A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 45

As he stood before that throng of publicans and sinners, gathered from the slums of the city, and, with his fine face lighted up with thought and sympathy, spoke to them the truth in such a way that they understood it and felt its power, one could scarcely have believed that but two years before he had been dragged from a drunken brawl to the common jail. The explanation is simple--he had followed closely that same divine Master who had taught the fishermen of Galilee.

CHAPTER XLV

LAURA ROMEYN

Mrs. Haldane and her daughters found European life so decidedly to their taste that it was doubtful whether they would return for several years.

The son wrote regularly to his mother, for he had accepted of the truth of Mrs. Arnot's words that nothing could excuse him from the sacred duties which he owed to her. As his fortunes improved and time elapsed without the advent of more disgraceful stories, she also began to respond as frequently and sympathetically as could be expected of one taking her views of life. She was at last brought to acquiesce in his plan of remaining at Hillaton, if not to approve of it, and after receiving one or two letters from Mrs. Arnot, she was inclined to believe in the sincerity of his Christian profession. She began to share in the old lady's view already referred to, that he might reach heaven at last, but could never be received in good society again.

"Egbert is so different from us, my dears," she would sigh to her daughters, "that I suppose we should not judge him by our standards. I suppose he is doing as well as he ever will--as well indeed as his singularly unnatural disposition permits."

It did not occur to the lady that she was a trifle unnatural and unchristian herself in permitting jealousy to creep into her heart, because Mrs. Arnot had wielded a power for good over her son which she herself had failed to exert.

She instructed her lawyer, however, to pay to him an annuity that was far beyond his needs in his present frugal way of living.

This ample income enabled him at once to carry out a cherished purpose, which had been forming in his mind for several months, and which he now broached to Mrs. Arnot.

"For the last half year," he said, "I have thought a great deal over the possibilities that life offers to one situated as I am. I have tried to discover where I can make my life-work, maimed and defective as it ever must be, most effective, and it has seemed to me that I could accomplish more as a physician than in any other calling. In this character I could naturally gain access to those who are in distress of body and mind, but who are too poor to pay for ordinary attendance. There are hundreds in this city, especially little children, that, through vice, ignorance, or poverty, never receive proper attention in illness. My services would not be refused by this cla.s.s, especially if they were gratuitous."

"You should charge for your visits, as a rule," said wise Mrs. Arnot.

"Never give charity unless it is absolutely necessary."

"Well, I could charge so moderately that my attendance would not be a burden. I am very grateful to Mr. Ivison for the position he gave me, but I would like to do something more and better in life than I can accomplish as his clerk. A physician among the poor has so many chances to speak the truth to those who might otherwise never hear it. Now this income from my father's estate would enable me to set about the necessary studies at once, and the only question in my mind is, will they receive me at the university?"

"Egbert," said Mrs. Arnot, with one of those sudden illuminations of her face which he so loved to see, "do you remember what I said long ago, when you were a disheartened prisoner, about my ideal of knighthood? If you keep on you will fulfil it."

"I remember it well," he replied, "but you are mistaken. My best hope is to find, as you said upon another occasion, my own little nook in the vineyard, and quietly do my work there."

After considerable hesitation the faculty of the university received Haldane as a student, and Mr. Ivison parted with him very reluctantly.

His studies for the past two years, and several weeks of careful review, enabled him to pa.s.s the examinations required in order to enter the Junior year of the college course.

As his name appeared among those who might graduate in two years, the world still further relaxed its rigid and forbidding aspect, and not a few took pains to manifest to him their respect for his resolute upward course.

But he maintained his old, distant, un.o.btrusive manner, and no one was obliged to recognize, much less to show, any special kindness to him, unless they chose to do so. He evidently shrank with a morbid sensitiveness from any social contact with those who, in remembrance of his past history, might shrink from him. But he had not been at the university very long before Mrs. Arnot overcame this diffidence so far as to induce him to meet with certain manly fellows of his cla.s.s at her house.

In all the frank and friendly interchange of thought between Mrs. Arnot and the young man there was one to whom, by tacit consent, they did not refer, except in the most casual manner, and that was Laura Romeyn.

Haldane had not seen her since the time she stumbled upon him in his character of wood-sawyer. He kept her image in a distant and doubly-locked chamber of his heart, and seldom permitted his thoughts to go thither. Thus the image had faded into a faint yet lovely outline which he had learned to look upon with a regret that was now scarcely deep enough to be regarded as pain. She had made one or two brief visits to her aunt, but he had taken care never to meet her. He had learned incidentally, however, that she had lost her father, and that her mother was far from well.

When calling upon Mrs. Arnot one bl.u.s.tering March evening, toward the close of his Junior year, that lady explained her anxious, clouded face by saying that her sister, Mrs. Romeyn, was very ill, and after a moment added, half in soliloquy, "What would she do without Laura?"

From this he gathered that the young girl was a loving daughter and a faithful nurse, and the image of a pale, yet lovely watcher rose before him with dangerous frequence and distinctness.

A day or two after he received a note from Mrs. Arnot, informing him that she was about to leave home for a visit to her invalid sister, and might be absent several weeks. Her surmise proved correct, and when she returned Laura came with her, and the deep mourning of the orphan's dress but faintly reflected the darker sorrow that shrouded her heart.

When, a few sabbaths after her arrival, her veiled figure pa.s.sed up the aisle of the church, he bowed his head in as sincere sympathy as one person can give for the grief of another.

For a long time he did not venture to call on Mrs. Arnot, and then came only at her request. To his great relief, he did not see Laura, for he felt that, conscious of her great loss and the memories of the past, he should be speechless in her presence. To Mrs. Arnot he said:

"Your sorrow has seemed to me such a sacred thing that I felt that any reference to it on my part would be like a profane touch; but I was sure you would not misinterpret my silence or my absence, and would know that you were never long absent from my thoughts."

He was rewarded by the characteristic lighting up of her face as she said:

"Hillaton would scarcely give you credit for such delicacy of feeling, Egbert, but you are fulfilling my faith in you. Neither have I forgotten you and your knightly conflict because I have not seen or written to you. You know well that my heart and hands have been full. And now a very much longer time must elapse before we can meet again. In her devotion to her mother my niece has overtaxed her strength, and her physical and mental depression is so great that our physician strongly recommends a year abroad. You can see how intensely occupied I have been in preparations for our hurried departure. We sail this week. I shall see your mother, no doubt, and I am glad I can tell her that which I should be proud to hear of a son of mine."

The year that followed was a long one to Haldane. He managed to keep the even tenor of his way, but it was often as the soldier makes his weary march in the enemy's country, fighting for and holding, step by step, with difficulty. His intense application in his first year of study and the excitements of the previous years at last told upon him, and he often experienced days of extreme la.s.situde and weariness. At one time he was quite ill, and then he realized how lonely and isolated he was.

He still kept his quarters at the hermitage, but Mr. Growther, with the kindest intentions, was too old and decrepit to prove much of a nurse.

In his hours of enforced idleness his imagination began to retouch the shadowy image of Laura Romeyn with an ideal beauty. In his pain and weakness her character of watcher--in which her self-sacrificing devotion had been so great as to impair her health--was peculiarly attractive. She became to him a pale and lovely saint, too remote and sacred for his human love, and yet sufficiently human to continually haunt his mind with a vague and regretful pain that he could never reach her side. He now learned from its loss how valuable Mrs. Arnot's society had been to him. Her letters, which were full and moderately frequent, could not take the place of her quiet yet inspiriting voice.

He was lonely, and he recognized the fact. While there were hundreds now in Hillaton who wished him well, and respected him for his brave struggle, he was too shadowed by disgraceful memories to be received socially into the homes that he would care to visit. Some of the church people invited him out of a sense of duty, but he recognized their motive, and shrank from such constrained courtesy with increasing sensitiveness.

But, though he showed human weakness and gave way to long moods of despondency, at times inclining to murmur bitterly at his lot, he suffered no serious reverses. He patiently, even in the face of positive disinclination, maintained his duties. He remembered how often the Divine Man, in his shadowed life, went apart for prayer, and honestly tried to imitate this example, so specially suited to one as maimed and imperfect as himself.

He found that his prayers were answered, that the strong Friend to whom he had allied his weakness did not fail him. He was sustained through the dark days, and his faith eventually brought him peace and serenity.

He gained in patience and strength, and with better health came renewed hopefulness.

Although not a brilliant student, he was able to complete his university course and graduate with credit. He then took the first vacation that he had enjoyed for years, and, equipping himself with fishing-rod and a few favorite authors, he buried himself in the mountains of Maine.

His prison and mission cla.s.ses missed him sadly. Mr. Growther found that he could no longer live a hermit's life, and began in good earnest to look for the "little, peaked-faced chap" that had grown to be more and more of a reality to him; but the rest of Hillaton almost forgot that Haldane had ever existed.

In the autumn he returned, brown and vigorous, and entered upon his studies at the medical school connected with the university with decided zest. To his joy he found a letter from Mrs. Arnot, informing him that the health of her niece was fully restored, and that they were about to return. And yet it was with misgivings that he remembered that Laura would henceforth be an inmate of Mrs. Arnot's home. As a memory, however beautiful, she was too shadowy to disturb his peace. Would this be true if she had fulfilled all the rich promises of her girlhood, and he saw her often?

With a foreboding of future trouble he both dreaded and longed to see once more the maiden who had once so deeply stirred his heart, and who in the depths of his disgrace had not scorned him when accidentally meeting him in the guise and at the tasks of a common laborer.

It was with a quickened pulse that he read in the "Spy" one Monday evening, that Mrs. Arnot and niece had arrived in town. It was with a quicker pulse that he received a note from her a few days later asking him to call that evening, and adding that two or three other young men whom he knew to be her especial favorites would be present.

Because our story has confined itself chiefly to the relations existing between Haldane and Mrs. Arnot, it must not be forgotten that her active sympathies were enlisted in behalf of many others, some of whom were almost equally attached to her and she to them.

After a little thought Haldane concluded that he would much prefer that his first interview with Laura should be in the presence of others, for he could then keep in the background without exciting remark.

He sincerely hoped that when he saw her he might find that her old power over him was a broken spell, and that the lovely face which had haunted him all these years, growing more beautiful with time, was but the creation of his own fancy. He was sure she would still be pretty, but if that were all he could go on his way without a regretful thought. But if the shy maiden, whose half-entreating, compa.s.sionate tones had interrupted the harsh rasping of his saw years ago, were the type of the woman whom he should meet that evening, might not the bitterest punishment of his folly be still before him?

He waited till sure that the other guests had arrived, and then entered to meet, as he believed, either a hopeless thraldom or complete disenchantment.

As he crossed the threshold of the parlor the pleasure of seeing Mrs.

Arnot again, and of receiving her cordial greeting, obliterated all other thoughts from his mind.

He had, however, but a moment's respite, for the lady said:

"Laura, my friend Mr. Haldane."

He turned and saw, by actual vision, the face that in fancy he had so often looked upon. It was not the face that he expected to see at all.

The shy, blue-eyed maiden, who might have reminded one of a violet half hidden among the gra.s.s, had indeed vanished, but an ordinary pretty woman had not taken her place.

He felt this before he had time to consciously observe it, and bowed rather low to hide his burning face; but she frankly held out her hand and said, though with somewhat heightened color also: