Chapter XVII: Out in the Snow

The stricken man arose, wearily, and turned his face towards the town. How could he go home, with that fierce son ready to receive him with bitterness and reproach? How meet the wistful look of his wife, which had questioned him so often but never upbraided him? These things had not troubled him much when his brain was misty with drink; but, now that his thoughts were unnaturally keen, and his conscience awake, he had no courage to go home. Nay, such had been the effect of his son’s sneer, that he began to shrink from the impulses of religion which had led him to the meeting that night. True enough he was only an old broken down drunkard. What business had he to hope any thing from prayer? Had not the Almighty drawn a vail of clouds across the sky that he might know that his term of grace had passed away forever?

He stood, hopelessly thinking over these painful fancies, with his hands loosely locked and hanging down, like a child waiting to be led away. Then he lifted his face slowly, and looked towards the town. A single light shone from its terraces of snow,—a reddish, evil-looking light, that burned later than any other in Norwich. As a wild beast grows frantic at the sight of blood, the old man felt the influence of the fatal gleam. A fiercer thirst seized upon him. His brain began to burn with feverish desire; great drops of perspiration trembled on his forehead, notwithstanding a sharp wind turned them cold as they rose. Eager and famished, forgetting God and man, he turned upon the track that was leading him home. Keen desire gave him vigor: he walked heavily along the highway, muttering to himself like a lunatic that had escaped his keepers.

The light grew broader and more lurid. Like the eye of a fiend, it blinked and blazed, and lured him on. The frozen breath melted on the fever of his lips, and his chest heaved with wolfish appetite.

He had reached the slopes of the town. The tavern stood on one of the numerous ridges of the hills, sheltered by an old willow-tree. The rusty hinges of a sign creaked on one of the lower branches, and the naked boughs whispered drearily, welcoming the old man back with dismal sighs.

A great fire blazed through the bar-room windows, and he already saw the shadows of his old friends moving against the glass.

“They will be glad to see me, at any rate,” he said, rubbing his hands eagerly. “I wonder who will treat when they get me back from—from—oh, my God! from the meeting.”

That instant a light hand was laid on his shoulder, and a low voice, full of kindness, made him turn. It was his wife, the home-angel, whom a pitying Saviour had sent to bring the old man back.

They stood together in the light which streamed from the bar-room windows. The riot of many voices came coarsely toward them. The sign shrieked overhead as if it were a fiend, to whom the presence of a creature so pure gave terrible pain. Her delicate face was bright with the frost, and softened with compassion. There was something of the old girlish look in her eyes, so earnest and full of love; something, too, in the dress; for she had wrapped herself in Hannah’s scarlet cloak, and the hood looked richly warm around her forehead and against her cheek.

“Anna!” he said, tenderly, “Anna!”

“Yes, husband, I am here. Don’t think it strange. But this is your birthday; so I sat up waiting. Hagar would make some coffee against you came home. It was so hot and nice I got impatient, and came out to meet you; for Hagar don’t like her good things to go to waste.”

“Poor Anna! And so you came all this way?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Ben. You have walked farther than this after me many a time, besides climbing the hills when you got here.”

“Ah, that’s when we were courting, Anna, and the road seemed short!”

“But the love which made it short hasn’t changed, though we are getting old, Ben. Come, put your arm around me as you did in those old times, and let’s go home. It is cold here. Ah, now I am warmer! This is comfortable. See how clear the road shines since the clouds went off. It looked likely to snow when I came out; now the stars are bright as diamonds, and the whole road shines like silver.”

The old man lifted his eyes, and a thousand stars smiled down upon him, brighter and more pure by far than the red glare which had beckoned him through the tavern windows. His look fell slowly to the face of his wife. She had nestled close to his side, and, clinging to his arm, pointed down the path of snow as it wound off homeward under the smiling heavens.

“That is our way,” she said, softly. “You must find it now, for I am tired of looking down.”

Her cloak fluttered open with the wind. He folded it tenderly around her, and held it in place with his arm. Her heart swelled. She remembered the old times, when that was the fashion in which they had often walked together when alone under the stars.

After all, the power of good is stronger than that of evil,—and oh, how much more beautiful! This gentle woman, who possessed scarcely more than the strength of a child, had won her husband from a terrible temptation with a few loving words, uttered with tact as well as tenderness. The thirst of a tyrant habit, and the anguish of a great trouble, were both forgotten under her sweet allurements.

“And do you know where I have been this evening?”

“No. I met Benedict; but he was riding fast and did not see who it was, I think.”

“Oh, you met him,—our son?”

“Yes, husband, our first-born,” she said, tenderly.

“How we used to love the child! You remember, Anna?”

“Used to love him! How we _do_ love him! Who could help it,—he is so brave and strong? I feel like a child by his side.”

“And so you are, Anna.”

“Like a child that has a little fear mixed with its love. Do you know, husband, I am always afraid of doing something that he does not like. And so is Hannah, I am sure. But then he is so perfect.”

“Anna, would it kill you if he were not? If he had faults—if——”

“Ah, husband, we all have faults! What a terrible thing if we ceased to love one another because of that!”

“Yes, I know how good you are,—how much you can forgive. You need not tell me so. I feel it here.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that; but then it is so pleasant to be walking with you in this way, and chatting about the children! Of course, Benedict has faults; but what of that. You and I mustn’t see them, you know.”

“Yes, it is possible to forgive faults, even such as mine have been, because, perhaps, you think it a duty.”

The little woman shook her head, and muttered,

“No, no. She had nothing to forgive. He had come home with her pleasantly, and that was enough of happiness for one night. Indeed, she loved him dearly, and always should, no matter what came or went.”

But he clung to the first idea with a tenacity that surprised her. “Could she forgive a crime in one she loved,—a great crime, for instance, such as murder, or—or—well, there was no worse crime than that? Could she forgive murder in her husband or her son,—of course he meant nothing serious; but could she?”

“Yes; she could forgive even that, and—and——”

The husband drew a deep breath; but, noticing her hesitation, he questioned her again.

“And what, Anna?”

“And die!” she answered, in a solemn whisper.

His face clouded again, and they walked on some moments without speaking. Then he broke away from the subject altogether, and told her where he had been that evening, and of his interview with Leonard at “the falls.”

He felt her arm steal around him from under her cloak as he went on, and when he looked down into her face the tears were falling over it.

“I knew it would come before the end,” she said. “From the glow at my heart these few days back I felt that it was near.”

When he told her of his great temptation, and of the weakness which had followed it, she began to sob and murmur words of meek thankfulness that she had gone forth as the wish arose. It was like an interposition of heaven, she said; and the reward was that long, happy walk, so unlike any thing they had known for years.

The husband sighed drearily. There was a heaviness at his heart which she must never know, or she might “forgive and die.” He did not mention having met his son that night; and she, sweet soul, was quite unconscious that bitter strife lay between them.

They reached home at length, and found Hagar sitting up in the kitchen, with two old-fashioned china cups and saucers set out on a round stand, where a snow-white cloth had been spread. She had been impatiently snuffing the candle, and making herself uncomfortable for more than an hour, and was ready to give her master and mistress a piece of her mind which would mean something when they came in.

But when Mrs. Arnold appeared, muffled in her red cloak, from which she shook the frost with a smile, the house-slave relented, and, instead of expressing her mind, according to promise, she helped Mr. Arnold off with his greatcoat, giving him an approving glance, as she hung it up; and, uncovering a dish in one corner of the fire-place, revealed the plump bosoms of a pair of quails that lay snugly nestled there. Then she took a coffee-pot, with a conical top, from the other corner, and began to pour the contents out,—“good and strong,” as she said, while the master and mistress sat down to enjoy a supper which the sharp air and a long walk had rendered doubly acceptable.

“Where is our son?” inquired Mrs. Arnold, as she drew her seat to the table, and began to carve the quails. “Go call him, Hagar. The girls are in bed long ago, but he must be up yet.”

Hagar drew herself up, looking very like a black bantam when its mate is disturbed, and observed, in her choicest language, that “Mr. Ben had turned up his nose at her invitation to wait till his parents came in, and went up-stairs, stamping with his boots like a trooper, without so much as saying, ‘No, thank you,’—a piece of business that she was sartin Dan would a made a touse about, if he hadn’t been in the barn shelling corn, and consecantly hadn’t known nothing about it. She hadn’t a doubt but young Mass’ Arnold was a-bed and asleep, and she didn’t want to disturb no gemman’s depose,—not she.”

“Never mind, I will go myself, Hagar,” said Mrs. Arnold. “Just bring another cup and saucer.”

With these words she stole away up-stairs, smiling back upon her husband,—whom she considered doubly her property since the night’s rescue,—and hoping that Benedict would be in a condition to come down and share her happiness, not to speak of a little feminine triumph that broke up from the depths of her innocent heart at the conquest which she had achieved over the Evil One.

She stole softly into her son’s room. His candle was out, but she could see by the starlight reflected over the snow that he was in bed, with his face turned to the wall. She bent over him, holding her breath; but, when he did not move, she pressed a kiss, light as a roseleaf, on his forehead, tucked up the blue and white counterpane with a sigh of content, and stole away.

She was followed by his glittering eyes; for he had turned his head to look after her with a touch of remorse. What if his father should confide in her? By what horrible mismanagement was the old man let into his secret? This was a source of continual anxiety which made him almost hate his father, and quite fear his mother; for he would have died rather than that good woman should know him as he was. When she left that kiss on his forehead, and tucked up his bed in the old-fashioned way, he felt the tears steal to his eyes, and murmured something which betrayed the tender regrets that her gentleness and loving faith awoke in his heart.

“Mother!” he said, calling her.

She came back and sat down on the side of the bed, glad to hear his voice. “Well, my son!”

“Did you wish to speak with me about any thing?”

“Yes, Benedict. I wanted to tell you how happy I am,—how good the Lord has been. Oh, my son, I shall never have the sorrow of seeing you condemn father again. He has come back to his old self, and this is his birthday.”

“Mother!” said the young man, quickly, “did you ever know my father break a promise?”

“Break a promise? No, indeed. They could never kill his good principles so far as that.”

“And you think he loves me?”

“Think he loves you,—you, his only son! What a question! Better than his life, I’m sure.”

“I suppose it’s a wild sort of question, but I have had little knowledge of him these late years.”

“No. He has not been quite himself; but that is all over now. He is a changed man,—no, not a changed man, but his old self again. We shall live to be proud of him yet, Benedict. That is what I came up for. I want you to forget what you saw in that room when he was asleep there. I thought it was my duty to let you know every thing then: but, since, what I did has troubled me dreadfully. It was wrong to betray my husband’s fault; my cheek grows hot when I think of it. I will beg his pardon before we go to sleep this night. If you hadn’t been in bed I’d a done it before you both; but somehow I cannot forgive myself.”

Arnold had not been listening to this womanly speech: deeper and darker thoughts occupied him. At last he said, very abruptly,

“Mother, send him up here before he goes to bed. My father, I mean.”

“Yes, my son; but speak kindly to him,—of course you will, though.”

“Yes, mother, I will. That is the best way, you think, to control,—to influence him?”

“Oh, yes,—only be respectful and good-natured. Now, I’ll go down and pour out his coffee.”

The mother hastened down-stairs and settled herself by the little table; while her husband, with childlike delight, drained the strong coffee in his cup; and talked pleasantly with Hagar, who, woman-like, gave out stray enticements for the praise which her fine cooking had so well deserved.

With the craving appetite and the weary soul both appeased, Mr. Arnold began to feel once more as the master of his own house. There was an atmosphere of respect about him which awoke all the dignity that had been so nearly dead in his nature.

When the supper was over, and Hagar began to mutter about raking up the fire, Mrs. Arnold told her husband that Benedict was awake, and wanted to see him before he went to bed.

The old man turned pale at this, and began to tremble; but he strode up-stairs, heavily, and went into his son’s room.

From that night Arnold ceased to sneer at or revile his father; on the contrary, his demeanor became more than respectful. Not servile—that to his nature was impossible,—but he was at all times on the alert to help or defend his father. Yet there was a sort of reserve between them all the time. In this world, a secret which gives one man power over another always brings with it the curse of alienation.

A week after this Arnold and his guests were ready to go away. The visit had been both pleasant and eventful to the young people; but love, which is strong in most cases, cannot control time or circumstance: so, with many a regretful sigh, the party broke up.

That night Arnold managed to see Amy alone. She was very sad,—this unacknowledged wife,—and the young man was himself greatly depressed. They had been talking earnestly. The loving eloquence was still in her eyes, and her lips quivered like those of a grieved infant.

“Oh, if you would only let me tell my father and mother I wouldn’t care!” she said, clinging to him, and pleading with her innocent eyes so earnestly that even he was moved to kiss away the tears that trembled in them.

“Be still, child. To no living soul shall you breathe a secret of mine. I must have obedience or nothing.”

Amy drew a deep sob, and drooped into a submissive attitude. “Well,” she said,—“well, it is my duty. You are my husband.”

Arnold frowned and grew thoughtful.

“Are you offended with me, Benedict?” whispered the young wife, leaning her arm softly on his shoulder.

“No, Amy; but I feel unsafe. This promise is not enough. You mean to keep it, I know. But will you be strong enough?”

“I will,—I will! Don’t look so black.”

He looked up suddenly. “You would keep an oath, I know.”

She blanched white, and began to tremble. “An oath, Benedict!”

“Yes. Come here,—put your two hands between mine. What on earth makes you so white? There, kneel down. Well, well, stand up; it makes no difference. Now swear before the God, who is our only witness, never to tell any living mortal that you and I are man and wife till I give you permission.”

“I—I——” She attempted to go on, but the words froze on her lips, and holding out her arms imploringly, she fainted.