Winter Evening Tales Part 29

"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart, when G.o.d in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and get him to pa.s.s by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade--bookkeeping.

Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.

"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen, forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed, if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you, there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to denude himself of every shilling, and be entirely dependent on the sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in David's power; so he signified his a.s.sent, and sullenly enough gave up the 9 14s. 2d. in his possession.

"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough for you."

"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."

The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The 9 odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness, and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.

Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home, soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's affairs.

Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell; he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently without avail. He pa.s.sed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent manner.

That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered that Archie's desk had been opened and 46 in notes and gold taken.

Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if he made known his loss, _he also_ must confess that he had knowingly harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of conduct.

Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.

On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening, some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.

"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous lives--never!

Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.

If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."

"I will, father."

During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.

Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he pa.s.sed her door, and said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently, and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally, and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."

But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and mystery.

Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his wife's brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.

One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was pa.s.sing through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!

Fire!" arose on every side of him.

"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy, narrow wynds around.

"In Gordon's Wynd."

He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.

By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.

Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor, showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor of the opposite house again.

In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous pa.s.sage.

Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his preserver.

"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for G.o.d's sake, my wife and my child! The last of seven!"

"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and your child!"

Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly time to save his own life.

"They are dead, Semple!"

Then the poor creature burst into a paroxysm of grief, moaned and cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable creature on earth.

After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was not much now left to work upon--health, honor, self-respect were all gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.

Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke ill of him behind his back.

However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted opportunities.

"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he said, "and tell your four brave boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for _only this once_. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that _comes with sin_ will _go with sorrow_. And never to doubt that to every _evil doer_ will certainly come his _evil day_."

PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.

I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I have no conventional authority to like--people out of "my set," and not always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends that circ.u.mstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate, the peradventure in chance a.s.sociations has always been very attractive to me.

In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at twenty different points.

Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing. He looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did; human beings don't know everything.

People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other necessaries of a pleasant existence.

He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.

Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly beautiful.

I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we pa.s.sed on; but there was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the couple who had caused him such evident suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing, lover-like att.i.tude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"

"Yes."

"He seems devotedly in love with her."

"He loved her two years before he saw her."

"Impossible."

"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."

"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."

"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."