Chapter I: Pitch My Tent (9)

But here was something different. It was still the Union; but bore a new complexion and a different relation alike to the workingman, the employer, and the public. It was a strange power and its manifestation was different. It was not in active exercise when I first went among the workingmen. Yet it was ever present. A cloud appeared to hang over the population; there was a feeling that a volcano, as yet quiet, might burst forth at any time, and no man could tell what the end might be. It was ever in men's minds, not only the workingmen's, but the tradesmen's, the middlemen's. It appeared to keep on edge a keen antagonism between all laboring men as such and all other men. It was nearer and more important than politics or religion. It had entered into their lives and created a power which they feared and obeyed. To a considerable extent it had taken away their liberties, and their lives were regulated by their relation to it. I saw the growth of the system and was mystified by it, for I saw individuality and personal liberty passing away--men deliberately abandoning their most cherished privileges to submit to a yoke that was being put on them. I noted the decline of excellence in the individual's work and of ambition for excellence in himself--the decay of the standard of good workmanship. I marked the mere commercial question of wages--higher wages irrespective of better work--take the place of the old standard of improved workmanship and witnessed the commercialism which in large figures had swept over the employer class, now creep over and engulf the laboring class to the destruction of all fine ambition and the reduction of excellence to a dead level of indifferent mediocrity. They deliberately surrendered individual liberty and all its possibilities and became the bondmen of a tyrannous dictator which they set up.

I was familiar with the loafer and the shirker. He is incident to humanity. He exists in every calling and rank of life. But it was novel to me to find an entire class deliberately loafing and shirking and slurring on principle. I saw gangs of workmen waiting around, shivering in the wind, for the hour to come when they might take up the tools which lay at hand with which they might have warmed themselves. I saw them on the stroke, drop those tools as though the wave of sound had paralyzed their arms. I saw them leave the stone half set, the rivet half driven, the bar half turned; the work, whatever it was, half done. I saw bright, alert, intelligent men, whose bodies were twice and their brains ten times as active as their fellows', do double work in the same time as the latter and then dawdle and loaf and yawn empty-handed beside the unfinished work with which they might readily have doubled their income. I asked some of my friends why it was and the answer was always the same: "the Union."

A strike was going on on the other side of the town, but the direct results were not yet felt among us, and as the enterprises there where the trouble existed were in conflict with those on our side, and therefore our rivals, it did not appear likely that we should be affected except possibly to our advantage. The population of our section, therefore, looked on and discussed the troubles with the placid satisfaction of men who, secure on land, discuss and commiserate those tossed by storms far off, whose existence is known only by the long surges that with spent force roll against their shore. They enjoyed their own good fortune, rejoiced in the good times, and to a considerable extent spent their earnings like children, almost indifferent as to the future.

XXVIII

THE WALKING DELEGATE

Miss Eleanor Leigh had observed for some time that her father was more than usually grave and preoccupied. She knew the cause, for her father discussed many matters with her. It was often his way of clarifying his own views. And when he asked her what she thought of them she felt that it was the highest compliment she ever received--not that he took her advice, she knew, but this did not matter; he had consulted her. The fact gave her a self-reliance wholly different from mere conceit. It steadied her and furnished her a certain atmosphere of calm in which she formed her judgment in other matters. Of late, in the shadow of the clash with his operatives, which appeared to be growing more and more imminent, he had not advised with her as formerly and the girl felt it. Was it due to the views which she had been expressing of late touching the suppression of the laboring class? She knew that her father held views as to this quite the opposite of those she had been vaguely groping toward, and while he treated her views with amused indulgence he considered the whole line of thought as the project of selfish demagogues, or, at best, of crack-brained doctrinaires. It might suit for the millennium, but not for a society in which every man was competing with every other man. In fact, however, the principal reason for Mr. Leigh's silence was the growing differences between himself and Mrs. Argand. The struggle had grown until it involved the very existence of his house. He knew that if his daughter ever realized the truth, that her aunt's interest had been thrown against him and in favor of men whose methods he reprobated, it would mean the end of all between them, and he was unwilling that a breach should come between his daughter and her mother's sister.

The status of the present relation with his men was, however, growing steadily worse and more threatening. The influences at work were more and more apparent. The press was giving more and more space to the widening breach, and the danger of a strike on a vast scale that should exceed anything ever known heretofore was steadily increasing.

Eleanor knew that this was the cloud that left its shadow on her father's brow and she determined to make an effort to assist him. She had revolved the scheme in her little head and it appeared the very thing to do.

The approach of Thanksgiving offered an opportunity for an act of good-will which she felt sure would bear fruit. She had talked it over with John Marvel and he had glowed at the suggestion. So one day at the table she broke in on her father's reverie.

"Father, how many men have you in the mills and on the railway?"

Her father smiled as he nearly always did when she spoke to him, as, indeed, most people smiled, with sheer content over the silvery voice and sparkling eyes.

"Why, roughly, in the mills about eleven hundred--there may be a few more or a few less to-day; to-morrow there will not be one."

"Oh! I hope they won't do that. I have such a beautiful plan."

"What is it? To give them all they demand, and have them come back with a fresh and more insolent demand to-morrow?"

"No, to give them--every one who has a family, a Thanksgiving basket--a turkey."

Her father burst out laughing. "A turkey? Better give them a goose. What put that idea into your little head? Why, they would laugh at you if they did not fling it back in your face."

"Oh! no, they would not. I never saw any one who did not respond to kindness."

"Better wait till after to-morrow and you will save a lot of turkeys."

"No, I am serious. I have been thinking of it for quite a while and I have some money of my own."

"You'd better keep it. You may come to need it."

"No, I want to try my plan. You do not forbid it?"

"Oh, no! If you can avert the strike that they are preparing for, your money will be a good investment."

"I don't do it as an investment," protested the girl. "I do it as an act of kindness."

"All right, have your way. It can't do any harm. If you succeed, I shall be quite willing to foot the bills."

"No, this is my treat," said the girl, "though I shall put your name in too."

So, that day Miss Eleanor Leigh spent inspecting and getting prices on turkeys, and by night she had placed her order with a reliable man who had promised to provide the necessary number of baskets, and, what is more, had gotten interested in her plan. She had enlisted also the interest of John Marvel, who worked like a Trojan in furtherance of her wishes. And I, having learned from John of her charitable design, gave my assistance with what I fear was a less unselfish philanthropy. Happily, disease is not the only thing that is contagious. It was impossible to work shoulder to shoulder with those two and not catch something of John Marvel's spirit, not to mention the sweet contagion of Eleanor Leigh's charming enthusiasm. I learned much in that association of her cleverness and sound sterling sense as she organized her force and set them to work. And I was fortunate enough to get one of her charming smiles. It was when she said, "I want one of the best baskets for Mrs. Kenneth McNeil," and I replied, "I have already sent it." Thus, in due time, on the day before Thanksgiving Day, a score of wagons were busily at work carrying not only the turkeys ordered by Miss Leigh, as a Thanksgiving present for each family in her father's employ, but with each one a basket of other things.

It happened that that night a great meeting of the operatives was held.

It was largely attended, for though the object had not been stated in the call, it was well known that it was to consider a momentous subject; nothing less than an ultimatum on the part of the men to the Company, and this many of the men felt was the same thing with a strike. The name of David Wringman, the chief speaker, was a guaranty of this. He was a man who had forged his way to the front by sheer force, mainly sheer brute force. From a common laborer he had risen to be one of the recognized leaders in what had come to be known as the workingmen's movement. He had little or no education, and was not known to have technical training of any kind. Some said he had been a machinist; some a miner; some a carpenter. His past was, in fact, veiled in mystery. No one knew, indeed, where he came from. Some said he was Irish; some that he was Welsh; some that he was American. All that was known of him positively was that he was a man of force, with a gift of fluent speech and fierce invective, which rose at times and under certain conditions to eloquence. At least, he could sway an assemblage of workingmen, and, at need, he was not backward in using his fists, or any other weapon that came to hand. Speaking of Wringman, Wolffert once said that not the least of the misfortunes of the poor was the leaders they were forced to follow. His reputation for brute strength was quite equal to his reputation as a speaker, and stories were freely told of how, when opposition was too strong for him in a given meeting, he had come down from the platform and beaten his opponents into submission with his brawny fists. It was rumored how he had, more than once, even waylaid his rivals and done them up, but this story was generally told in undertones; for Wringman was now too potent and dangerous a man for most men of his class to offend personally without good cause. His presence in the city was in itself a sign that some action would be taken, for he had of late come to be known as an advanced promoter of aggressive action. To this bold radicalism was due much of his power. He was "not afraid of the capitalists," men said. And so they established him in his seat as their leader. To his presence was due a goodly share of the shadow that had been gathering over the workingmen's part of the section of the town which I have noted.

Thus, the meeting on the evening I speak of was largely attended. For an hour before the time set for it the large hall in the second story of a big building was crowded, and many who could not get in were thronging the stairways and the street outside. A reek of strong tobacco pervaded the air and men with sullen brows talked in undertones, broken now and then by a contentious discussion in some group in which possibly some other stimulant than tobacco played a part.

Wolffert and Marvel had both been trying to avert the strike, and had, I heard, made some impression among the people. Marvel had worked hard all day aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert had been arguing on rational grounds against a strike at the beginning of winter. I had been talking over matters with some of my mill-friends who had invited me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had been struck for some time with the change that had been going on in the workingmen's districts. As wretched as they had been before they were now infinitely more so.

The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies usually begin, with considerable discussion and appearance of deliberation. There was manifest much discontent and also much opposition to taking any steps that would lead to a final breach. A number of men boldly stood forth to declare for the half-a-loaf-better-than-no-bread theory, and against much hooting they stood their ground. The question of a resolution of thanks for Miss Leigh's baskets aroused a little opposition, but the majority were manifestly for it, and many pleasant things were said about her and her father as well, his liberal policy being strongly contrasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. Then there appeared the real leader of the occasion, to hear whom the meeting had been called: Wringman. And within ten minutes he had everything his own way. He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he shouldered his way to the front with a grim look on his face that had often prepared the way for him. He was undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental. Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for the brief introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of the occasion, and, refusing to wait for the cheers to subside, he plunged at once into the midst of his subject.

"Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, I am a working man." He stretched out his long arm and swept it in a half circle and they cheered his gesture and voice, and violent action, though had they considered, as they might well have done, he had not "hit a lick" with his hands in a number of years. Unless, indeed, a rumor which had begun to go the rounds was true, that he had once at least performed work for the government in an institution where the labor was not wholly voluntary.

Then came a catalogue of their grievances and wrongs, presented with much force and marked dramatic ability, and on the heels of it a tirade against all employers and capitalists, and especially against their employer, whom he pictured as their arch enemy and oppressor, the chief and final act of whose infamy, he declared to be his "attempt to bribe them with baskets of rotten fowls." Who was this man? He would tell them. He held in his hand a paper which pictured him in his true character. Here he opened a journal and read from the article I had written for Kalender--the infamous headlines of the editor which changed the whole. This was the man with whom they had to deal--a man who flung scraps from his table for famishing children to wrangle over with dogs. There was but one way to meet such insolence, he declared, to fling them back in his face and make him understand that they didn't want favors from him, but justice; not rotten fowls, but their own hard-earned money. "And now," he cried, "I put the motion to send every basket back with this message and to demand an increase of twenty-five per cent. pay forthwith. Thus, we shall show them and all the world that we are independent American workmen earning our own bread and asking no man's meat. Let all who favor this rise and the scabs sit still."

It was so quickly and shrewdly done that a large part of the assembly were on their feet in a second, indeed, many of them were already standing, and the protest of the objectors was lost in the wild storm of applause. Over on the far side I saw little McNeil shouting and gesticulating in vehement protest; but as I caught sight of him a dozen men piled on him and pulled him down, hammering him into silence. The man's power and boldness had accomplished what his reasoning could never have effected.

The shouts that went up showed how completely he had won. I was thrown into a sort of maze. But his next words recalled me. It was necessary, he went on, that he should still maintain his old position. His heart bled every moment; but he would sacrifice himself for them, and if need were, he would die with them; and when this time came he would lead them through flaming streets and over broken plutocrats to the universal community of everything. He drew a picture of the rapine that was to follow, which surpassed everything I had ever believed possible. When he sat down, his audience was a mob of lunatics. Insensible to the folly of the step I took, I sprang to my chair and began to protest. They hushed down for a second. I denounced Wringman as a scoundrel, a spy, a hound. With a roar they set upon me and swept me from my feet. Why I was not killed instantly, I hardly know to this day. Fortunately, their very fury impeded them. I knew that it was necessary to keep my feet, and I fought like a demon. I could hear Wringman's voice high above the uproar harking them on. Suddenly a cry of "put him out" was raised close beside me. A pistol was brandished before my face; my assailants fell back a little, and I was seized and hustled to the door. I found a man I had noticed near me in the back part of the hall, who had sat with his coat collar turned up and his hat on, to be my principal ejector. With one hand he pushed me toward the entrance whilst, brandishing his revolver with the other, he defended me from the blows that were again aimed at me. But all the time he cursed me violently.

"Not in here; let him go outside. Leave him to me--I'll settle him!" he shouted--and the crowd shouted also. So he bundled me to the door and followed me out, pushing others back and jerking the door to after him.

On the outside I turned on him. I had been badly battered and my blood was up. I was not afraid of one man, even with a pistol. As I sprang for him, however, he began to put up his weapon, chuckled, and dropped his voice.

"Hold on--you've had a close call--get away from here."

It was Langton, the detective. He followed me down the steps and out to the street, and then joined me.

"Well?" he laughed, "what do you think of your friends?"

"That I have been a fool."

He smiled with deep satisfaction. "What were you doing in there?" I asked.

"Looking after my friends. But I don't feel it necessary to invite them to cut my throat. One good turn deserves another," he proceeded. "You keep away from there or you'll find yourself in a bad way. That Wringman----"

"Is a scoundrel."

"Keep a lookout for him. He's after you and he has powerful friends. Good night. I don't forget a man who has done me a kindness--And I know that fellow."

He turned into a by-street.

The next morning the papers contained an account of the proceedings with glaring headlines, the account in the _Trumpet_ being the fullest and most sympathetic and giving a picture of the "great labor-leader, Wringman, the idol of the workingman," who had, by "his courage and character, his loftiness of purpose and singleness of aim, inspired them with courage to rise against the oppression of the grinding corporation which, after oppressing them for years, had attempted by a trick to delude them into an abandonment of the measures to secure, at least, partial justice, just as they were about to wring it from its reluctant hand."

It was a description which might have fitted an apostle of righteousness. But what sent my heart down into my boots was the republication of the inserted portion of my article on the delayed train attacking Mr. Leigh. The action of the meeting was stated to be unanimous, and in proof it was mentioned that the only man who opposed it, a young man evidently under the influence of liquor, was promptly flung out. I knew that I was destined to hear more of that confounded article, and I began to cast about as to how I should get around it. Should I go to Eleanor Leigh and make a clean breast of it, or should I leave it to occasion to determine the matter? I finally did the natural thing--I put off the decision.

Miss Eleanor Leigh, who had worked hard all the day before despatching baskets to the hundreds of homes which her kind heart had prompted her to fill with cheer, came down to breakfast that morning with her heart full of gratitude and kindness toward all the world. She found her father sitting in his place with the newspapers lying beside him in some disorder and with a curious smile on his face. She divined at once that something had happened.

"What is it?" she asked, a little frightened.

For answer Mr. Leigh pushed a paper over to her and her eye fell on the headlines:

HONEST LABORING MEN RESENT BRAZEN
ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY
LABOR LEADER'S GREAT APPEAL FOR JUSTICE
LABOR DEMANDS ITS DUES

"Oh, father!" With a gasp she burst into tears and threw herself in her father's arms.

"That is the work of Canter and his partner, McSheen," said Mr. Leigh grimly.

It was not the only house in which the sending back of her baskets caused tears. In many a poor little tenement there was sore weeping because of the order--in not a few a turkey had not been known for years. Yet mainly the order was obeyed.

Next day Mr. Leigh received in his office a notification that a deputation of the operatives on his road demanded to see him immediately. He knew that they were coming; but he had not expected them quite so soon. However, he was quite prepared for them and they were immediately admitted. They were a deputation of five men, two of them elderly men, one hardly more than a youth, the other two of middle age. At their head was a large, surly man with a new black hat and a new overcoat. He was the first man to enter the room and was manifestly the leader of the party. Mr. Leigh invited them to take seats and the two older men sat down. Two of the others shuffled a little in their places and turned their eyes on their leader.

"Well, what can I do for you?" inquired Mr. Leigh quietly. His good-humored face had suddenly taken on a cold, self-contained expression, as of a man who had passed the worst.

Again there was a slight shuffle on the part of the others and one of the older men, rising from his seat and taking a step forward, said gravely: "We have come to submit to you----"

His speech, however, was instantly interrupted by the large man in the overcoat. "Not by a d----d sight!" he began. "We have come to demand two things----"

Mr. Leigh nodded.

"Only two? What may they be, please?"

"First, that you discharge a man named Kenneth McNeil, who is a non-union man----"

Mr. Leigh's eyes contracted slightly.

"--and secondly, that you give a raise of wages of fifteen per cent. to every man in your employ--and every woman, too."

"And what is the alternative, pray?"

"A strike."

"By whom?"

"By every soul in your employ, and, if necessary, by every man and woman who works in this city--and if that is not enough, by a tie-up that will paralyze you, and all like you."

Mr. Leigh nodded. "I understand."

A slight spark came into his eyes and his lips tightened just a shade, but when he spoke his voice was level and almost impersonal.

"Will nothing less satisfy you?" he inquired.

"Not a cent," said the leader and two of the others looked at him with admiration. "We want justice."

Mr. Leigh, with his eye steadily on him, shook his head and a smile came into his eyes. "No, you don't want justice," he said to the leader, "you want money."

"Yes, our money."

Again Mr. Leigh shook his head slowly with his eyes on him. "No, not your money--mine. Who are you?" he demanded. "Are you one of the employees of this road?"

"My name is Wringman and I am the head of this delegation."

"Are you an employee of this Company?"

"I am the head of this delegation, the representative of the Associated Unions of this city, of which the Union on this road constitutes a part."

"I will not deal with you," said Mr. Leigh, "but I will deal with you," he turned to the other men. "I will not discharge the man you speak of. He is an exceptionally good man. I happen to know this of my own personal knowledge, and I know the reason he is not a Union man. It is because you kept him out of the Union, hoping to destroy him as you have destroyed other honest men who have opposed you." He turned back to the leader.

Wringman started to speak, but Mr. Leigh cut him short.

"Not a word from you. I am dealing now with my own men. I know you. I know who your employer is and what you have been paid. You sold out your people in the East whom you pretended to represent, and now you have come to sell out these poor people here, on whose ignorance and innocence you trade and fatten. You have been against McNeil because he denounced you in the East. Your demand is preposterous," he said, turning to the others. "It is an absolute violation of the agreement which you entered into with me not three months ago. I have that agreement here on my desk. You know what that says, that the scale adopted was to stand for so long, and if by any chance, any question should arise, it was to be arbitrated by the tribunal assented to by yourselves and myself. I am willing to submit to that tribunal the question whether any question has arisen, and if it has, to submit it for adjudication by them."

"We did not come here to be put off with any such hyp--" began the leader, but before he had gotten his word out, Mr. Leigh was on his feet.

"Stop," he said. And his voice had the sharp crack of a rifle shot. "Not a word from you. Out of this office." He pointed to the door and at the same moment touched the bell. "Show that man the door," he said, "instantly, and never admit him inside of it again."

"Ah, I'm going," sneered Wringman, putting on his hat, "but not because you ordered me."

"Yes, you are--because I ordered you, and if you don't go instantly I will kick you out personally."

He stepped around the desk and, with his eyes blazing, walked quickly across the floor, but Wringman had backed out of the door.

"For the rest of you," he said, "you have my answer. I warn you that if you strike you will close the factories that now give employment to thousands of men and young women. You men may be able to take care of yourselves; but you should think of those girls. Who will take care of them when they are turned out on the street? I have done it heretofore--unless you are prepared to do it now, you had better consider. Go down to my box-factory and walk through it and see them, self-supporting and self-respecting. Do you know what will become of them if they are turned out? Go to Gallagin's Gallery and see. Go back to your work if you are men of sense. If not, I have nothing further to say to you."

They walked out and Mr. Leigh shut the door behind them. When he took his seat a deep gravity had settled on him which made him look older by years.

The following day an order for a general strike on the lines operated by Mr. Leigh was issued, and the next morning after that not a wheel turned on his lines or in his factories. It was imagined and reported as only a question of wages between an employer and his men. But deep down underneath lay the secret motives of McSheen and Canter and their set who had been plotting in secret, weaving their webs in the dark--gambling in the lives of men and sad-eyed women and hungry children. The effect on the population of that section of the city was curious. Of all sad things on earth a strike is the saddest. And like other battles, next to a defeat the saddest scene is the field of victory.

The shadow had settled down on us; the sunshine was gone. The temper of every one appeared to have been strained. The principle of Unionism as a system of protection and defence had suddenly taken form as a system of aggression and active hostility. Class-feeling suddenly sprang up in open and armed array, and next came division within classes. The talk was all of force; the feeling all one of enmity and strife. The entire population appeared infected by it. Houses were divided against themselves; neighbors who had lived in friendliness and hourly intercourse and exchanged continual acts of kindness, discussed, contended, quarrelled, threatened, and fought or passed by on the other side scowling and embittered. Sweetness gave place to rancor and good-will to hate.

Among those affected by the strike was the family of my old drummer. The change was as apparent in this little home, where hitherto peace and content had reigned supreme with Music to fill in the intervals and make joy, as in the immediate field of the strike.

The whole atmosphere of happiness underwent a change, as though a deadly damp had crept in from the outside, mildewing with its baleful presence all within, and turning the very sunlight into gloom. Elsa had lost her place. The box-factory was closed. The house was filled with contention. The musicians who came around to smoke their big pipes and drink beer with old Loewen were like the rest, infected. Nothing appeared to please any longer. The director was a tyrant; the first violin a charlatan; the rest of the performers mostly fools or worse; and the whole orchestra "a fake."

This was the talk I heard in the home when I stopped by sometimes of an evening on my way to my room, and found some of his friends arguing with him over their steins and pipes, and urging a stand against the director and a demand that he accede to their wishes. The old drummer himself stood out stoutly. The director had always been kind to him and to them, he insisted. He was a good man and took pride in the orchestra, as much pride as he himself did. But I could see that he was growing soured. He drank more beer and practised less. Moreover, he talked more of money, which once he had scarcely ever mentioned. But the atmosphere was telling; the mildew was appearing. And in this haunt of peace, peace was gone.

I learned from Loewen one evening that in the event of the strike not being settled soon, there was a chance of a sympathetic strike of all trades, and that even the musicians might join in it, for they had "grievances also."

"But I thought Music was not a trade, but a profession, an art?" I said, quoting a phrase I had overheard him use. He raised his shoulders and threw out his hands palm upward.

"Ach! it vas vonce."

"Then why is it not now?"

"Ach! Who knows? Because they vill not haf it so. Ze music iss dead--ze harmony iss all gone--in ze people--in ze heart! Zere iss no more music in ze souls of ze people. It iss monee--monee--monee--fight, fight, fight, all ze time! Who can gife ze divine strain ven ze heart is set on monee always?"

Who, indeed? I thought, and the more I thought of it the more clearly I felt that he had touched the central truth.

XXIX

MY CONFESSION

It is said that every woman has in her nature something feline. I will not venture on so sweeping an assertion; but I will say that one of the sex was never excelled by any feline in her ability to torture and her willingness to tease the victim of her charms.

When I met Eleanor Leigh next after the memorable session on the dusty steps, I could not tell for my life what were her feelings toward me. They were as completely veiled as though she had been accustomed from her infancy to enfold herself in impenetrable mystery. There was a subtle change in her manner profoundly interesting to me, but what it denoted I could not in the least discover, and every effort on my part to do so was frustrated with consummate art. She did not look at me and at moments appeared oblivious of my presence. She talked more than ever before of John Marvel, varied at times by admiring allusions to Leo Wolffert, until I almost began to hate them both. And all the while, she was so exasperatingly natural and innocent. A man may be a true friend to another, ready to serve him to the limit and may wish him all the happiness in the world, and yet may not desire the girl who has become his sun, moon and stars to appear to draw her light from his source. So, presently, like any other worm, I turned.

"You appear to think that there is no one else in the world like John Marvel!" I said, fuming inwardly.

"I do not. In a way, he stands by himself. Why, I thought you thought so too?"

"Yes, of course--I do--I mean--I believe you are in--" I hesitated to finish the sentence, and changed it. "I believe you think more of him than of any one else." I did not really believe this--I wished her to deny it; but not she! I was playing at a game at which she was an expert from her cradle. A subtle change of expression passed over her face. She gave me a half glance, and then looked down. She appeared to be reflecting and as my eyes rested on her I became conscious of the same feeling of pleased wonder with which we gaze into a perfectly clear fountain whose crystal depths we may penetrate, but not fathom.

"Yes, I think I do, in a way--I think him--quite wonderful. He appears to me the embodiment of truth--rugged and without grace--but so restful--so real--so sincere. I feel that if any great convulsion of Nature should occur and everything should be overthrown, as soon as we emerged we should find Mr. Marvel there unchanged--like Truth itself, unchangeable. If ever I marry, it will be to some man like that--simple and strong and direct always--a rock." She gazed placidly down while this arrow quivered in my heart. I wanted to say, "Why, then, don't you marry him?" But we were already too perilously near the edge for me to push matters further in that direction. I wished also to say, "Why don't you marry me?" but I was not conscious at the moment of any remarkable resemblance to a rock of strength.

I recall her exact appearance as she waited. She happened to be arrayed that afternoon in a dark red dress, which fitted perfectly her slim, supple form, and her hat with a dark feather, and her dark hair about her brow gave her an air which reminded me of a red rose. It is not, however, the tint that makes the rose, but the rose itself. The rose is a rose, whether its petals be red or pink or white. And such she ever appeared to me. And the thorns that I found about her in no way detracted from her charms. Though I might have wished her less prone to show them, I did not find her pursuit the less delicious.

Just after this I decided to move my quarters. Pushkin was beginning to come again to the old Drummer's house, I did not know why--and though I did not meet him I could not bear to be under the same roof with him. I began to feel, too, the change in the household. Elsa had begun to change somehow. Instead of the little carols and snatches like bird-songs that I used to hear before she went to her work, or in the evening when she returned, there was silence and sometimes sighs, and in place of smiles, gloom. Her face lost its bloom. I wondered what the poor thing was distressing herself about. My young Swede, too, whom I still occasionally saw, appeared to have lost that breezy freshness and glow which always reminded me of country meadows and upland hay-fields, and looked downcast and moody. In place of his good-humored smile, his ruddy face began to wear a glowering, sullen look; and finally he disappeared. The mother, also, changed, and her voice, formerly so cheery and pleasant, had a sharper tone than I had ever heard in it before, and even the old drummer wore a cloudier air, wholly different from his old-time cheeriness. In fact, the whole house had changed from the nest of content that it had been, and I began to plan moving to a better neighborhood which my improving practice appeared to justify. The chief thing that withheld me was that radiant glimpse of Miss Leigh which I sometimes got of a morning as she came tripping along the street with her little basket in her hand, and her face sweet with high thoughts. It set me up all day; attended me to my office, and filled it with sunshine and hope. Moreover, I was beginning to find in my association with John Marvel a certain something which I felt I should miss. He calmed me and gave me resolution. It appeared strange that one whom I had always looked down on should so affect me, but I could no longer hide it from myself. But against this reason for remaining I set the improvement in my condition that a better lodging-place would indicate. After a time, my broad-shouldered young Swedish car-driver came back and I was glad I had remained. Several times in the evening I found him in the house dressed up with shiny hair, a very bright necktie, and a black coat, the picture of embarrassed happiness, and Elsa sitting up and looking prim and, I fancied, a trifle bored, though it might have been only demureness. When I heard her singing again, I assumed that it was the latter expression, and not the former, which I had observed. However, I came in one night and heard Pushkin's voice in the house and I was again at sea. Elsa in all the gayety of her best frock and ribbons, dashed by me as I mounted the stair to my room.

The next evening I was walking home late. I came on two persons standing in the shadow in a secluded spot. They stopped talking as I passed and I thought I heard my name whispered. I turned and they were Elsa and Pushkin. What was he doing talking with her at that hour? I came near walking up and denouncing him then and there; but I reflected and went on, and when, a few minutes later, Elsa came in very red and scared-looking, I congratulated myself on my self-restraint and sagacity. The next morning was rainy and black, and I took a street car; and found that the motorman was my blue-eyed young Swede, and that he was as dark and cloudy that morning as the day.

That night, I heard Pushkin's voice in the house again, and my old friend's reply to him in a tone of expostulation. It was hard not to hear what Pushkin said, for the house was like a sounding-board. Pushkin was actually trying to borrow money--"more money," and he gave as his reason the absolute certainty that with this stake--"just this one loan," he should win an heiress--"One of the richest women in all the land," he said. He urged as a reason why the old fellow should lend it to him, that they were both from the same country, and that his grandfather, when a Minister of the Court, had appreciated Loewen's music and helped him to get his first place.

"And he was a shentlemans like me, and you nodings but a common trummer, hey? And--look here," he said, "I am going to marry a great heiress, and then I shall not haf to borrow any more. I shall haf all de moneys I want--my pockets full, and den I vill pay you one--two--t'ree times for all you haf lend me, hein? And now I, de shentlemans, comes to you, de common trummer, and calls you mine friend, and swear to pay you one--two--t'ree times over, certainlee you vill nod refuse me?"

The rest was in the language of their own country. The argument had its effect; for I could hear the old drummer's tone growing more and more acquiescent and the other's laugh becoming more and more assured, and finally I knew by his voice that he had succeeded.

I came near rising on the spot and going in and unmasking him. But I did not. I determined to wait until the next morning.

Next morning, however, when I came down I received notice that my room was no longer for rent. The announcement came to me from Mrs. Loewen, who gave it in her husband's name, and appeared somewhat embarrassed. I could not see her husband. He had gone out "to meet a gentleman," she said. Her manner was so changed that I was offended, and contented myself with saying I would leave immediately; and I did so, only leaving a line addressed to my old drummer to explain my departure--I was sure that their action was in some way due to Pushkin. In fact, I was not sorry to leave though I did not like being put out. My only cause of regret was that I should miss my walk through the street where the young school-mistress was shining. I am not sure whether it was a high motive or a mean one which made me, as I left the house, say to Mrs. Loewen:

"You are harboring a scoundrel in that man Pushkin. Keep your eyes open." I saw a startled look in her eyes, but I did not wait to explain.

I did not feel comfortable that evening as I walked through the streets to the better quarters which I had taken. I knew that John Marvel would have said less or more. I half made up my mind to go to John and lay the matter before him. Indeed, I actually determined to do so. Other things, however, soon engrossed my thoughts and my time. I had to file my bill for my old ladies. And so this, like most of my good intentions, faded away.

In fact, about this time I was so wholly taken up with my love for the entrancing ideal that I had clad in the lineaments of Miss Eleanor Leigh and adorned with her radiance and charm that I had no thought for anything that was not in some way related to her. My work was suddenly uplifted by becoming a means to bring me nearer to my ambition to win her. My reading took on new meaning in storing my mind with lore or equipping it to fit it for her service; the outward form of nature displayed new beauty because she loved it. The inward realm of reflection took on new grace because she pervaded it. In a word, the whole world became but the home and enshrinement of one being, about whom breathed all the radiance and sweetness that I found in it. All of which meant simply that I was truly in love. Content with my love, I lived in a Heaven whose charm she created. But Love has its winter and it often follows close on its spring. I had played Fate again and waylaid her one afternoon as she was returning home from an excursion somewhere, and persuaded her to prolong her walk with an ease that lifted me quite out of myself, and I began to have aspirations to be very brave and good. I wished to be more like a rock, rugged and simple.

We were walking slowly and had reached a park, and I guilefully led her by a roundabout path through a part where the shrubbery made it more secluded than the rest. I can see the spot now as then I saw it: a curving gray road sloping down under overhanging trees, and a path dappled with sunlight dipping into masses of shrubbery with a thrush glancing through them, like a little brown sprite playing hide-and-seek. As we neared a seat, I suggested that we should sit down and I was pleased at the way in which she yielded; quite as if she had thought of it herself. It was almost the first time that I had her quite to myself in fair surroundings where we were face to face in body and soul. I felt, somehow, as though I had made a great step up to a new and a higher level. We had reached together a new resting-place, a higher atmosphere; almost a new land. And the surroundings were fresh to me in the city, for we had strayed out of the beaten track. I remember that a placid pool, shaded by drooping willows and one great sycamore, lay at our feet, on which a couple of half-domesticated wild-fowl floated, their graceful forms reflected in the mirror below them. I pointed to one and said, "Alcyone," and my heart warmed when she smiled and said, "Yes, at peace. 'The past unsighed for, and the future sure.'"

A quotation from a poet always pleases me. It is as if one found a fresh rose in the street, and where it comes from the lips and heart of a girl it is as though she had uttered a rose.

"Are you fond of Wordsworth?" I asked. "He seems to me very spiritual."

"Yes. In fact, I think I am fond of all poetry. It lifts me up out of the grosser atmosphere of the world, which I enjoy, too, tremendously--and seems to place me above and outside of myself. Some, even, that I don't understand. I seem to be borne on wings that I can't see into a rarer atmosphere that I can only feel, but not describe."

"That," I said, "as I understand it, is the province of poetry--and also, perhaps, its test."

"It has somewhat the same effect on me that saying my prayers has. I believe in something infinitely good and pure and blessed. It soothes me. I get into a better frame of mind."

"I should think your frame of mind was always 'a better frame,'" I said, edging toward the personal compliment and yet feeling as though I were endangering a beautiful dream.

"Oh! you don't know how worse I can be--how angry--how savage."

"Terribly so, I should think. You look like an ogress."

"I feel like one sometimes, too," she nodded. "I can be one when I have the provocation."

"As--for example?"

"Well, let me see?--Well,--for example, once--oh! quite a time ago--it was just after I met you--the very next day--" (My heart bounded that she could remember the very next day after meeting me--and should set dates by that important event. I wanted to say, that is the beginning of my era; but I feared)--"I got into a dreadful passion--I was really ferocious."

"Terrible," I jested. "I suppose you would have poisoned your slaves, like the old Roman Empress--What was her name?"

"I was angry enough."

"And, instead, you gave the cat milk in place of cream, or did some such awful act of cruelty."

"Not at all. I did nothing. I only burned inwardly and consumed myself."

"And pray, what was the offence that called forth such wrath, and who was the wretch who committed the crime?"

"I had sufficient provocation."

"Of course."

"No, I mean really----"

"What?"

"Why, it was a piece that appeared in one of the morning papers, a vile scurrilous sheet that had always attacked my father covertly; but this was the first open attack, and it was simply a huge lie. And it has been repeated again and again. Why, only the other day the same paper republished it with huge headlines and charged that my father was the cause of all the trouble in the city--my father, who is the best, the kindest, the most charitable man I ever knew--who has almost beggared himself trying to furnish facilities to the poor! Oh, I can't bear it! I wish I had that man under my heel this minute! I would just grind him to powder! I would!" She turned, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing with fervor, her face rigid with resolution, her white teeth shut together as if they were a trap to hold her enemy till death. "Give the cat milk! I could have poured molten metal down that man's throat--cheerfully--yes, cheerfully."

It may be well believed that as she proceeded, the amusement died out of my face and mind. I turned the other way to keep her from seeing the change that must have come over me. I was thinking hard and I thought quickly, as, 'tis said, a drowning man thinks. Life and death both flashed before me--life in her presence, in the sunlight of those last weeks, and the shadow of perpetual banishment. But one thing was certain. I must act and at once. I turned to her and was almost driven from my determination by the smile in her eyes, the April sunlight after the brief storm. But I seized myself and took the leap.

"I wrote that piece."

She actually laughed.

"Yes, I know you did."

"I did--seriously, I wrote it; but----"

I saw the horror oversweep her face. It blanched suddenly, like the pallor on a pool when a swift cloud covers the sun, and her hand went up to her bosom with a sudden gesture as of pain.

"Oh!" she gasped. The next second she sprang up and sped away like a frightened deer.

I sprang up to follow her, to make my explanation to her; but though, after the first twenty steps, she stopped running and came down to a walk, it was still a rapid walk, and she was fleeing from me. I felt as though the gates of Paradise were closing on me. I followed her at a distance to see that she reached home safely, and with a vain hope that she might slacken her gait and so give me an excuse to make such explanation as I could. She, however, kept on, and soon after she passed beyond the park I saw a trap draw up beside the pavement, and, after a moment in which the driver was talking to her, a young man sprang out and throwing the reins to a groom, joined her and walked on with her. In the light of the street lamp I recognized young Canter. I turned back cursing him; but most of all, cursing myself.