The Old Homestead Part 3

CHAPTER II.

THE MAYOR AND THE POLICEMAN.

When the strong man turns, with a haughty lip, On poverty, stern and grim, When he seizes the fiend with a ruthless grip, Ye need not fear for him.

But when poverty comes to a little child, Freezing its bloom away-- When its cheeks are thin and its eyes are wild, Give pity its gentle sway.

It was a bitter cold night--a myriad of stars hung in the sky, clear and glittering, as if burnished by the frost. The moon sent down a pale, freezing brilliancy that whitened all the ground, as if a sprinkling of snow had fallen, but there was not a flake on the earth or in the air. Little wind was abroad, but that little pierced through m.u.f.flers and overcoats, like a swarm of invisible needles, sharp and stinging. It was rather late in the evening, and in such weather few persons were tempted abroad. Those who had comfortable hearths remained at home, and even the street beggars crept within their alleys and cellars; many of them driven to seek shelter in their rags, without hope of fire or food.

But there was one man in New York city, who could neither seek rest nor shelter till a given time, however inclement the weather might be. With a thick pilot cloth overcoat b.u.t.toned to the chin, and his glittering police star catching the moonbeams as they fell upon his breast, he strode to and fro on his beat, occasionally pausing, with his eyes lifted towards the stars, to ponder over some thought in his mind, but speedily urged to motion again by the sharp tingling of his feet and hands.

A feeling and thoughtful man was this policeman; he possessed much originality of mind, which had received no small share of cultivation.

He had been connected with a mercantile house till symptoms of a pulmonary disease drove him from his desk; then, by the kind aid of a politician, who had not entirely lost all human feelings in the council chamber, he was enrolled in the city police. To a mind less n.o.bly constructed, this minor position might have been a cause of depression and annoyance, but John Chester, though not yet thirty-two, had learned to think for himself. He felt that no occupation could degrade an honorable man, and that gentlemanly habits, integrity and intelligence were certain to shine out with greater l.u.s.tre when found in the humbler spheres of life.

Chester possessed both education and refinement, but having no better means of support, accepted that which Providence presented, not with grumbling condescension, but with that grateful alacrity which was a sure proof that his duties would be faithfully performed; and that, though capable of higher things, he was not one to neglect the most humble, when they became duties.

To a man like Chester, the solitude of his night watches was at times a luxury. When the great city lay slumbering around him, his mind found subjects of deep thought in itself and in surrounding things.

Even on the night when we present him to the reader, the cold air, while it chilled his body, seemed only to invigorate his mind. Instead of brooding gloomily over his own position, certainly very inferior to what it had been, he had many a compa.s.sionate thought for those poorer than himself, without one envious feeling for the thousands and thousands who would have deemed his small income of ten dollars a week absolute poverty.

The ward in which he was stationed exhibited in a striking degree the two great extremes of social life. Blocks of palatial buildings loomed imposingly along the broad streets. Each dwelling, with its s.p.a.cious rooms and luxurious accommodations, was occupied by a single family, sometimes of not more than two or three persons. Here plate gla.s.s, silver mounted doors, and rich traceries in bronze and iron, gave brilliant evidence of wealth; while many small gardens thrown together, rich with shrubbery and vines in their season of verdure, threw a fresh glow of nature around the rich man's dwelling. Resources of enjoyment were around him on every hand. Each pa.s.sing cloud seemed to turn its silver lining upon these dwellings, as it rolled across the heavens.

You had but to turn a corner, and lo! the very earth seemed vital and teeming with human beings. Poor men and the children of poor men, disputed possession of every brick upon the sidewalks. Every hole in those dilapidated buildings swarmed with a family; every corner of the leaky garrets and damp cellars was full of poverty-stricken life. Here were no green trees, no leaf-clad vines climbing upon the walls; empty casks, old brooms, and battered wash-tubs littered the back yards, which the sweet fresh gra.s.s should have carpeted. Ash pans and tubs of kitchen offal choked up the areas. The very light, as it struggled through those dingy windows, seemed pinched and smoky.

All this contrast of poverty and wealth lay in the policeman's beat.

Now he was with the rich, almost warmed by the light that came like a flood of wine through some tall window m.u.f.fled in crimson damask.

The smooth pavements under his feet glowed with brilliant gas-light.

The next moment, and a few smoky street lamps failed to reveal the broken flagging on which he trod. Now and then the gleam of a coa.r.s.e tallow candle swaling gloomily away by some sick bed, threw its murky light across his path. Still, but for the cold moonlight, Chester would have found much difficulty in making his rounds in the poor man's district. Yet here he remained longest; here his step always grew heavy and his brow thoughtful. Surrounded by suffering, shut out from his eyes only by those irregular walls, and clouded, as it were, with the slumbering sorrow around him, this dark place always cast him into painful thought. That cold night he was more than usually affected by the suffering which he knew was close to him, and only invisible to the eye.

The night before, he had entered one of those dismal houses and had taken from thence a woman who, squalid and degraded as she was, had evidently once been in the higher walks of life. As he pa.s.sed her dwelling, the remembrance of this woman sent a thrill of mingled pity and disgust through his heart. The miserable dest.i.tution of her home, the glimpses of refinement that broke through her outbursts of pa.s.sion, the state of revolting intoxication in which she was plunged--all arose vividly to his mind. He paused before the house with a feeling of vague interest. The night before, a scene of perfect riot greeted him as he approached the door. Now the inmates seemed numbed, silent and torpid with cold.

As Chester stood gazing on the house, he saw that the door was open, and fancied that some object was moving in the hall. It seemed at first like a lame animal creeping down the steps. As it came forth into the moonlight, Chester saw that it was a child with a singular, crouching appearance, m.u.f.fled in an old red cloak that had belonged to some grown person. With a slow and painful effort the child dragged itself along the pavement, its face bent down, and stooping, as if it had some burden to conceal. The old cloak brushed Chester's garments, yet the child seemed quite unconscious of his presence, but moved on, breathing hard and shuddering with the cold, till he could hear her teeth knock together. Chester did not speak, but softly followed the child.

The Mayor of New York at that time lived within Chester's beat, and toward his dwelling the little wanderer bent her way. As she drew near the steps, the child lifted her face for the first time, and reaching forth a little wan hand, held herself up by the railing.

She was not seeking that particular house, but there her strength gave way, and she clung to the cold iron, faint and trembling, with her eyes lifted wildly towards the drawing-room windows.

The plate gla.s.s was all in a blaze from a chandelier that hung within, and the genial glow fell upon that little frost-bitten face, lighting it up with intense l.u.s.tre. The face was not beautiful--those features were too pale--the eyes large and hollow, while black lashes of unusual length gave them a wild depth of color that was absolutely fearful. Still there was something in the expression of those wan features indescribably touching--a look of meek suffering and of moral strength unnatural in its development. It was the face of a child, suffering, feeble, with the expression of a holy spirit breaking through, holy but tortured.

The child clung to the railing, waving to and fro, but holding on with a desperate grasp. She seemed struggling to lift herself to an upright position, but without sufficient strength. Chester advanced a step to help her, but drew back, for, without perceiving him, she was creeping feebly up the steps, with her face shrouded in darkness again. She reached the bell with difficulty, and drew the silver k.n.o.b.

Scarcely had the child taken her hand from the cold metal, when the shadow of a man crossed the drawing-room window, and his measured step sounded along the oilcloth in the hall. The door was unfastened, and the Mayor himself stood in the opening. The child lifted her eyes, and saw standing before, or rather above her, a tall man with light hair turning grey, and a cast of features remarkable only for an absence of all generous expression. He fixed his cold eyes on the little wanderer with a look that chilled her worse than the frost.

As he prepared to speak, she could see the corners of his mouth curve haughtily downward, and when his voice fell upon her ear, though not particularly loud, it was cold and repelling.

"Well, what are you doing here? What do you want?" said the great man, keeping his eyes immovably on the shivering child, enraged at himself for having opened the door for a miserable beggar like that.

He was in the habit of extending these little condescensions to the voters of his ward; it had a touch of republicanism in it that looked well; but from that wretched little thing what was to be gained? Still the child might have a father, and that father might be a citizen, one of the sovereign people, possessed of that inestimable privilege--a vote. So the Mayor was cautious, as usual, about exhibiting any positive traces of the ill-humor that possessed him.

He had not groped and grovelled his way to the Mayoralty, without knowing how and when to exhibit the evil feelings of his heart. Those that were not evil he very prudently left to themselves, knowing that they could never obtain strength enough in his barren nature to become in the slightest degree troublesome.

Had kindly feelings still lived in his bosom, they must have been aroused by the sweet, humble voice that answered him.

"They have turned me out of doors. I am hungry, sir. I am very cold."

"Turned you out of doors! Where is your father? Can't he take care of you?"

"I have no father--he is dead."

No father, no vote! The little beggar had not the most indirect claim for sympathy or forbearance from the Mayor of New York. He could afford to be angry with her; nay, better, to seem angry also, and that was an uncommon luxury with him.

"Well, why didn't you go to the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"It was dark there--and through that window everything looked so warm--I could not help it!"

"Could not help it, indeed! Go away! I never encourage street beggars.

It would be doing a wrong to the people who look up to me for an example. Go away this minute--how dare you come up to this door? You are a bad little girl, I dare say!"

"No sir--no--no, I am _not_ bad! Please not to say that. It hurts me worse than the cold!" said the child, raising her sweet voice and clasping her little wan hands, while over her features many a wounded feeling trembled, though she gave no signs of weeping.

What a contrast there was between the heartless face of that man, and the meek, truthful look of the child! How cold and harsh seemed his voice after the troubled melody of hers!

"I tell you, there is no use in attempting to deceive me. Station houses are built on purpose for little thieves that prowl about at night!" and the cold-hearted man half closed the door, adding, "go away--go away! Some policeman will take you to a station house, though I dare be sworn you know how to find one without help."

The door was closed with these words, shutting the desolate child into the cold night again. She neither complained nor wept; but sinking on the stone, gathered her frail limbs in a heap and buried her face in the old cloak.

Chester heard the whole conversation; he saw the expression of meek despair which fell upon the child as the door closed against her, and with a swelling heart mounted the steps.

"My little girl," he said very gently, touching the crouching form with his hand, "my poor, little girl!"

The child looked up wildly, for the very benevolence of his voice frightened her, she was so unused to anything of the kind; but the instant her eyes fell upon his bosom, where the silver star glittered in the moonlight, she uttered a faint shriek.

"Oh, do not--do not take me--I am not a thief--I am not wicked!" and she shrunk back into a corner of the iron railing shuddering, and with her wild eyes bent upon him like some little wounded animal hunted down by fierce dogs.

"Don't be frightened--I will take care of you--I"--

"They took _her_--the policemen, I mean. Where is she? What have you done with her?"

"But I wish to be kind," said Chester, greatly distressed; she interrupted him, pointing to his star with her finger.

"Kind? see--see. I tell you I am not a thief!"

"I know, I am sure you are not," was the compa.s.sionate answer.

"Then why take me up if I am not a thief?"

"But you will perish with the cold!"

"No--no; it's not so very cold here since the gentleman went away!"

cried the child in a faint voice, m.u.f.fling the old cloak close around her, and trying to smile. "Only--only"--

Her voice grew fainter. She had just strength to draw up her knees, clasp the little thin hands over them, and in attempting to rock herself upon the cold stone to prove how comfortable she was, fell forward dizzy and insensible.