and his eye and cheek had blackened, and the doctor said he must be kept quiet a few days, at which dictum Emily had groaned aloud: “Kept quiet? Him? Good Lord!”

And, truly, had she been alone with him those days, her work would have been cut out for her. The ideal “bull in a china shop” would have proved an inoffensive and lymphatic creature compared to this pawing, plunging, irritable old Bull Brockwell! Bad enough at any time, when his eyes had swelled so he could no longer by the aid of his Bible put women and children to “the edge of the sword,” nor erect altars, nor even calculate the dollars’ worth of a “wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight,” he proceeded to fret himself into a fever, and I was moved partly by pity and partly, I am sorry to say, by a spirit of mischief, to seat myself by his side, and with the air of one who carefully selects a soothing and pleasant topic for sick-room conversation, I brought forward the subject of eternal punishment, and for my reward had his fixed attention in a moment.

For a time he expatiated on the strong points of that place of torment, seeing no inconsistency in paving with broken promises a bottomless pit, and as he began to run down, assuming the air of one eager for information, I asked his opinion of that place of eternal coldness—that frozen lake.

“Coldness—coldness?” he repeated, “Why, I don’t seem to remember!” and then another thought came to him and he broke out: “Fine! Splendid! I never felt such pain in my life as when I went near a fire with my frosted hands. Cold and fire! That’s good! Ah, it would have been better to have respected them commandments—only ten of ’em too!”

Egged on by his evident satisfaction, I went on introducing to him “circle” after “circle” of the great Italian’s Vision of Hell, and if Mr. Thomas Brockwell ever knew a genuinely happy afternoon, that was the one. And when I got a soft pencil and made black lines about the inside of his shaving-mug to illustrate the idea of the “circle,” he eagerly peered in with his nearly-closed, discolored eyes and triumphantly cried: “And the old, burning-brimstone lake right at the bottom—eh?”

All the punishments had met with his hearty approval save one. That great, black, “windy horror,” through which unfortunate lovers beat their blind way—seeking, eternally seeking their sinful mates—met with instant condemnation. “If they had sinned—they had broken a very important law—a law, mind you, that Moses had received direct from Heaven. Just flying round in the dark was no punishment for such a sin! They got worse than that when they were alive!” For, you see, the old man was very material, and he failed to imagine the anguish of that “eternal, loving, despairing search!”

All went well. Old Brockwell not only kept to his bed, but enjoyed himself until night and time for family service arrived, and then the “snag” appeared in my way that I should have seen from the first. Suddenly suspicious, he placed his hand on the book and asked: “Just in what part of ‘this’ did you find all that new ‘Hell’ you’ve been telling me about, lass?”

I sat stupidly silent. I had a vision of myself being driven away as unworthy to enter in with true believers, having jested upon the great subject. I tried to force my lips to speak, to tell him I would bring the book I had read it all in—but, truth to tell, I was too frightened to speak, and his brow blackening with anger, Mattie, his step-daughter, calmly asked: “Mother where was it in the old-world they found those ‘sacred’ manuscripts the other day?” (Poor Emily wasn’t at all sure there was an old-world.) “Mr. Brockwell, you’ll know—Egypt wasn’t it? Those wise men are working over them, you know, to translate them; they say they are parts of the old—”

“Egypt,” declared the battered Brockwell. “Egypt, and very interesting they are too!”

“But,” I meekly started, “but”—then Mattie cleared her throat loudly, and bending over me, muttered: “Don’t be a fool—leave well-enough alone!” and I followed her advice and was silent. A month later, I told them “good-bye,” my profession taking me far from them, and I could not help admiring the upright, powerful figure of the old man, as he stood at his gate—so perfectly proportioned that it was hard to believe that he was inches over six feet in height. As I reached the walk I looked back. Emily, large and buxom, stood in the door, a soft, red shawl about her ample shoulders—her jaws working with a slow precision that told me plainly she was “breaking in” a new piece of gum. Bull Brockwell waved his hat to me, and, against the westering sun, he loomed up black and big! And I said to myself: “In faith as in body—a giant!”

Three years had passed before I saw him again, three vivid, crowded years for me! Success had perched upon the lonely, little banner I had carried into that strange campaign where each one fights according to his own individual plan, and I was back in the old city, and because of that success was in great haste to seek my lowly, old friends out—for self respect, even a suspicious pride, renders it very hard for the lowly to make the first advance toward one who has risen ever so slightly. I had heard nothing of them during my absence, and standing at the door waiting a good, long wait—for Emily, like most large bodies, moved slowly—I said to myself: “I shall not see the dear, old ‘Bull’ for a couple of hours yet, as he will surely be sleeping now, but by six o’clock—” and then the door opened, and Mrs. Emily was before me, quite unchanged—and had taken me into a big comfortable embrace—and kissed me warmly and loudly, and expressed her gratification so noisily that I wondered she was not afraid of waking her husband—and then she led the way to the sitting-room, without one word of warning or explanation—which was so like Emily—and crying out, “My, Mr. Brockwell, but here is some one you’ll be glad to see,” she moved aside and left me in the doorway, where I stood quite still, the smile of welcome drying stiffly on my lips, while with pained astonishment I stared at—Mr. Brockwell (?)—oh, yes; that thick thatch of hair was neither whiter nor thinner than before. There was the splendid, old torso with all its depth of chest and breadth of shoulder. But why was he in that dread wheel-chair? Why were his great limbs covered with a quilt? and, worst of all, why that strange expression in his face? Meeting that piteous, appealing glance, I felt the tears begin to fall, for I realized that in spite of the presence here of Mr. Brockwell—old Bull Brockwell was no more! The painful silence was broken by the trembling voice of Emily: “Father, I clean forgot to tell her—anything—and—and, I declare, she does take it right hard—don’t she, now?” and she slipped out of the room, wiping her own eyes furtively as she went!

As I crossed the room toward him, his chin sank upon his breast, and shaking his old head slowly, he sadly murmured: “From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath!”

I took his great hand between both of mine, and my lips were just forming the words: “Surely this is but temporary?” when he raised his eyes, and, looking into them, I saw that hope was dead and buried there. I sank upon my knees beside him and said: “Tell me about it, Mr. Brockwell.” He glanced towards his wife’s room, but I persisted gently: “No—I want you to tell me,” for my true sympathy had bridged the years between us, and we were like old friends.

In low tones he told his simple, commonplace story. It was the construction he put upon the usual that made it seem unusual, and brief and simple as his story was, it was intensely characteristic. He had started earlier than usual to his night’s work, and was swinging his coffee-pail to the measure of the old hymn, “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand,” when, turning into a cross-street, he found himself in a crowd of running men and women, and in a few moments was in the midst of all the turmoil and commotion attending a fire, and he soon saw there was cause for the cries of the women and the curses of the men. There had been a nasty accident, and it had come to the first engine approaching the fire. It had been a case of strange driver and a too-short turn, and there, in a terrible heap, lay one horse flat, the other on its knees, and behind them a partly overturned engine. Worst of all, not only were its own services lost, but it was keeping other engines from entering the street, save by a long detour. Now, if ever there was a demand for lifting-power that demand was made right there, and old Brockwell sat down his coffee-pail and began to remove his heavy coat (it was early November then), when he learned quite suddenly that the burning house was a haunt of evil doers, was in fact a place that honest folk turned their faces from as they passed, and for the moment he hesitated, then flinging his coat fiercely off, he shouted: “Help! men, help! That fire must be quenched, to give those people one last chance to save themselves from eternal fire,” and the “old Bull” was with the firemen, working with a will and showing such splendid lifting-power that the crowd cheered the “gray old Hercules” lustily, and among other happenings some “company’s hose” had burst, and many were wetted thoroughly, among them old Brockwell. A church clock had boomed out the hour, and it was time for him to go on to his work, and then he felt how wet he was. He might have gone home and changed his clothing and only have been a little late in getting to the store. There was no one to make comment or to report his action, but he would be late, and he was proud, (the old man’s lips had twisted painfully in uttering that word), proud of his punctuality, and—well—he had gone on to the store, wet as he was, and the night had been long, and now and then, strange, deep, burning pains, that seemed a mile long, had run from hip to heel, but he had watched the night out—and—and he would never watch again—that was all. He had, in fact, “scuttled his own ship,” but in ignorance, lass! In ignorance, not in villainy. Yes, it was rheumatism first. He hadn’t minded that so very much, because he had the awful pain to fight, but this (again that piteous twist of the lips), this partial paralysis—well there was nothing even to fight now.

Had I not seen hope dead in his eye? His head sank low on his breast. I touched my lips to his hand, and whispered, “How you have suffered!” His eyes closed wearily, and he answered lowly: “I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,” then, almost with a sob, he said: “Aye, aye—in very truth my sin hath found me out!”

I started almost angrily, exclaiming: “Your sin? What sin? You have loved—at least you have feared God all your life long! His word has ever been upon your lips. You have striven to obey His laws—what sin has found you out?” He raised his head, crying: “And to think I was so blind—so self-satisfied! To think how I tried to keep the boys from going to perdition by way of Sunday ball, and the girls by way of their vanity in their bits of ribbons! The blind ‘leading the blind,’ in good truth! Even when I was stricken I did not understand, until a neighbor made my sin plain to me.”

“Ah,” I said, “and had that neighbor removed the beam from his own eye, that he could see so very plainly the mote in yours?”

“I do not know,” he answered, “but he said that pride went before a fall. And when I looked a bit surprised he added, ‘you have been eaten up with vanity and puffed up with pride all your life, because of your great strength,’ and oh, lass! lass! I was sore ashamed! Ah, well, I have no strength to sin with now—I am just naught but a useless, old hulk, or what is worse, ‘a derelict!’”

“No,” I said, “a ‘derelict’ is a menace and a floating danger to many men—you are no derelict!”

But he, shaking his clenched hand above his head in impotent sorrow, went on: “Worse! I’m worse than a danger to men! Men are strong and can save themselves, but here I hang like a mill-stone about the neck of that poor woman there—my wife, and she’ll have to bear the dragging and the weight for years and years. For, mind you, I’m not like to die. The doctors say these things inside of me that they call ‘organs’ are all sound and strong, and that a man lives by them, not his legs, and so I’m to sit here rusting away, and watching her grow sick at the sight of me!”

Two slow, difficult tears stood chill and unshed in his eyes, and I felt, with a pang, how great must be the storm of sorrow that could cast its spray into those stern, old eyes.

“I don’t suppose,” he went on, “that she realizes it yet; she’s good as gold. She takes care of me, helpless as I am, always just as smiling and pleasant, and sets right by me, and don’t even go to church—just talks a little over the fence with the neighbors, so she can come and tell me what’s going on. Why, she even offered to give up gum, and she a needing it for her digestion so, ’cause she thought it might make me restless-like (and there is a kind of gum, you know, that squeaks a good deal when it’s new); but I ain’t so selfish as all that. But, oh, if I could just die decently, as a man should when he’s no more use, and not be a burden and a drag! For, you see, Emily’s a mighty fine figure of a woman, and she might easily find a new home, with some good, sound man for a husband—who would protect her, and not sit, as I do, waiting for the day to come when his wife will look at him with loathing.”

“Mr. Brockwell,” I cried, “do you know that you are cruel to yourself and unjust to your wife?” He looked hard at me, but made no answer. “Your wife was always proud of you!” His face quivered—I had struck a wrong note—I hurried on: “proud of your character and standing, and of the pretty, little home you had so hardly earned, and now, oh, believe me, dear old friend, I know her heart better than you do yet—now she is proud to be the world for you, to be your feet, your nurse, your companion, your friend as well as wife.”

He sadly shook his head: “She is a slave,” he said. “Yes, if you will, she is a slave to her love for you, therefore she is a happy slave. You have said, yourself, that she smiles on you constantly. She never looked better in her life, and why does she call you ‘father’ now?”

His face brightened a little. “Yes,” he answered, “she has called me ‘father’ ever since the—the—(how he shrank from the word) since the paralysis came upon me—yes, ever since.”

“And,” I went on, “can’t you see what that means? She used to call you Mr. Brockwell—but when your cruel affliction came upon you she felt the absolute need of some term of endearment, because she loved you.” Still, with the perversity of unhappiness, he exclaimed: “But Emily didn’t say that. She never told me that she—she—”

“Oh, indeed,” I broke in, “and have you given her a chance to tell you? Have you ever asked her if she loved you still?” And the old man, with a mind full of clean and wholesome memories, blushed at the question with a swift swirl of color in his cheeks that a girl of eighteen might have envied. “Have you?” I persisted. “Come, now, let us have a little fair play. You know she can’t speak first. You know that, like every other modest, self-respecting woman, she must be dumb about her feelings—her emotions, until the man breaks the silence. You know she has been trained to silence from her earliest girlhood. Yet, knowing all that, you gnaw your heart in bitterness, because she does not dare lay her arms about your neck and assure you of her faithful love.”

His eyes glowed, his great hands opened and shut nervously. He stammered and stumbled over his few words: “You think I haven’t steered a straight course with Emily, eh? You actually believe, if I take a new tack, eh?—if I tell her how I—how,—well, how things are with me—that she’ll come around to the helm—I mean—” and then suddenly his face fell and, shaking his fist in impotent rage at his helpless limbs, he cried: “Oh, she can’t, she can’t! Look at the miserable ‘old hulk,’ just rottin’ slowly away between the tides of Time and Eternity, and talk of a woman lovin’ it—a-a-h!”

I saw Emily’s troubled face at the door and swiftly waved her away. Then I said, as brightly as I could: “Well, all ‘hulks’ are not despised! I saw a real one a few weeks ago!” He looked up quickly. “Where?” he asked.

“By the sea,” I answered. “What kind of a hulk was it—some unfinished failure of a ‘tub,’ I suppose?”

“No, a wreck! A great, gaunt-ribbed thing; stately even in its ruin. The waves—” He caught my dress as I rose to my feet. “Tell me about the ‘hulk,’ lass, tell me!” He pleaded just as a child pleads for a story.

“Very well,” I said, “I’ll tell you, but you must let me go to the spare room to lay off my hat. I’m going to stay all night, if your wife will let me!” I laughed at his request “for me to hurry,” and said: “Mr. Brockwell, before I go, I want to say just one more word about your wife. You may doubt, but I am certain, certain, that should you have your cruel wish and die to-morrow, and should Emily be spared for many, many years to come, at the very end she will lie at your side, and will carry your name to her grave”; and as I passed Emily I whispered eagerly: “Don’t be angry with me; I’ll explain later, but, for God’s sake, go straight to your husband and kiss him!” The tears rushed into her eyes—she nodded her head and passed into the room where he sat.

I loitered long over the removal of my hat and wrap; I even waited to bathe my reddened eyes, and then, as I slowly descended the tiny staircase, Emily’s voice, mildly indignant, came up to me, crying, “Oh, father, how could you, how could you?” and from the deep, bass rumble that followed there escaped these words: “A mighty fine figure of a woman, Emily!”

Then I sneezed loudly and entered the room to find them discussing the rival merits of “beaten” and “raised” biscuit, one of which we were to have for “tea.” Mrs. Brockwell, being of a slow and peaceful nature, naturally preferred “raised” biscuit, but Mr. Brockwell, being more aggressive, took a great interest in the “beating” process. Once he asked, indeed, if he might not beat the dough, and Emily delightedly assented, putting a big, white apron about him and bringing everything close to his chair. But the poor, old giant’s second blow had split the bread-board, and that had been the end of biscuit-beating for him. While Emily was pounding vigorously, if somewhat slowly, at her dough, I told my old friend of that other hulk, bleached white as chalk by the blazing sun, lying high upon the beach, listing over so that it made a sort of shelter for people to sit under, with the fine, pale sand slowly filling it—slowly piling up about it; how, when I saw it, the ocean which had cast it there was stretched out waveless beneath the sun, with only a slow, deep, regular heave, that was like the breathing of some mighty monster at rest. I told him of that awful night when the signals of distress were sent up into the pitiless sky, and were seen and heard by helpless, distracted men and women on shore; and how, in the gray morning, they were astounded to see the big ship high upon the beach, and dumbfounded when they saw she was a coffin, for there was the body of a woman there. Slight and young and small of foot and hand, and a Catholic, since a “scapula” was about her neck—and that was all. How the young stranger had been buried on the high land overlooking the sea and the wreck, and how, down below and up above, both were waiting, one for utter destruction, the other, for a glorious resurrection; and meantime the old hulk had become not only a landmark, but a thing beloved. Oh, yes; he need not shake his head, for that old hulk was the loyal friend of all true lovers. The great, gray, maimed thing sheltered many a shrinking pair from prying eyes. Brown, young rustics, who were fairly stricken dumb in the “sittin’-rooms” of their sweethearts, here, in the velvety, black shadow of the friendly, old hulk, found their tongues, and told swiftly and well the one old story that is ever new; while, as to summer nights—why, the old hulk was the trysting-place of lovers from half the countryside. It was so public, and yet so sheltered—so protecting. And it was so wise, the gray, old, sand-filled thing—it knew so much of Love, and Love’s dear brother, Death!—so much—good God, so much! and yet was silent—ever silent!

Half the young married women of the little town had received their engagement rings within the sheltering arms of the old hulk, and some of them had carried their little children there, later on, that they might take their first, uncertain steps upon the soft, pale sands that were drifting ever higher about the bleaching wreck, just as one might take the first spring blossoms to some spot that was sacred to us.

That noble ship that on even keel, with mighty spread of snowy canvas, had sat the water a living thing of strength and beauty, had had a commercial value only, but wrecked, it had become a precious thing to them all, garlanded with the tenderest sentiments of both men and women, draped with the radiant hopes of youth, and each day gilded anew with ever-living love. As it sank deeper in the sand, so it sank deeper in their memories—their beloved “old hulk”!

The old man had listened so closely to my story that I was somewhat puzzled when he remarked on my last word: “If I was sure and certain that Emily was telling the truth about that patch-work, I don’t know but what I might get to be more that sort of hulk myself, lass! If I could just be of a little use—ever so little, but real!—I could get along, but I don’t want to be fooled, like a child, into doing useless things. The Lord says: ‘A man should rejoice in his work!’ but a man can’t rejoice if it’s only make-believe work!”

I began dimly to comprehend, and, proceeding cautiously, I remarked “that it would not be easy to deceive him, and I did not believe anyone would try!” He looked doubtful and, lowering his voice so that his wife might not hear him, asked: “You know what a master hand Emily is at piecing patch-work, don’t you?”

I did know! I recalled the really handsome quilts she had shown me. It was the only way she had to gratify her natural love of color, and the workmanship was exquisite. The quilting in “fan” and “shell” and “diamond” forms equalling the piecing. Indeed, patch-work was a fine art in Mrs. Brockwell’s hands. “Yes, I knew!”

Then his keen, old, blue eyes took fast hold upon mine and, in an aggressive tone, he made this astonishing statement: “Well, Emily can’t cut out any of her patch-work herself. She can’t cut any two pieces exactly alike, to save her life!” Oh, Emily, Emily! poor, bungling, loving Sapphira! I understood and thought fast while those piercing, old eyes held me! I tried to laugh naturally, as I exclaimed: “Well, there’s a pair of us, then! I have lovely pieces—enough for two quilts, but I can’t cut pieces alike, and am ashamed to ask anyone to do it for me; so there they lie!”

“Oh, you!” he impatiently answered, “but Emily, now!” I thought of those quilts upstairs, while he went on: “See this thing, now!” He pointed to the small quilt over his knees. I required no invitation, goodness knows! for the ugly, ill-made thing had forced my attention long ago. No two pieces matched in length; they were puckered and stretched (the old man called them “we-wahed”).

“That’s her cutting,” he announced! I was about to explain, when I saw Emily behind him in the kitchen-door frantically signing me to keep quiet. “Oh, dear!” I moaned to myself, “what about those quilts upstairs?”

“Yes;” he went on, “that’s a woman’s cuttin’ out! Yes (argumentatively), I saw her do it! And think of those quilts upstairs! (Ah, I thought!) Why, Emily says she would have had enough for herself and for her daughters’ marrying, if she could have got her first husband to cut her pieces for her! (O, Emily!) but she had to beg and beg, and he wouldn’t cut a single piece for a whole year sometimes. She says he was ashamed to do it, she reckons! Well!” he hotly ejaculated, “I’m not ashamed to do anything for my wife, unless”—he cooled suddenly again—“unless she’s only making believe so as to give me employment!”

“Well,” I said, “if you choose to doubt your wife, after looking at that awful quilt, you may. But you can’t well suspect me, and if you will cut pieces for one quilt for me I’ll give you silk enough for a quilt for yourself. Will you do it?”

The last suspicion faded! He threw back his head and laughed: “Will I? You’ll see! Say, lass, just step over to the sta’board side of that sewing machine and hand me up that cuttin’ board, and I’ll show you what’s the matter with the ‘cuttin’ out’ of all you women. You see,”—he spoke with an air of growing authority as he unrolled some bits of calico—“you will just have your pattern cut out of a bit of cotton or delaine, and then you smack that down onto, perhaps, several pieces of goods together, never mind whether bias or straight, just to save time. Great guns! save time! Look at that thing over my knees! Well, I take the ‘sun observation,’ and I get my pattern all right, and then I cuts her out in good, stiff pasteboard, ma’am, and if it’s a hard pattern, like ‘bride in the mist’ or ‘the risin’ sun,’ I have the thing cut out of a thin sheet of tin. A—a—ho! I don’t make no mistakes, even with ‘brides in the mist,’ when I’ve a good, tin pattern to work by!”

As so often happens, enthusiasm was too much for his grammar. He talked and planned all through tea and right along to bed time, and I carried the big Bible to him and placed it open upon his lap. His hand instinctively began to turn the leaves in the front of the volume, but I rested my hand on the place I had selected, and, laughing, I said: “You have chosen for three whole years, I’m company to-night, and you must let me choose!”

He laughed a little and yielded, but when he saw my choice was from the New Testament, he frowned heavily, then cleared his brow as with an effort and read. He was not so familiar with the script as usual, and he read slowly and carefully, and when he came to that gentle, generous invitation and that all-comprehending promise, “Come to me all ye—all ye—who are weary and heavy laden—and I will give you rest!” he stopped! To this day I believe I felt the old man’s thought, which was of the astounding comprehension by Jesus of his one craving wish—not for great joy—not for the inheritance of the earth—no, not for anything but that which was promised: “Rest.”

“Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!” Slowly, with trembling lips, he repeated the words a second time. Then he leant forward, tore a bit from the evening paper, and placing it as a marker, he closed the book. Emily and I knelt, and for once I felt no sense of the ridiculous in hearing a poor, finite creature explaining matters to the Infinite Being who knows all things. Very humbly the old believer explained to the God he had made so fearsome to himself why he lifted his voice in prayer in this unseemly attitude, instead of on his knees in humble, loving humility!

I gasped—I felt Emily’s hand slip over and grasp mine—which proved lucky later on. Never before had that word been heard in that way, in this house of faith. But, oh, when the old man asked forgiveness for having wickedly doubted for a time the perfect truthfulness of one very near to him—his truest friend—Emily gave a plunge and tried to pull away from me. “I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t bear it! I must confess my lie!”

“Oh!” I moaned under cover of his bass rumble, “keep still! He’s so happy now! Confess to heaven!” She tried again to pull her hand away. I clung tight, and putting my lips close to her ear, whispered: “He will forgive you because of your love! You know,” I muttered wildly, “much shall be forgiven because she loved much! That’s not it, but you know what I mean!”

The bass rumble stopped suddenly—so did I—but thank heaven, Emily’s spurt of remorseful courage was over—her loving falsehood unconfessed! The rumble was resumed, and all was well!

Next day, as I came in hatted and cloaked to say “good-bye,” old Brockwell—bright and ruddy—had his cutting board on his knees, bits of calico all over him. A foot-rule, a blue pencil, and several envelopes before him, and the air of “this is my busy day” of a railroad magnate at least. His “log-cabin” pattern had been found in a “rocky-mountain” envelope, and in fact things were all at loggerheads—but by-and-by they would be ship-shape. I was just to wait till I saw some of his own designs! Emily was going to go right at one—of “anchors”—blue anchors on a white ground, and did I suppose any of my pieces would be long enough—he couldn’t well have those anchors less than six or seven inches long, and then a bit of the old Adam came out in him, when he lowered his voice to tell me: “He was not ashamed to cut patch-work, and he was not afraid—that in a year from now there would be quilts downstairs that could outsail anything upstairs that had been cut out only after beggin’ and coaxin’!”

I looked at the mighty wreck before me! I thought of the three men he had put out in that early morning fight! Of how, strained and patched and stitched, he had picked up that barrel of flour and carried it in from very pride in his strength! How he had won cheers for his splendid lifting-power at that fire, and now he had come to this! He sat there helpless as a child, his only work cutting up scraps of calico for quilts. He was, as he himself said, “an old hulk!” and yet he looked brightly up to me and said: “You remember old lady Brighton, don’t you, lass? Unbeliever, poor old thing! Emily and I are going to make a real pretty ‘star quilt’ and give to her. Star-pattern works up such small pieces, you know! Nothing, most, too small for that, and so bright too!”

It was no use denying it—this wreck was dearer—was more valuable to others, as a wreck, than it had been in full panoply and strength. He was accepting things—he was conquering himself, and he was “greater than he who taketh a city!”

So there I left him. For background, he had his honest, toilsome, clean-thinking past! His old wife’s faithful love was as the blue sky, bowing gently over him. The slow, still sands of Time piling steadily about him, and before him that great, illimitable ocean of Eternity, which will at last receive into its bosom this fine, old hulk!