Chapter IV: Part 4

Perhaps an artist would have found more record in the brawny frame and the tanned, chronicled face of the woman, as she bent over her work in her gray dress in the fresh morning light. Forty years of hard, healthy labor,--you could read that in the knotted muscles and burnt skin: and no lack of strength in the face, with its high Indian cheek-bones and firm-set jaws. But there was a curious flickering shadow of grace and beauty over all this coarse hardness. The eyes were large, like the cow's under yonder tree, slow-moving, absorbing, a soft brown in color, and unreasoning; if pain came to this woman, she would not struggle, nor try to understand it: bear it dumbly, that was all. The nervous lips were not heavy, but delicately, even archly cut, with dimples waiting the slightest moving of the mouth; you would be sure that naturally the laughter and fun and cheery warmth of the world lay as close to her as to a child. But something--some loss or uncertainty in her life--had given to her smile a quick, pitiful meaning, like that of a mother watching her baby at her breast.

Andy climbed into the wagon, and cracked his whip impatiently.

"Time!" he shouted.

Neighbor Wart scuffed down the path, wiping her mouth.

"I'm glad I dropped in to breakfast, an' for company to friend Andrew here. Does thee frequent the prize-fighters' ring, that thee's got their slang so pat, lad?" as she scrambled in behind him. "Don't jerk at thy gallowses so fiercely. It's only my way. 'Sarah has a playful way with her': my father used to say that, an' it's kept by me. I don't feel a day older than when--Andrew!" sharply, "did thee bring thy lunch, to eat at my stall? The coffee'll be strong as lye this morning."

The Quaker, Jane, had a small white basket in her hand, into which she was looking.

"It's here," she said, putting it by the young man's feet. "There's ham an' bread an' pie,--plum,--enough for two. Thee'll not want to eat alone?" anxiously.

"I never do," he said, gruffly. "The old buster's savage on pie,--gettin' fat on it, I tell you, Jane, though his jaws are like nut-crackers yet."

Andy had dropped into one of the few ruts of talk in which his brain could jog easily along; he began, as usual, to rub the knees of his trousers smooth, and to turn the quid of tobacco in his mouth.

Jane, oddly enough, did not remind him that it was time to go, but stood, not heeding him, leaning on the wheel, drawing a buckle in the harness tighter.

"He! he!" giggled Andy, "if you'd seen him munch the pastry an' biscuit, an' our biggest cuts of tenderloin, an' then plank down his pennies to Mis' Wart here, thinkin' he'd paid for all! Innocent as a staggerin' calf, that old chap! Says I to him last week, when we were leavin' the market, havin' my joke, says I,--

"'Pervisions is goin' down, Mr. Starke.'

"'It hadn't occurred to me, Andrew,' he says, in his dazed way. 'But you know, doubtless,' says he, with one of his queer bows, touchin' the banged old felt he sticks on the back of his head.

"'Yes, I know,' says I. An' I took his hand an' pulled it through my arm, an' we walked down to Arch. Dunno what the girls thought, seein' me in sech ragged company. Don't care. He's a brick, old Joe.

"Says he, 'Ef I hed hed your practical knowledge, at your age, Andrew, it might hev been better for the cause of science this day,' an' buttons up his coat.

"'Pears as if he wasn't used to wearin' shirts, an' so hed got that trick o' buttonin' up. But he has a appreciatin' eye, he has,--more than th' common,--much more." And Andy crossed his legs, and looked down, and coughed in a modest, deprecating way.

"Well," finding no one spoke, "I've found that meal, sure enough, is his breakfast, dinner, an' supper. I calls it luncheon to him, in a easy, gentlemanly sort of way. I believe I never mentioned to you," looking at Jane, "how I smuggled him into the pants you made, you thinkin' him a friend of mine? As he is."

"No," said the woman.

"As with the pants, so with coat, an' shirt; likewise boots,"--checking off each with a rub on his trousers.

Andy's tongue was oiled, and ran glibly.

Mrs. Wart, on the back seat, shuffled her feet and hemmed in vain.

Jane pulled away at the dock and mullein, in one of her old fits of silent musing.

"Says I, 'See my ducks an' sack, Mr. Starke? Latest cut,' says I. 'Wish you knew my tailor. Man of enterprise, an' science, Sir. Knows mechanics, an' acoustics, an' the rest,--at his finger-ends,--well as his needle,' said I.

"The old chap's watery eyes began to open at that.

"'Heard of yer engine, by George!' I goes on.

"'What's he think of the chances?' he says. 'Hes _he_ influence?'

"'No,--but he's pants an' sech, which is more to the purpose,' I says. 'An' without a decent suit to yer back, how kin you carry the thing before Congress?' says I. Put it to him strong, that way. 'How kin ye?' I says. 'Now look here, Mr. Starke. Ye 'r' no runner in debt, I know: not willin' to let other people fill yer stomach an' cover yer back, because you've got genius into ye, which they haven't. All right!' says I. 'American pluck. But ye see, facts is facts, an' yer coat, not to mince matters, is nothin' but rags. An' yer shirt'--

"His old wizened phiz got quite red at that, an' he caught his breath a minute.

"'Go on, Andrew,' says he, puttin' his hand on my arm, 'you mean well. _I_ don't mind it. Indeed, no.' Smilin' kind, to let me see as he wasn't hurt. However, I dropped the shirt.

"'It can't be otherwise,' says I, soothin', you know, 'so long's you've to sleep in the markets, an' so forth,' meanin' Hayes's stable. 'Now look o' here. My tailor, wishin' to help on the cause of science, as you say, wants to advance you a suit of clothes. On the engine. Of course, on the engine. You to pay when the thing's through. Congress or patents or what not. What d'ye say?' An' so"--

"He wears them. You told me that," said the Quaker, in a dry, mechanical tone.

"You don't care to hear the ins an' outs of it? Well, there's one thing I'll mention," sulkily gathering up the reins; "to-morrow it'll be all up with the old chap, one way or t'other: him an' his engine's goin' on trial. Come up, Jerry!" jerking the horse's head; "ye ought to be in Broad Street this minute. An' if it's worsted he is, it'll be a case of manslaughter agin the judges. That old fellow's built his soul into them wheels an' pipes. An' his skin an' bone too, for that matter. There's little enough of 'em left, God knows! Come up, Jerry!"

But Jane was leaning on the shafts again. Perhaps the story of the starving old machinist had touched her; even Andy guessed how big and childish the heart was in her woman's body, and how she always choked it down. She had taken out the basket now that held the old man's lunch, and was rearranging the slices of bread and ham, her fingers trembling, and lingering curiously over each. Her lips moved, but she said nothing.

"Thy bread _is_ amazin' soft-crusted," said Mrs. Wart. "Thee scalds the raisin', don't thee, now?"

"To-morrow, thee said, Andrew?"

"Yes, that'll be the end of the engine, for good or bad. Ten years he's been at it, he says."

"Ten years, last spring," to herself.

She had put the basket down, and was stooping over the weeds.

"Did I tell ye that? I forgot. Well, Mis' Wart, we'll be off. Don't fret, it's not late. Jerry's blooded. He'll not let the grass grow under his feet."

And the milk-wagon, with its yellow letters, went trundling down the road, the sun beginning to shine pleasantly in on the cool tin vessels within, and the crisp red curls and blue eyes of the driver,--on the lantern, too, swinging from the roof inside, as Andy glanced back. He chuckled; even Mrs. Wart looked tidy and clean in the morning air; his lunch smelt savory in the basket. Then suddenly recalling the old machinist, and the history in which he was himself part actor, he abruptly altered his expression, drawing down his red eyebrows to a tragic scowl, and glaring out into the pleasant light as one who insults fate.

"Whatever is thee glowerin' thataway about?" snapped his companion.

Andy took out his handkerchief, and wiped his forehead deliberately.

"Men see passages in human life that women suspect nothing about, Mem. Darn this wagon, how it jolts! There's lots of genius trampled underfoot by yer purse-proud tyrants, Mem."

"Theeself, for instance. Thee'd best mind thy horse, boy."

But she patted her basket comfortably. It is so easy to think people cruel and coarse who have more money than ourselves! Not for Andy, however. His agrarian proclivities were shallow and transient enough. So presently, as they bowled along the level road, he forgot Joe Starke, and began drumming on the foot-board and humming a tune,--touching now and then the stuffed breast-pocket of his coat with an inward chuckle of mystery. And when little Ann Mipps, at the toll-gate, came out with her chubby cheeks burning, and her shy eyes down, he took no notice at all. Nice little midge of a thing; but what did she know of the thrilling "Personals" of the "Ledger" and their mysterious meaning, beginning at the matrimonial advertisements last May? or of these letters in his breast-pocket from the widow of an affectionate and generous disposition and easy income on Callowhill, or from the confiding Estelle, whose maiden aunt dragonized her on Ridge Road above Parrish? When he saw them once, fate would speak out. Something in him was made for better things than this flat life: "instincts of chivalry and kindred souls,"--quoting Estelle's last letter. Poor Ann! he wondered if they had toffy-pullings at Mipps's now. He hadn't been there since April. Such a dog-trot sort of love-making that used to be! And Andy stopped to give a quart of milk to a seamstress who came out of Poole's cheap boarding-house, and who, by the bye, had just been imbibing the fashion-book literature on which he had been living lately. A sort of weak wine-whey, that gives to the brains of that class a perpetual tipsiness.

Ann Mipps, meanwhile, who had been at her scrubbing since four o'clock, so that she should be through and have on her pink calico before the milk-cart rolled by, went in and cried herself sick: tasting the tears now and then to see how bitter they were,--what a hard time she had in the world; and then remembering she had not said her prayers last night, and so comprehending this judgment on her. For the Mippses were Calvinists, and pain was punishment and not a test. So Ann got up comforted; said her prayers twice with a will, and went out to milk. It might be different to-morrow. So as she had always thought how he needed somebody to make him happy, poor Andy! And she thought _she_ understood him. She knew how brave and noble he was! And she always thought, if he could get the toll-gate, now that her father was so old, how snug that would be!

"Oh, if that should happen, and--there wouldn't be a house in the world so happy, if"--

And then her checks began to burn again, and the light came back in her eyes, until, by the time the day had grown into the hot August noon, she went laughing and buzzing in and out of the shady little toll-house as contented as any bee in the clover yonder. Andy would call again soon,--maybe to-night! While Andy, in the hot streets, was looking at every closed shutter, wondering if Estelle was behind it.

"Poor little Ann! she"--

No! not even to himself would he say, "She likes me"; but his face grew suddenly fiery red, and he lashed Jerry spitefully.

A damp, sharp air was blowing up from the bay that evening, when the milk-wagon rumbled up the lane towards home. Only on the high tree-tops the sun lingered; beneath were broad sweeps of brown shadows cooling into night. The lindens shook out fresh perfume into the dew and quiet. The few half-tamed goats that browse on the hills hunted some dark corner under the pines to dampen out in the wet grass the remembrance of the scorching day. Here and there passed some laborer going home in his shirt-sleeves, fanning off the hot dust with his straw hat, glad of the chance to stop at the cart-wheel and gossip with Andy.

"Ye 'r' late, Fawcett. What news from town?"

So that it was nearly dark before he came under the shadow of the great oak by his own gate. The Quaker was walking backwards and forwards along the lane. Andy stopped to look at her, therefore; for she was usually so quiet and reticent in her motion.

"What kept thee all day, Andrew?" catching the shaft. "Was summat wrong? One ill, maybe?"--her lips parched and stiff.

"What ails ye, Jane?"--holding out his hand, as was their custom when they met. "No. No one ailin'; only near baked with th' heat. I was wi' old Joe,"--lowering his voice. "He took me home,--to his hole, that is; I stayed there, ye see. Well, God help us all! Come up, Jerry! D' ye smell yer oats? Eh! the basket ye've got? No, he'd touch none of it. It's not victual he's livin' on, this day. I wish 'n this matter was done with."

He drove on slowly: something had sobered the Will-o'-the-wisp in Andy's brain, and all that was manly in him looked out, solemn and pitying. The woman was standing by the barn-door when he reached it, watching his lips for a stray word as a dog might, but not speaking. He unhitched the horse, put him in his stall, and pushed the wagon under cover,--then stopped, looking at her uncertainly.

"I--I don't like to talk of this, I hardly know why. But I'm goin' to stay with him to-morrow,--till th' trial's done with."

"Yes, Andrew."

"I wish 'n he hed a friend," he said, after a pause, breaking off bits of the sunken wall. "Not like me, Jane," raising his voice, and trying to speak carelessly. "Like himself. I'm so poor learned, I can't do anything for sech as them. Like him. Jane," after another silence, "I've seen IT."

She looked at him.

"The engine. Jane"--

"I know."

She turned sharply and walked away, the bluish light of the first moonbeams lighting up her face and shoulders suddenly as she went off down the wall. Was it that which brought out from the face of the middle-aged working woman such a strange meaning of latent youth, beauty, and passion? God only knows when the real childhood comes into a life, how early or late; but one might fancy this woman had waited long for hers, and it was coming to-night, the coarse hardness of look was swept away so suddenly. The great thought and hope of her life surged up quick, uncontrollably; her limbs shook, the big, mournful animal eyes were wet with tears, her very horny hands worked together uncertainly and helpless as a child's. On the face, too, especially about the mouth, such a terror of pain, such a hungry wish to smile, to be tender, that I think a baby would have liked to put up its lips then to be kissed, and have hid its face on her neck.

"Summat ails her, sure," said Andy, stupidly watching her a moment or two, and then going in to kick off his boots and eat his supper, warm on the range.

The moonlight was cold; he shut it out, and sat meditating over his cigar for an hour or two before the Quaker came in. When she did, he went to light her night-lamp for her,--for he had an odd, old-fashioned courtesy about him to women or the aged. He noticed, as he did it, that her hair had fallen from the close, thin cap, and how singularly soft and fine it was. She stood by the window, drawing her fingers through the long, damp folds, in a silly, childish way.

"Good night, Andrew," as he gave it to her.

"Good night."

She looked at him gravely.

"I wish, lad--Would thee say, 'God bless thee, Jane'? It's long since as I've heard that, an' there's no one but thee t' 'll say it."

The boy was touched.

"Often I thinks it, Jane,--often. Ye've been good to me these six years. I was nothin' but a beggar's brat when ye took me in. I mind that, though ye think I forget, when I'm newly rigged out sometimes. God bless ye! yes, I'll say it: God knows I will."

She went out into the little passage. He heard her hesitate there a minute. It was a double house: the kitchen and sitting-room at one side of the narrow hall; at the other, Jane's chamber, and a room which she usually kept locked. He had heard her there at night sometimes, for he slept above it, and once or twice had seen the door open in the daytime, and looked in. It held, he saw, better furniture than the rest of the house: a homespun carpet of soft, grave colors, thick drab curtains, a bedstead, one or two bookcases, filled and locked, of which Jane made as little use, he was sure, as she could of the fowling-piece and patent fishing-rod which he saw in one corner. There were no shams, no cheap makeshifts in the Quaker's little house, in any part of it; but this room was the essence of cleanness and comfort, Andy thought. He never asked questions, however: some ingredient in his poor hodge-podge of a brain keeping him always true to this hard test of good breeding. So to-night, though he heard her until near eleven o'clock moving restlessly about in this room, he hesitated until then, before he went to speak to her.

"She's surely sick," he said, with a worried look, lighting his candle. "Women are the Devil for nerves."

Coming to the open door, however, he found her only busy in rubbing the furniture with a bit of chamois-skin. She looked up at him, her face very red, and the look in her face that children have when going out for a holiday.

"How does thee think it looks, Andy?" her voice strangely low and rapid.

He looked at her curiously.

"I'm makin' it ready, thee knows. Pull to this shutter for me, lad. A good many years I've been makin' it ready"--

"You shiver so, ye'd better go to bed, Jane."

"Yes. Only the white valance is to put to the bed; I'm done then,"--going on silently for a while.

"I've been so long at it,"--catching her breath. "Hard scrapin', the first years. We'd only a lease on the place at first. It's ours now, an' it's stocked, an'--Don't thee think the house is snug itself, Andrew? Thee sees other houses. Is't home-like lookin'? Good for rest"--

"Yes, surely. What are you so anxious an' wild about, Jane? It's yer own house."

"I'm not anxious,"--trying to calm herself. "Mine, is it, lad? All mine; nobody sharin' in it."

She laughed. In all these years he had never heard her laugh before; it was low and full-hearted,--a live, real laugh. Somehow, all comfort, home, and frolic in the coming years were promised in it.

"Mine?" folding up her duster. "Well, lad, thee says so. Daily savin' of the cents got it. Maybe thee thought me a hard woman?"--with an anxious look. "I kept all the accounts of it in that blue book I burned to-night. Nobody must know what it cost. No. Thee'd best go to sleep, lad. I've an hour's more work, I think. There'll be no time for it to-morrow, bein' the last day."

He did not like to leave her so feverish and unlike herself.

"Well, good night, then."

"Good night, Andrew. Mine, eh?"--her face flushing. "Thee'll know to-morrow. Thee thinks it looks comfortable?"--holding his hand anxiously. "Heartsome? Mis' Hale called the place that the other day. I was so glad to hear that! Well, good night. _I_ think it does."

And she went back to her work, while Andy made his way up-stairs, puzzled and sleepy.

The next day was cool and grave for intemperate August. Very seldom a stream of fresh sunshine broke through the gray, mottling the pavements with uncertain lights. Summer was evidently tired of its own lusty life, and had a mind to put on a cowl of hodden-gray, and call itself November. The pale, pleasant light toned in precisely, however, to the meaning of Arch and Walnut Streets, where the old Quaker family-life has rooted itself into the city, and looks out on the passers-by in such a sober, cheerful fashion. There was one house, low down in Arch, that would have impressed you as having grown more sincerely than the others out of the character of its owner. There was nothing bigoted or purse-proud or bawbling in the habit of the man who built it; from the massive blocks in the foundation, to the great horse-chestnuts in front, and the creeping ivy over pictures and bookshelves, there was the same constant hint of a life liberal, solid, graceful. It had its whim of expression, too, in the man himself,--a small man, lean, stoop-shouldered, with gray hair and whiskers, wearing a clergyman's black suit and white cravat: his every motion was quiet, self-poised, intelligent; a quizzical, kind smile on the mouth, listening eyes, a grave forehead; a man who had heard other stories than any in your life,--of different range, yet who waited, helpful, for yours, knowing it to be something new and full of an eternal meaning. It was Dr. Bowdler, rector of an Episcopal church, a man of more influence out of the Church than any in it. He was in the breakfast-room now, trimming the hanging-baskets in the window, while his niece finished her coffee: he "usually saved his appetite for dinner, English fashion; cigars until then,"--poohing at all preaching of hygiene, as usual, as "stuff."

There were several other gentlemen in the room,--waiting, apparently, for something,--reading the morning papers, playing with the Newfoundland dog that had curled himself up in the patch of sunshine by the window, or chatting with Miss Defourchet. None of them, she saw, were men of cultured leisure: one or two millionnaires, burly, stubby-nosed fellows, with practised eyes and Port-hinting faces: the class of men whose money was made thirty years back, who wear slouched clothes, and wield the coarser power in the States. They came out to the talk fit for a lady, on the open general field, in a lumbering, soggy way, the bank-note smell on every thought. The others, more unused to society, caught its habit better, she thought, belonging as they did to a higher order: they were practical mechanicians, and their profession called, she knew, for tolerably powerful and facile faculties of brain. The young lady, who was waiting too, though not so patiently as the others, amused herself in drawing them out and foiling them against each other, with a good deal of youthful tact, and want of charity, for a while. She grew tired at last.

"They are long coming, uncle," she said, rising from her chair.

"They are here, Mary: putting up the model in the back lobby for the last hour. Did you think it would be brought in here?"

"I don't know. Mr. Aikens is not here,"--glancing at the timepiece uneasily.

"He's always slow," said one of the machinists, patting the dog's head. "But I will rely more on his judgment of the engine than on my own. He'll not risk a dollar on it, either, if there's a chance of its proving a failure."

"It cannot be a failure," she said, impatiently, her peremptory brown eyes lighting.

"It has been tried before," said her uncle, cautiously,--"or the same basis of experiment,--substitution of compressed air for steam,--and it did not succeed. But it is the man you reason from, Mary, not the machine."

"I don't understand anything about the machine," in a lower voice, addressing the man she knew to possess most influence in the party. "But this Starke has given his life to it, and a life worth living, too. All the strength of soul and body that God gave him has gone into that model out yonder. He has been dragging it from place to place for years, half starving, to get it a chance of trial"--

"All which says nothing for the wheels and pulleys," dryly interrupted the man, with a critical look at her flushing and paling face.

People of standfast habit were always shy of this young person, because, having an acute brain and generous impulses, and being a New-Englander by birth, she had believed herself called to be a reformer, and had lectured in public last winter. Her lightest remarks had, somehow, an oratorical twang. The man might have seen what a true, grand face hers would be, when time had taken off the acrid, aggressive heat which the, to her, novel wrongs in the world provoked in it.

"When you see the man," interposed her uncle, "you will understand why Miss Defourchet espouses his cause so hotly. Nobody is proof against his intense, fierce belief in this thing he has made. It reminds me of the old cases of possession by a demon."

The young girl looked up quickly.

"Demon? It was the spirit of God, the Bible says, that filled Bezaleel and that other, I forget his name, with wisdom to work in gold and silver and fine linen. It's the spirit of God that you call genius,--anything that reveals truth: in pictures, or actions, _or_--machines."

Friend Turner, who was there, took her fingers in his wrinkled hand.

"Thee feels strongly, Mary."

"I wish you could see the man," in a lower voice. "Your old favorite, Fichte," with a smile, "says that 'thorough integrity of purpose is our nearest approach to the Divine idea.' There never was such integrity of purpose as his, I believe. Men don't often fight through hunger and want like death, for a pure aim. And I tell you, if fate thwarts him at this last chance, it is unjust and cruel."

"Thee means _God_, thee knows?"

She was silent, then looked up.

"I do know."

The old Quaker put his hand kindly on her hair.

"He will find His own teachers for thee, dear," was all the reproof he gave.

There was a noise in the hall, and a servant, opening the door, ushered in Andy, and behind him the machinist, Starke. A younger man than Friend Turner had expected to see,--about fifty, his hair prematurely white, in coarse, but decent brown clothes, bearing in his emaciated limbs and face marks of privation, it was true, but with none of the fierce enthusiasm of expression or nervousness he had looked for. A quiet, grave, preoccupied manner. While Dr. Bowdler and some of the others crowded about him, he stood, speaking seldom, his hands clasped behind him and his head bent forward, the gray hair brushed straight up from his forehead. Miss Defourchet was disappointed a little: the best of women like to patronize, and she had meant to meet him as an equal, recognize him in this new atmosphere of refinement into which he was brought, set him at his ease, as she did Andy, by a few quiet words. But he was her equal: more master of this or any occasion than she, because so thoroughly unconscious, standing on something higher. She suspected, too, he had been used to a life as cultivated as this, long ago, by the low, instructed voice, the intangible simplicity of look and word belonging to the bred gentleman.

"They may fuss as they please about him now," chuckled Andy to himself, "but darn a one of 'em would have smuggled him into them clothes. Spruce they look, too; baggy about the knees, maybe. No, thank you, Miss; I've had sufficient," putting down the wine he had barely sipped,--groaning inwardly; but he knew what was genteel, I hope, and that comforted him afterwards.

"The model is ready," said Starke to Dr. Bowdler. "We are keeping your friends waiting."

"No. It is Aikens who is not here. You know him? If the thing satisfies him, he'll bring it into his factories over the Delaware, and make Johns push it through at Washington. He's a thorough-goer, Aikens. Then it will be a success. That's Johns,--that burly fellow in the frock-coat. You have had the model at Washington, I think you told me, Mr. Starke?"

"Three years ago. I exhibited it before a committee. On the Capitol grounds it was."

"Well?"

"Oh, with success, certainly. They brought in a bill to introduce it into the public works, but it fell through. Woods brought it in. He was a young man: not strong, maybe. That was the reason they laughed, I suppose. He tried it for two or three sessions, until it got to be a sort of joke. I had no influence. That has been the cause of its failure, always."

His eyes dropped; then he suddenly lifted his hand to his mouth, putting it behind him again, to turn with a smile when Miss Defourchet addressed him. Dr. Bowdler started.

"Look at the blood," he whispered to Friend Turner. "He bit his finger to the bone."

"I know," said the old Quaker. "The man is quiet from inanition and nervous tension. This trial means more to him than we guess. Get him out of this crowd."

"Come, Mr. Starke," and the Doctor touched his arm, "into my library. There are some curious plates there which"--

Andy had been gulping for courage to speak for some time.

"Don't let him go without a glass of wine," he muttered to the young lady. "I give you my honor I haven't got food across his lips for"--

She started away from him, and made the machinist drink to the success of "our engine," as she called it; but he only touched the glass to his lips and smiled at her faintly: then left the room with her uncle.

The dog followed him: he had kept by Starke since the moment he came into the breakfast-room, cuddling down across his feet when he was called away. The man had only patted him absently, saying that all dogs did so with him, he didn't know why. Thor followed him now. Friend Turner beckoned the clergyman back a moment.

"Make him talk, Richard. Be rough, hurt him, if thee chooses; it will be a safety-valve. Look in his eyes! I tell thee we have no idea of all that has brought this poor creature into this state,--such rigid strain. But if it is broken in on first by the failure of his pump, if it be a pump, I will not answer for the result, Richard."

Dr. Bowdler nodded abruptly, and hurried after Starke. When he entered the cozy south room which he called the library, he found Starke standing before an oil-painting of a baby, one the Doctor had lost years ago.

"Such a bright little thing!" the man said, patting the chubby bare foot as if it were alive.

"You have children?" Dr. Bowdler asked eagerly.

"No, but I know almost all I meet in the street, or they know me. 'Uncle Joe' they call me,"--with a boyish laugh.

It was gone in a moment.

"Are they ready?"

"No."

The Doctor hesitated. The man beside him was gray-haired as himself, a man of power, with a high, sincere purpose looking out of the haggard scraggy face and mild blue eyes,--how could he presume to advise him? Yet this Starke, he saw, had narrowed his life down to a point beyond which lay madness; and that baby had not been in life more helpless or solitary or unable than he was now, when the trial had come. The Doctor caught the bony hands in his own fat healthy ones.

"I wish I could help you," he said impetuously.

Starke looked in his face keenly.

"For what? How?"

"This engine--have you nothing to care for in life but that?"

"Nothing,--nothing but that and what it will gain me."

There was a pause.

"If it fails?"

The dark blood dyed the man's face and throat; he choked, waited a moment before he spoke.

"It would not hurt me. No. I'm nearly tired out, Sir. I hardly look for success."

"Will you try again?"

"No, I'll not try again."

He had drawn away and stood by the window, his face hidden by the curtain. The Doctor was baffled.

"You have yourself lost faith in your invention?"

Something of the old fierceness flashed into the man's eye, but died out.

"No matter," he said under his breath, shaking his head, and putting his hand in a feeble way to his mouth.

"Inanition of soul as well as body," thought the Doctor. "I'll rouse him, cruel or not."

"Have you anything to which to turn, if this disappoints you? Home or friends?"

He waited for an answer. When it came, he felt like an intruder, the man was so quiet, far-off.

"I have nothing,--no friends,--unless I count that boy in the next room. Eh? He has fragments of the old knightly spirit, if his brain be cracked. No others."

"Well, well! You'll forgive me?" said the Doctor. "I did not mean to be coarse. Only I--The matter will succeed, I know. You will find happiness in that. Money and fame will come after."

The old man looked up and came towards him with a certain impressive dignity, though the snuff-colored clothes were bagging about his limbs, and his eyes were heavy and unsteady.

"You're not coarse. No. I'm glad you spoke to me in that way. It is as if you stopped my life short, and made me look before and behind. But you don't understand. I"--

He put his hand to his head, then began buttoning his coat uncertainly, with a deprecating, weak smile.

"I don't know what the matter is. I'm not strong as I used to be."

"You need success."

How strong and breezy the Doctor's voice sounded!

"Cheer up, Mr. Starke. You're a stronger-brained man than I, and twenty years younger. It's something to have lived for a single high purpose like yours, if you succeed. And if not, God's life is broad, and needs other things than air-engines. Perhaps you've been 'in training,' as the street-talk goes, getting your muscles and nerves well grown, and your real work and fight are yet to come."

"I don't know," said the man, dully.

Dr. Bowdler, perhaps, with well-breathed body and soul, did not quite comprehend how vacant and well worn out both heart and lungs were under poor Starke's bony chest.

"You don't seem to comprehend what this engine is to me.--You said the world was broad. I had a mind, even when I was a boy, to do something in it. My father was a small farmer over there in the Jerseys. Well, I used to sit thinking there, after the day's work was done, until my head ached, of how I might do something,--to help, you understand?"

"I understand."

"To make people glad I had lived. I was lazy, too. I'd have liked to settle down and grub like the rest, but this notion kept driving me like, a sting. I can understand why missionaries cross the seas when their hearts stay behind. It grew with me, kept me restless, like a devil inside of me. I'm not strong-brained, as you said. I had only one talent,--for mechanism. They bred me a lawyer, but I was a machinist born. Well,--it's the old story. What's the use of telling it?"

He stopped abruptly, his eyes on the floor.

"Go on. It will be good for both of us. Aikens has not come."

"There's nothing to tell. If it was God or the Devil that led me on to this thing I don't know. I sold myself to it, soul and body. The idea of this invention was not new, but my application was. So it got possession of me. Whatever I made by the law went into it. I tried experiments in a costly way then, had laboratories there, and workshops in the city. My father left me a fortune; _that_ was swallowed up. I worked on with hard struggle then. I was forty years old. I thought success lay just within my reach. God! You don't know how I had fought for it, day by day, all that long life! I was near mad, I think. And then"--

He stopped again, biting his under lip, standing motionless. The Doctor waited until he was controlled.

"Never mind," gently. "Don't go on."

"Yes, I'll tell you all. I was married. A little Quaker girl she was, uneducated, but the gentlest, truest woman God ever made, I think. It rested one to look at her. There were two children. They died. Maybe, if they had lived, it would have been different with me,--I'm so fond of children. I was of her,--God knows I was! But after the children were gone, and the property sunk, and the experiments all topped just short of success, for want of means, I grew irritable and cross,--used to her. It's the way with husbands and wives, sometimes. Well"--

He swallowed some choking in his throat, and hurried on.

"She had some money,--not much, but her own. I wanted it. Then I stopped to think. This engine seemed like a greedy devil swallowing everything. Another step, and she was penniless, ruined: common sense told me that. And I loved her,--well enough to see how my work came between us every hour, made me cruel to her, kept her wretched. If I were gone, she would be better off. I said that to myself day after day. I used to finger the bonds of that money, thinking how it would enable me to finish all I had to do. She wanted me to take it. I knew some day I should do it."

"Did you?"

"No,"--his face clearing. "I was not altogether lost, I think. I left her, settling it on herself. Then I was out of temptation. But I deceived her: I said I was tired of married life, wished to give myself to my work. Then I left her."

"What did she say?"

"She? Nothing that I remember. 'As thee will, Joseph,' that was all, if anything. She had suspected it a long time. If I had stayed with her, I should have used that money,"--his fingers working with his white whiskers. "I've been near starving sometimes since. So I saved her from that,"--looking steadily at the Doctor, when he had finished speaking, but as if he did not see him.

"But your wife? Have you never seen her since?"

"Once." He spoke with difficulty now, but the clergyman suffered him to go on. "I don't know where she is now. I saw her once in the Fulton ferry-boat at New York; she had grown suddenly old and hard. She did not see me. I never thought she could grow so old as that. But I did what I could. I saved her from my life."

Dr. Bowdler looked into the man's eyes as a physician might look at a cancer.

"Since then you have not seen her, I understand you? Not wished to see her?"

There was a moment's pause.

"I have told you the facts of my life, Sir," said the old machinist, with a bow, his stubbly gray hair seeming to stand more erect; "the rest is of trifling interest."

Dr. Bowdler colored.

"Don't be unjust to me, my friend," he said, kindly. "I meant well."

There had been some shuffling noises in the next room in the half-hour just past, which the Doctor had heard uneasily, raising his voice each time to stifle the sound. A servant came to the door now, beckoning him out. As he went, Starke watched him from under his bushy brows, smiling, when he turned and apologized for leaving him.

That man was a thorough man, of good steel. What an infinite patience there was in his voice! He was glad he had told him so much; he breathed freer himself for it. But he was not going to whine. Whatever pain had been in his life he had left out of that account. What right had any man to know what his wife was to him? Other men had given up home and friends and wife for the truth's sake, and not whimpered over it.

What a long time they were waiting to examine the engine! He began his walk up and down the room, with the habitual stoop of the shoulders, and an occasional feeble wandering of the hand to his mouth, wondering a little at himself, at his coolness. For this was the last throw of the dice. After to-day, no second chance. If it succeeded--Well, he washed his hands of the world's work then. _His_ share was finished, surely. Then for happiness! What would she say when he came back? He had earned his reward in life by this time; his work was done, well done,--repeating that to himself again and again. But _would_ she care? His long-jawed, gaunt face was all aglow now, and he rubbed his hands softly together, his thought sliding back evidently into some accustomed track, one that gave him fresh pleasure, though it had been the same these many years, through days of hammering and moulding and nights of sleeping in cheap taverns or under market-stalls. When they were first married, he used to bring her a peculiar sort of white shawl,--quite outside of the Quaker dress, to be sure, but he liked it. She used to look like a bride, freshly, every time she put one on. One of those should be the first thing he bought her. Dr. Bowdler was not wrong: he was a young man yet; they could enjoy life strongly and heartily, both of them. But no more work: with a dull perception of the fact that his strength was sapped out beyond the power of recuperation. That baby (stopping before the picture) was like Rob, about the forehead. But Rob was fairer, and had brown eyes and a snub-nose, like his mother. Remembering how, down in the farm-house, she used to sit on the front-porch step nursing the baby, while he smoked or read, in the evenings: where they could see the salt marshes. Jane liked them, for their color: a dead flat of brown salt grass with patches of brilliant emerald, and the black, snaky lines up which the tide crept, the white-sailed boats looking as if they were wedged in the grass. She liked that. Her tastes were all good.

How long _did_ they mean to wait? He went to the window and looked out. Just then a horse neighed, and the sound oddly recalled the country-town where they had lived after they came into this State. On market-days it was one perpetual whinny along the streets from the colts trotting along-side of the wagons. He and Jane used to keep open table for their country-friends then, and on court- or fair-days. What a hard-fisted, shrewd people they were! talking bad English (like Jane herself); but there was more refinement and softness of feeling among them than among city-bred men. He should relish that life again; it suited him. To die like a grub? But he _had_ done his work. Thank God!

He opened the window to catch the damp air, as Dr. Bowdler came in and touched him on the arm.

"Shall we stay here? Mr. Aikens has come, and they have been testing the machine for some time, I find. Go? Certainly, but--You're a little nervous, Mr. Starke, and--Wouldn't it be better if you were not present? They would be freer in deciding, and--suppose you and I stay here?"

"Eh? How? At it for some time?" hurrying out. "At it?" as the Doctor tried to keep pace with him. "Why, God bless my soul, Sir, what can _they_ do? Nobody understands the valves but myself. A set of ignoramuses, Sir. I saw that at a glance. But it's my last chance,"--panting and wheezing before he reached the back lobby, and holding his hand to his side.

Dr. Bowdler stopped outside.

"What are you waiting here for, Mary?"

"I want to hear. What chance has it? I think I'd give something off my own life, if that man had succeeded in doing a great thing."

"Not much of a chance, Aikens says. The theory is good, but they are afraid the expense will make it of no practical use. However, they have not decided. It is well it is his last chance, though, as he says. I never saw a man who had dragged himself so near to insanity in pursuit of a hobby. Nothing but a great reaction can save him."

"Success, you mean? I think that man's life is worth a thousand aimless ones, Sir. If it fails, where's your 'justice on earth'? I"--

She pushed her curls back hotly. The Doctor did not answer.

The trial lasted until late in the afternoon. One or two of the gentlemen came out at odd times to luncheon, which was spread in the adjoining room. They looked grave, and talked earnestly in low tones: the man had infected them with his own feeling in a measure.

"I don't know when I was more concerned for the success of anything not my own," said Mr. Aikens to Miss Defourchet, as he rose to go back to the lobby, putting down his glass. "It is such a daring innovation; it would be worth thousands per annum to me, if I could make it practicable. And then that poor devil himself,--I feel as if we were trying him for his life to-day. It's pitiful."

She went in herself once, when the door was open, and saw Starke: he was in his shirt-sleeves, driving in a wedge that had come out; his face was parched, looked contracted, his eyes glazed. She spoke to him, but he made no answer, went from side to side of the engine, working with it, glancing furtively at the men, who stood gravely talking. The girl was nervous, and felt she should cry, if she stayed there. She called the dog, but he would not come; he was crouched with his head on his fore-paws, watching Starke.

"It is curious how the dog follows him," she said, after she had gone out, to Andy, who was in the back porch, watching the rain come up.

"I've noticed animals did it to him. My Jerry knows him as well as me. What chances has he, Miss?"

"I cannot tell."

There was a pause.

"You heard Dr. Bowdler say he was married. Do you know his wife?" she asked.

Some strange doubts had been in Andy's brain for the last hour, but he never told a secret.

"It was in the market I come, to know Mr. Starke," he said, confusedly. "At the eatin'-stalls. He never said to me as he hed a wife."

The rain was heavy and constant when it came, a muddy murkiness in the air that bade fair to last for a day or more. Evening closed in rapidly. Andy sat still on the porch; he could shuffle his heels as he pleased there, and take a sly bit of tobacco, watching, through a crack between the houses, the drip, drip, of rain on the umbrellas going by, the lamps beginning to glow here and there in the darkness, listening to the soggy footfalls and the rumble of the streetcars.

"This is tiresome,"--putting one finger carefully under the rungs of his chair, where he had the lantern. "I wonder ef Jane is waiting for me,--an' for any one else."

He trotted one foot, and chewed more vehemently. On the verge of some mystery, it seemed to him.

"Ef it is--What ef he misses, an' won't go back with me? God help the woman! What kin _I_ do?"

After a while, taking out the lantern, and rubbing it where the damp had dimmed it,--

"I'll need it to-night, that's sure!"

Now and then he bent his head, trying to catch a sound from the lobby, but to no purpose. About five o'clock, however, there was a sudden sound, shoving of chairs, treading, half-laughs, as of people departing. The door opened, and the gentlemen came out into the lighted hall, in groups of two or three,--some who were to dine with the Doctor passing up the staircase, the others chatting by the door. The Doctor was not with them, nor Starke. Andy stood up, trying to hear, holding his felt hat over his mouth. "If he's hed a chance!" But he could catch only broken sentences.

"A long session."

"I knew it from the first."

"I asked Starke to call on me to-morrow," etc.

And so they put on their hats, and went out, leaving the hall vacant.

"I can't stand this," said Andy, after a pause.

He wiped his wet feet, and went into the hall. The door out of which the men came opened into a reception-room; beyond that was the lobby. It was dimly lighted as yet, when he entered it; the engine-model, a mass of miniature wheels and cylinders, was in the middle of the bare floor; the Doctor and Starke at the other end of the apartment. The Doctor was talking,--a few words now and then, earnestly spoken. Andy could not hear them; but Starke sat, saying nothing. Miss Defourchet took a pair of India-rubber boots from the servant in the hall, and went to him.

"You must wear them, and take an umbrella, if you will not stay," she said, stooping down, as if she would like to have put them on his feet, her voice a little unsteady. "It rains very heavily, and your shoes are not strong. Indeed, you must."

"Shoes, eh?" said the old machinist, lifting one foot end then the other on his knee, and looking vacantly at the holes through which the bare skin showed. "Oh, yes, yes,"--rising and going past her, as if he did not see her.

"But you'll take them?"

"Hush, Mary! Mr. Starke, I may come and see you to-morrow, you said? We'll arrange matters,"--with a hearty tone.

Starke touched his hat with the air of an old-school gentleman.

"I shall be happy to see you, Sir,--very happy. You will allow me to wish you good evening?"--smiling. "I am not well,"--with the same meaningless look.

"Certainly,"--shaking hands earnestly. "I wish I could induce you to stay and have a talk over your future prospects, eh? But to-morrow--I will be down early to-morrow. Your young friend gave me the address. The model--we'll have that sent down to-morrow, too."

Starke stopped.

"The model," without, however, looking at it. "Yes. It can go to-night. I should prefer that. Andrew will bring an express-wagon for it,"--fumbling in his pocket.

"I have the exact change," said Miss Defourchet, eagerly; "let me pay the express."

Starke's face colored and grew pale again.

"You mistake me," he said, smiling.

"He's no beggar. You hurt him," Andy had whispered, pushing back her hand. Some women had no sense, if they were ladies. Ann Mipps would never have done that!

Starke drew out a tattered leather purse: there was a dime in it, which Andy took. He lighted his lantern, and followed Starke out of the house, noticing how the Doctor hesitated before he closed the door after them. They stood a moment on the pavement; the rain was dark and drenching, with sudden gusts of wind coming down the street. The machinist stood, his old cap stuck on the back of his head, his arms fallen nerveless at his sides, hair and coat and trousers flapping and wet: the very picture of a man whom the world had tried, and in whom it had found no possible savor of use but to be trodden under foot of men.

"God help him!" thought Andy, "he's far gone! He don't even button an' unbutton his coat as allus."

But he asked no questions, excepting where should he take _it_. Some young men came up, three abreast; Starke drew humbly out of their way before he replied.

"I--I do not know, Andrew. But I'd rather not see it again. You"--

His voice went down into a low mumbling, and he turned and went slowly off up the street. Andy stood puzzled a moment, then hurried after him.

"Let me go home with you."

"What use, boy?"

"To-morrow, then?"

Starke said nothing, thrust his hands into his pockets, his head falling on his breast with an unchanged vacancy of expression. Andy looked after him, coughing, gazing about him uncertainly.

"He's clean given up! What kin _I_ do?"

Then overtook him again, forcing the lantern into his hand,--not without a gulp for breath.