Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Scheffer's eye fell on the light and pretty trifle; a change came over him. He would have struggled hard and long before he would have surrendered that little tissue of floss, but now less than vanity to him. 'Josephine worked it.' What are words?

'I suppose,' he began; but he did not conclude what he had on his tongue; he did _not_ say to Paul that he supposed it was Josephine's money too--her earnings--that paid for the chest.

There came an awkward silence into the confused and dismal room. Scheffer stood among his ruins, not like a ruined man: he could not talk, however. He could say nothing whatever in continuance, about the fire. It was never his habit to boast; as little his practice to lament.

'Paul,' he said at last, resuming his dismal endeavor to arrange and assort the chaotic remnant of his goods, 'I got your box under weigh last night. There's a friend of mine going to see it; and you needn't be worrying on account of this--this fire; for I shall have money enough to push your business pretty soon; and there are two good fellows standing ready to buy your rights to the patent in this State, on your own terms, I guess, if you are tolerably reasonable. You can have five thousand dollars, if you will be easy with them about the payments. They are as safe as the best in town. I settled all that last night. All you have to do is to come to an agreement.'

Paul's heart beat as fast as any young man's heart beats when the result of secret toil, of wakeful nights, and patient endurance of home misconception, is before him in the form of honorable success. But instead of thanks, these words escaped him in a tumult:

'Scheffer, have you heard the news from Cromwell?'

Scheffer considered ere he answered; he was puzzled, looking at Paul, such a contradiction and confusion of signs he read in the lad's face.

'I heard that your family had great tidings from him,' he answered finally.

'He is dead!'

'Poor Josephine!'

What was it that brought so low the head of the man who had stood all day bravely erect, enduring the condolence of people, sustaining himself in the shock of integrity? Scheffer sat down when he heard this news, and wept.

And Paul wept with him. There, in that chamber of ruins, they deplored the loss of the proud, ambitious, brilliant, and dishonest wordling, who had long ago gone out of _their_ world with a lie on his soul.

Then Paul produced the foreign letter he had brought with him from the mail, as he came in his search for Scheffer. The letter he read aloud. It was written by one of Harry's fellow students, his companion in that notable journey Cromwell made to the Ural, and the Zavods of Siberia. He had returned to Paris, and thence had written of his various successes to his friends: they knew it was his purpose to sail at once for Alexandria. His preparations, wrote this correspondent, were complete; but, on the day when the vessel sailed, he died--sickened and died in one morning; his disease was of the heart.

'Poor Josephine!' groaned August again; this time his pity had comment.

'It's awful!' said Paul. 'Josephine cried when she heard of your misfortune. She won't do more when she sees this letter.' Paul was entirely reckless of consequences. He was determined Scheffer's fire should serve a private purpose of illumination, 'It is so rare a thing, her crying,' he continued, 'I should have thought the fire would have been put out by it.'

Scheffer's tears ceased falling. But he spoke in a low voice, somewhat broken, too:

'It's enough to wipe out _my_ regrets. If she cared that much, I don't consider it a misfortune. Tell her so, Paul.'

'I will, after you have told her yourself, Scheffer,' said Paul. Then casting all their fortunes on a word, speaking hurriedly, impetuously, driven on by admiration and gratitude toward Scheffer, and a determination to end all misunderstandings at once and forever, he continued: 'I found it all out, myself, without prying. The young fellow in the bank told me. I knew that you never would. It made me love you, that did. I told Josephine, but not till I thought I might safely. He didn't get that money from the bank till Josephine had told him she could not promise herself to him before he went away. Poor fellow! It made him mad, I think.'

'Paul,' said Scheffer, with reproof, and yet the mildest, in his voice, 'he is dead. That was an ugly twist, but it wasn't his nature to grow in a crooked fashion. Harry will come out straight yet. He is in better circumstances now than ever before. I could forgive a man for worse things than he had the wit to do, if he loved Josephine.'

'There! I'm glad we are back on that ground! I hate mysteries,' exclaimed Paul.

'Except in locks,' said Scheffer.

'Why _wouldn't_ she promise Harry? It is what mother expected. And I was fool enough to wonder. You are wiser than we; so tell me, Scheffer, did anything ever happen in old times that binds her yet? Do you suppose she ever loved a lad when she was a child?'

'I know she did,' said Scheffer, looking not away from Paul, neither busying himself any longer with the endeavor to bring order out of chaos. 'I know she did.'

Then Paul laughed again, as he had not laughed in many a day; but it was laughter that did not jar the silence of the room--such laughter as formed a fit prelude for words like these:

'Find out if the lad is alive yet. There is a piece of business worthy of Scheffer himself! I'm tired of hunting out secrets. Promise me, August--promise before you leave this room--before you breathe again.'

Scheffer did.

Mrs. Mitchell waited tea that evening for at least an hour. Josephine was sure that if August could be found, Paul would bring him home. At last they came. Home at last! The darkness might besiege the house, it could not enter the hearts there; rain might fall on Scheffer's ruins, it could not prevent the rising of the Phoenix. Not recognized altogether as the household's eldest son, he stood under the roof of the little house on Cottage Row. But enough! he was satisfied: he saw two women smiling on him--one from her heart. And from the circle that night Paul, triumphant and joyful, excluded the vision of death.

LAS ORACIONES.

I moved among the moving multitude
In old Manila, when the afternoon
Releases labor, and the scorching skies
Are tempered with the coming on of night.
Above the 'ever loyal city,' rose
The surging sound of unloosed tongues and feet,
As the encompassed town and suburbs vast,
The boated river and the sentinelled bridge
Swarmed, parti-colored, with the populace.
The sovereign sun, that through the toilsome day
No eye had seen for brightness, now subdued,
Stepping, like Holy Pontiff, from his throne,
Neared to the people, and, with level rays,
As hands outstretching, benedictions shed.
Full the effulgence flashed upon the walls
Which girt the city with a strength renowned,
Rimming them with new glory: bright it gleamed
Upon the swarthy soldiery, as they filed
A dazzling phalanx through the gaping crowd
With martial intonation, and it played
Softly upon the evening-breathing throng
On the Calsada's broad and dashing drive,
On gay, armorial equipage, wherein
Dozed dowagers: on unbonneted dames
In open chariots, toying daintily
With dark hidalgos, as they sipped the scene
In languishing contentment, and between
Responsive glances, showing hidden fire,
With fluent breath of Spanish repartee.
There lounged senoras, fat officials' wives,
From their soft cushions casting cool disdain
On the mestiza, who, in hired hack,
Blooming in beauty of commingled blood,
And robed in slippery tissue, rainbow-bright,
Sat, in her sandal-footed grace, a queen
Among her fellows, they who yesterday
Whirled her lithe figure in the tireless dance,
And now, with airy compliment, kept bright
The flame she yet may quench in wedlock dull.
Thus rolled the wealthy in their liveried ease,
'Mid walking peasantry and pale Chinese,
And curious-shirted Creole; while, tight swathed
Up to their shrivelled features, mummy like,
The Indian women filled the motley scene.
Meanwhile, the sovereign sun had crowned the palms
Standing in stately clusters; and from thence
Scaled the high walls and climbed the citadel,
Pouring a parting radiance on the tower
Of San Sebastian: mounting to its goal,
It swept the public dial plate and lay,
E'en in the face of stern recording time
Smiling significance; thence slowly crept
Up to the turret, blazing, momently,
Thence reached the dizzy ball; and, last of all,
Kissed with its dying lips the sacred cross.

Then pealed the solemn vesper bell to prayer,
And suddenly--completely--with a hush,
As if a god-like voice had stricken it dead,
Stood still the city!

Motionless the life
That but an instant off stirred the warm air
With murmurs multifarious, and the waves
Of great humanity, sunk silenced there,
With stillness so supreme, that pulses beat
More quickly from the contrast, and the soul
Hearkened to listen, humbled and subdued
As when the Saviour uttered 'Peace, be still.'
The tardy laborer, walled within the town,
Brought the uplifted hammer noiseless down,
And stood in meek confession, tool in hand.
The mother hushed the baby lullaby,
And o'er her sleeping innocence exhaled
Voiceless thanksgiving. Children ceased to play,
Feeling an awe they comprehended not,
And stood, unconscious of their beauty's pose,
As those Murillo's pencil glorifies.
Upon the airy esplanade the steed
No longer pawed the air in wantonness,
But, like his compeer of the fabled song,
Stood statued with his rider, while below
The beggar ceased his cry importunate,
And to a Higher Almoner than man
Sent up a dumb appeal. In folly's court
The laugh was hushed, and the half-uttered jest
Fell witless into air, and burning thought
Cooled, as it flowed, unmoulded into speech.
As throbbed the distant bell with serious pause,--
Standing bareheaded in the dewless air,
Or prostrate in their penitence to earth,
Or bending with veiled lids,--the people prayed.
Then was that moment, in its muteness, worth
The laboring day that bore it, for all sense
Seemed filtered of its grossness; what was earth
Sunk settling with the dust to earth again,
As through the calm, pure atmosphere, arose
One mingling meditation unto Heaven.
Oh, beautiful is silence, when it falls
On housed assemblies bowed in voiceless prayer:
But when it lays its finger on the heart
Of a great city, stilling all the wheels
Of life's employment, that to Heaven may turn
Its many thousand reverend breathing souls
With gesture simultaneous; when proud man
Like multitudinous marble, moveless stands
With God communing, then does silence seem,
In its unworded eloquence, sublime.
Therein, doth Romish worship point rebuke
To him who doth ignore it, for therein
It rises to a majesty of praise
O'erspanning huge cathedrals, for it makes
The censer, candle, rosary, and book
But senseless mockeries.

So sunk the sun
Till on its amber throne, like drapery doffed,
Lay piled th' imperial purple. Then the stir
Of an awakened world swept through the crowd,
As forest leaves are wind-swept after lulls,
And, with the sense of a renewing joy,
The murmurous people turned them to their homes.

MANILA, 1856.

MY MARYLAND!

THE SEPTEMBER RAID.

They took thy boots, they took thy coats,
My Maryland!
And paid for them in 'Confed' notes,
My Maryland!
They gobbled down thy corn like goats,
And rooted up thy truck like shoats,
But then--they didn't get thy votes
Or volunteers--my Maryland!

A MERCHANT'S STORY.

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'