Bart Ridgeley Part 37

Late one wondrously beautiful August night, as Bart was returning from a solitary stroll, he was suddenly joined by Sartliff, bare-headed and bare-footed, who placed his hand within his arm, and turning him about, walked him back towards the wood. Bart had not seen him for weeks, and he thought his face was thinner and more haggard, and his eyes more cavernous than he had ever seen them.

"What progress are you making?" asked Bart, quietly.

"I am getting increase of power. I don't know that I need light; I think I want strength. I hear the voices oftener, and they are wonderfully sweeter; I find that they consist of marvelous musical sounds, and I can distinguish some notes; meanings are conveyed by them. If I could only comprehend and interpret them. I shall in time if I can hold out. I find as the flesh becomes more spirit-like, that this power increases. If I only had some fine-fibred soul who could take this up where I must leave it! Barton, you believe G.o.d communicates with men through other than his ordinary works?"

"I don't know; I see and hear G.o.d in the wondrous symbols of nature; when they say that he speaks directly, I don't feel so certain. I am so made up, that the very nature, the character and quality of the evidence, is unequal to the facts to be proven, and so to produce conviction. If a score of you were to say to me, that in the forest to-day, you saw a fallen and decayed tree arise and strike down new roots, and shoot out new branches, and unfold new foliage and flowers, I would not believe it: Nor, though five hundred men should swear that they saw a grave heave up, and its tenant come forth to life and beauty, would I believe. The quality of the evidence is not equal to sustain the burthen of the fact to be established, and it does not help the matter, that alleged proofs come to me through uncertain historical media. Yet I can't say that I disbelieve. Who can say that there is not within us a religious spiritual faculty, or a set of faculties, that take impressions, and receive communications, not through the ordinary perceptions and convictions of the mere mind--that sees and hears, retains and transmits, loves, hopes and worships, in a spiritual or religious atmosphere of its own; whose memories are superst.i.tions, whose realizations are extatic visions, and whose hopes are the future of blessedness; and that it is through these faculties that religious sentiments are received, transmitted and propagated, and to which G.o.d speaks and acts, spirit to spirit, as matter to matter? Who can tell how many sets of faculties are possible to us? We may have developed only a few of the lowest. I sometimes fancy that I feel the rudiments of a higher and finer set within me.

Who shall say that I have them not?"

"Go on, Barton; I like to hear you unfold yourself," said Sartliff.

"I can't," said Bart, "I can only vaguely talk about what I so vaguely feel."

"Barton," said Sartliff, "go with me; let me impart to you what I know; perhaps you have a finer and subtler sense than I had. At any rate I can help you. You can be warned by my failures and blunders, and possess yourself of my small gains. I know I have taken some steps. I shall last long enough to place you well on the road. You are silent. Do you think me crazy--mad?"

"No, not that, nor do I think that we have occupied all the fields of human knowledge. We are constantly acquiring a faculty to see new things and to take new meanings from the common and old. Nature has not yet delivered her full speech to man. She can communicate only as he acquires the power to receive. This idea of finding new pathways, and new regions and realms, with new powers, of finding an opening from our day into the more effulgent, with new strange and glorious creatures, with new voices and forms, with whom we may communicate, is alluring, and may all lay within the realm of possibility. I don't say that to dream of it, is to be mad."

"It is possible," said Sartliff with fervor. "I have seen the forms and heard the voices."

"And to what purpose do you pursue these mystical studies and researches."

"Partly for the extacy and glory of the present, mainly for the ultimate good to the races of men, when the new and powerful agencies that come of the wisdom and strength which will be thus acquired, the powers within and about us, are developed and employed for the common good; and man is emanc.i.p.ated from his sordid slavery to the gross and physical of his worst and lowest nature, and when woman through this emanc.i.p.ation takes her real position, glorified, by the side of her glorified companion; when she seeks to be wife and mother, with free choice to be other--what a race will spring from them! Strong, brave, beautiful men, great, radiant, beautiful women, like the first mothers of the race, bringing forth their young, with the same joy and gladness, as that with which they receive their young bridegrooms."

"Go and help me find the way for our common race."

He had turned, and stood with intent eyes burning into the soul of the young man. "I have faith in you. Of all the young men I have met, you have exhibited more capacity to comprehend me than any other, and I am beginning to feel the need of help," said Sartliff, plaintively.

"G.o.d alone can help you," said Bart, "I cannot. You believe in this; to me it is a dream, with which my fancy, when idle, willingly toys. I like to talk with you. I sympathise with you; I cannot go with you. I will not enter upon your speculations. Don't think me unkind."

"I don't," said Sartliff, "nor do I blame you. You are young and gifted, and opportunities will come to you; and distinction and fame, and some beautiful woman's love await you, and G.o.d bless you." And he walked away.

There was always something about Sartliff that stimulated, but at the same time excited an apprehension in Bart, who regarded him as past recall to healthy life, and he felt a sense of relief when he was alone; but the old, melancholy chords continued to vibrate, and Bart returned to the village under a depression that lingered about him for days.

CHAPTER XLII.

ADMITTED.

At the September term of the Supreme Court, Mr. Ranney presented the certificates and applications for the admission of Case, Ransom, and Bart on the first day, and they were, as usual, referred to a Committee of the whole bar, for examination and report.

The Committee met that evening in the Court room, the Supreme Judges, Wood and Lane, being present.

Old Webb, of Warren, whom Case ought to have sketched in his rough outlines as the senior of the bar, turned suddenly to Bart, the youngest of the applicants, and asked him if a certain "estate could exist in Ohio?"

After a moment's reflection, Bart answered that it could not.

"Why?"

Bart explained the nature and conditions of the estate, and said that one of them was rendered impossible by a statute; and explained how.

A good deal of surprise was expressed at this; the statute was called for, and on its being placed in his hands, Bart turned to it, read the law, and showed its application.

Wood said, "Judge Lane, I think this young man has decided your Hamilton Co. case for you."

Some general conversation ensued, and when it subsided, old Webb said, "Well! well! young man, we may as well go home, when we get such things from a law student." And they did not ask him another question.

The examination was over at last. Case had acquitted himself well, and Ransom tolerably. Bart was mortified and disgusted. This was the extent then of the ordeal; all his labor, hard study, and anxiety, ended in this!

The next morning, on the a.s.sembling of the Court, the three young men were admitted, sworn in, and became attorneys and counsellors at law, and solicitors in chancery, authorized to practise in all the courts of Ohio. All this was made to appear by the clerk's certificate, under the great seal of the Supreme Court of the State, tied with a blue ribbon, and presented to each of them.

It tended not much to relieve Bart, to know that the question he had so summarily disposed of had much excited and disturbed the legal world of Middle and Southern Ohio; that the best legal minds had been divided on it; and that a case had just been reserved for the court in bane, which turned on this very point.

It was over; he had his diploma, but he felt that in some way it was a swindle.

What a longing came to him to go to Newbury; and he was half mad and wholly sad to think that one face would come to him with the sweet, submissive, reproachful, arch expression, it wore when he forbid its owner to speak, one memorable morning, in the woods and snow; and he found himself wondering if what Ida told him might by any possibility be true; he knew it could not be, and so put it all away.

He took Ida over to Mr. Windsor's for a long day's visit, made a few calls, packed his trunk, bade Miss Giddings, who did not hesitate to express her sorrow at his departure, a regretful good-bye, and the next morning rode to Ashtabula, and there took a steamer down the lake.

I am glad to have him off my hands for six months; and when he falls under them next time, seriously, I will dispose of him.

CHAPTER XLIII.

JULIA.

It will be remembered that Greer was a somewhat ambiguous character, about whom and whose movements some suspicions were at times afloat; but these did not much disturb him or interrupt his pleasant relations with the pleasant part of the world.

He was at Jefferson during the first term of the Court while Bart was there, and it so happened that there was a prosecution pending against a party for pa.s.sing counterfeit money; who finally gave bail and never returned to take his trial; but n.o.body connected Greer with that matter. He was also there after Bart was admitted, and had an interview with the young lawyer, professionally, which was followed by some consequences to both, hereafter to be mentioned.

Just before this last visit, a man by the name of Myers--Dr. Myers--a young man of fine address and of fair position, was arrested in Geauga for stealing a pair of valuable horses. The arrest created great astonishment, which was increased when it was known that in default of the heavy bail demanded he had been committed to the jail at Chardon.

This was followed by the rumor of his confession, in which it was said that he implicated Jim Brown, of Akron, and various parties in other places, and also Greer, and, as some said, Bart Ridgeley, all of whom belonged to an a.s.sociation, many members of which had been arrested.

The rumors produced much excitement everywhere, and especially in the south part of Geauga; and the impression was deepened and confirmed by an article in the _Geauga Gazette_, issued soon after Myers was committed. With staring head-lines and exclamation points, it stated that Dr. Myers, since his imprisonment, had made a full confession, which it gave in substance, as above. Bart was referred to as a young law student at Jefferson, and a resident of the south part of the county, who, as was said, had escaped, and it was supposed that he had gone East, where the officers had gone in pursuit. Most of the others had been arrested.

Mrs. Ridgeley had caught something of the first rumor in her far off quiet home; but n.o.body had told her of Barton's connection with it, nor did her neighbors seem inclined to talk with her about the general subject. As usual, one of the boys went to the Post Office on the day of the arrival of the Chardon paper; and brought in not only that journal, but the rumor in reference to Barton. His mother read and took it all in, and was standing in blank amazement and indignation, when Julia came flashing in, and found her still mutely staring at the article.

"Oh, Mrs. Ridgeley! Mrs. Ridgeley!" exclaimed the aroused girl, seizing her hands; "it is all false--every word of it--about Barton!

Every single word is a lie!"

"I know it is; but how can that be made to appear? Men will believe it, if it is false!"

"Never! No one will ever believe evil of him. He is now surrounded by the best and truest of men; and when this wretched Myers is tried, everything will be made clear. I knew you would see this paper, and I came at once to tell you what I know of Barton's connection with Greer. Please listen;" and she told her of the old rumor about them, and of her journey to Ravenna, to see the latter, and showed her his note, addressed to her father.

The quick mind of the elder lady appreciated it as it was stated to her; and another thing, new and sudden as a revelation, came to her; and with tears in her eyes, and a softened and illuminated face, she turned to Julia, a moment since so proud and defiant, and now so humble and subdued, with averted eyes and crimsoned face: "Oh, Julia!"