A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 25

"How did you expect to read the paper then?" asked Haldane, without pausing in his labors.

"I only read the headin's. I might as well make up the rest as the editors, fur then I can make it up to suit me. It's all made up half the time, you know."

"Well, you shall hear the editors' yarns to-night then, by way of variety."

The old man watched the eager young fellow as he bustled from the cupboard to the table, and from the store-closet to the fireplace, with a kindly twinkle in his small eyes, from which the deep wrinkles ran in all directions and in strange complexity. There could scarcely be a greater contrast than that between the headstrong and stalwart youth and the withered and eccentric hermit; but it would seem that mutual kindness is a common ground on which all the world can meet and add somewhat to each other's welfare.

The sound hard wood which Haldane had just sawn into billets blazed cheerily on the hearth, filling the quaint old kitchen with weird and flickering lights and shades. Mr. Growther was projected against the opposite wall in the aspect of a benevolent giant, and perhaps the large, kindly, but unsubstantial shadow was a truer type of the man than the shrivelled anatomy with which the town was familiar. The conservative dog, no longer disquieted by doubts and fears, sat up and blinked approvingly at the preparation for supper. The politic cat, now satisfied that any attentions to the stranger would not compromise her, and might lead to another delicate morsel, fawned against his legs, and purred as affectionately as if she had known him all her life and would not scratch him instantly if he did anything displeasing to her.

Take it altogether, it was a domestic scene which would have done Mrs.

Arnot's heart good to have witnessed; but poor Mrs. Haldane would have sighed over it as so utterly unconventional as to be another proof of her son's unnatural tastes. In her estimation he should spend social evenings only in aristocratic parlors; and she mourned over the fact that from henceforth he was excluded from these privileged places of his birthright, with a grief only less poignant than her sorrow over what seemed to her a cognate truth, that his course and character also excluded him from heaven.

CHAPTER XXIV

HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS OFTEN MADE

"I don't s'pose there's any use of two such reprobates as us thinkin'

about sayin' grace," said Mr. Growther, taking his place at the head of the table; "and yet, as I said, I allers have a sneakin' wish jest to go through the form; so we'll all begin in the same way--cat and dog and G.o.d's rational critters. Howsomever, they don't know no better, and so their consciences is clear. I'll own up this toast is good, if I am eatin' it like a heathen. If you can't find anything else to do, you can take to cookin' for a livin'."

"No one in town, save yourself, would trust me in their kitchen."

"Well, it does seem as if a man had better lose everything rather than his character," said Mr. Growther thoughtfully.

"Then it seems a pity a man can lose it so cursed easily," added Haldane bitterly, "for, having lost it, all the respectable and well-to-do would rather one should go to the devil a thousand times than give him a chance to win it back again."

"You put it rather strong--rather strong," said the old man, shaking his head; "for some reason or other I am not as mad at myself and everything and everybody to-night as usual, and I can see things clearer. Be honest now. A month ago you belonged to the rich, high-flyin' cla.s.s. How much then would you have had to do with a young fellow of whom you knew only four things--that he gambled, got drunk, 'bezzled a thousand dollars, and had been in jail? That's all most people in town know about you."

Haldane laid down his knife and fork and fairly groaned.

"I know the plain truth is tough to hear and think about, and I'm an old brute to spile your supper by bringing it up. I hope you won't think I'm trying to save some victuals by doin' it. And yet it's the truth, and you've got to face it. But face it to-morrow--face it to-morrow; have a comfortable time to-night."

"Your statement of the case is perfectly bald," said Haldane, with a troubled brow; "there are explanatory and excusing circ.u.mstances."

"Yes, no doubt; but the world don't take much account of them. When one gits into a sc.r.a.pe, about the only question asked is, What did he _do?_ And they all jump to the conclusion that if he did it once he'll do it agin. Lookin' into the circ.u.mstances takes time and trouble, and it isn't human nature to bother much about other people."

"What chance is there, then, for such as I am?"

The old man hitched uneasily on his chair, but at last, with his characteristic bluntness said, "Hanged if I know! They say that them that gits down doesn't very often git up again. Yet I know they do sometimes."

"What would you do if you were me?"

"Hanged if I know that either! Sit down and cuss myself to all eternity, like enough. I feel like doin' it sometimes as it is. A-a-h!"

"I think I know a way out of the slough," said Haldane more composedly--his thoughts recurring to his literary hopes--"and if I do, you will not be sorry."

"Of course I won't be sorry. A man allers hates one who holds a mortgage against him which is sure to be foreclosed. That's the way the devil's got me, and I hate him about as bad as I do myself, and spite him every chance I git. Of course, I'll be glad to see you git out of his clutches; but he's got his claws in you deep, and he holds on to a feller as if he'd pull him in two before he'll let go."

"Mr. Growther, I don't want to get into a quarrel with you, for I have found that you are very touchy on a certain point; but I cannot help hinting that you are destined to meet a great disappointment when through with your earthly worry. I wish my chances were as good as yours."

"Now you are beginnin' to talk foolishly. I shall never be rid of myself, and so will never be rid of my worry."

"Well, well, we won't discuss the question; it's too deep for us both; but in my judgment it will be a great piece of injustice if you ever find a warmer place than your own hearthstone."

"That's mighty hot, sometimes, boy; and, besides, your judgment hasn't led you very straight so far," said the old man testily. "But don't talk of such things. I don't want to come to 'em till I have to."

"Suppose I should become rich and famous, Mr. Growther," said Haldane, changing the subject; "would you let me take a meal with you then?"

"That depends. If you put on any airs I wouldn't."

"Good for you!"

"Oh, I'd want to make much of you, and tell how I helped you when you was down, and so git all the reflected glory I could out of you. I've learned how my sneakin' old speret pints every time; but I'll head it off, and drive it back as I would a fox into its hole."

In spite of some rather harrowing and gloomy thoughts on the part of two of them, the four inmates of the cottage made a very comfortable supper; for Mr. Growther always insisted that since his cat and dog could "stand him," they should fare as well as he did.

Having cleared the table, Haldane lighted a candle--kerosene lamps were an abomination that Mr. Growther Would not abide--and began reading aloud the "Evening Spy." The old gentleman half listened and half dozed, p.r.i.c.king up his ears at some tale of trouble or crime, and almost snoring through politics and finance. At last he was half startled out of his chair by a loud, wrathful oath from Haldane.

"Look here, young man," he said; "the devil isn't so far off from either of us that you need shout for him."

"True, indeed! he isn't far off, and he has everything his own way in this world. Listen to this"--and he read with sharp, bitter emphasis the following editorial paragraph, headed "Unnatural Depravity":

"Being ever inclined to view charitably the faults and failings of others, and to make allowance for the natural giddiness of youth, we gave a rather lenient estimate, not of the crime committed by Mr.

Arnot's clerk, Egbert Haldane, but of the young man himself. It would seem that our disposition to be kindly led us into error, for we learn from our most respectable German contemporary, published in this city, that this same unscrupulous young fraud has been guilty of the meanness of taking advantage of a poor foreigner's ignorance of our language.

Having found it impossible to obtain lodgings among those posted in the current news of the day, and thus to impose on any one to whom he was known, he succeeded in obtaining board of a respectable German, and ran up as large a bill as possible at the bar, of course. When the landlord of the hotel and restaurant at last asked for a settlement, this young scapegrace had the insolence to insist that he had paid every cent of his bill, though he had not a sc.r.a.p of paper or proof to support his a.s.sertion. Finding that this game of bl.u.s.ter would not succeed, and that his justly incensed host was about to ask for his arrest, he speedily came down from his high and virtuous mood, and compromised by pretending to offer all the money he had.

"This was undoubtedly a mere pretence, for he had worn a valuable watch in the morning, and had parted with it during the day. Though the sum he apparently had upon his person was scarcely half payment, the kind-hearted German took him at his word, and also left him seventy-five cents to procure lodgings elsewhere. In what role of crime he will next appear it is hard to guess; but it seems a pity that Mr. Arnot did not give him the full benefit of the law, for thus the community would have been rid, for a time at least, of one who can serve his day and generation better at breaking stone under the direction of the State than by any methods of his own choosing. He is one of those phenomenal cases of unnatural depravity; for, as far as we can learn, he comes from a home of wealth, refinement, and even Christian culture. We warn our fellow-citizens against him."

"A-a-a-h!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Growther, in prolonged and painful utterance, as if one of his teeth had just been drawn. "Now that is tough! I don't wonder you think Satan had a finger in that pie. Didn't I tell you the editors made up half that's in the papers? I don't know what started this story. There's generally a little beginning, like the seed of a big flauntin' weed; but I don't believe you did so mean a thing. In fact, I don't think I'm quite mean enough to have done it myself."

"You, and perhaps one other person, will be the only ones in town, then, who will not believe it against me. I know I've acted wrong and like a fool; but what chance has a fellow when he gets credit for evil only, and a hundred-fold more evil than is in him? Curse it all! since every one insists that I have gone wholly over to the devil, I might as well go."

"That's it, that's it! we're all right at his elbow, a-helpin' him along. But how did this story start? The scribbler in the German paper couldn't have spun it, like a spider, hully out of his own in'ards."

Haldane told him the whole story, sketching the "kind-hearted German" in his true colors.

At its conclusion Mr. Growther drew a long, meditative breath, and remarked sententiously, "Well, I've allers heard that 'sperience was an awfully dear school; but we do learn in it. I'll bet my head you will never pay another dollar without takin' a receipt."

"What chance will I ever have to make another dollar? They have raised a mad-dog cry against me, and I shall be treated as if I were a dog."

"Why don't you go home, then?"

"I'll go to the bottom of the river first."

"That would suit the devil, the crabs, and the eels," remarked Mr.

Growther.