Part 28

The truth went home to each man present--even to that unknown one beneath the gallery who, when the men had risen to cheer, shrank farther into his dark corner and drew short sharp breaths. The Past would not down at his bidding; he was beginning to feel his weakness when he had most need of strength.

He did not hear Father Honoré's parting words:--"Here you find the third crystal--strength, solidity, the bedrock of endeavor. Take these three home with you:--the pure crystal of human love and trust, the heart believing in its Maker, the strength of good character. There you have the three that make for equality in this world--and nothing else does. Good night, my friends."

VI

Father Honoré got home from the lecture a little before nine. He renewed the fire, drew up a chair to the hearth, took his violin from its case and, seating himself before the springing blaze, made ready to play for a while in the firelight. This was always his refreshment after a successful evening with the men. He drew his thumb along the bow--

There was a knock at the door. He rose and flung it wide with a human enough gesture of impatience; his well-earned rest was disturbed too soon. He failed to recognize the man who was standing bareheaded on the step.

"Father Honoré, I've come home--don't you know me, Champney?"

There was no word in response, but his hands were grasped hard--he was drawn into the room--the door was shut on the chill wind of that March night. Then the two men stood silent, gazing into each other's eyes, while the firelight leaped and showed to each the other's face--the priest's working with a powerful emotion he was struggling to control; Champney Googe's apparently calm, but in reality tense with anxiety. He spoke first:

"I want to know about my mother--is she well?"

Father Honoré found his voice, an uncertain one but emphatic; it left no room for further anxiety in the questioner's mind.

"Yes, well, thank God, and looking forward to this--but it's so soon! I don't understand--when did you come?"

He kept one hand on Champney's as if fearing to lose him, with the other he pulled forward a chair from the wall and placed it near his own; he sat down and drew Champney into the other beside him.

"I came up on the afternoon train; I got out yesterday."

"It's so unexpected. The chaplain wrote me last month that there was a prospect of this within the next six months, but I had no idea it would be so soon--neither, I am sure, had he."

"Nor I--I don't know that I feel sure of it yet. Has my mother any idea of this?"

"I wasn't at liberty to tell her--the communication was confidential. Still she knows that it is customary to shorten the--" he caught up his words.

"--Term for exemplary conduct?" Champney finished for him.

"Yes. I can't realize this, Champney; it's six years and four months--"

"Years--months! You might say six eternities. Do you know, I can't get used to it--the freedom, I mean. At times during these last twenty-four hours, I have actually felt lost without the work, the routine--the solitude." He sighed heavily and spoke further, but as if to himself:

"Last Thanksgiving Day we were all together--eight hundred of us in the assembly room for the exercises. Two men get pardoned out on that day, and the two who were set free were in for manslaughter--one for twenty years, the other for life. They had been in eighteen years. I watched their faces when their numbers were called; they stepped forward to the platform and were told of their pardon. There wasn't a sign of comprehension, not a movement of a muscle, the twitch of an eyelid--simply a dead stolid stare. The truth is, they were benumbed as to feeling, incapable of comprehending anything, of initiating anything, as I was till--till this afternoon; then I began to live, to feel again."

"That's only natural. I've heard other men say the same thing. You'll recover tone here among your own--your friends and other men."

"Have I any?--I mean outside of you and my mother?" he asked in a low voice, but subdued eagerness was audible in it.

"Have you any? Why, man, a friend is a friend for life--and beyond. Who was it put it thus: 'Said one: I would go up to the gates of hell with a friend.--Said the other: I would go in.' That last is the kind you have here in Flamsted, Champney."

The other turned away his face that the firelight might not betray him.

"It's too much--it's too much; I don't deserve it."

"Champney, when you decided of your own accord to expiate in the manner you have through these six years, do you think your friends--and others--didn't recognize your manhood? And didn't you resolve at that time to 'put aside' those things that were behind you once and forever?--clear your life of the clogging part?"

"Yes,--but others won't--"

"Never mind others--you are working out your own salvation."

"But it's going to be harder than I thought--I find I am beginning to dread to meet people--everything is so changed. It's going to be harder than I realized to carry out that resolution. The Past won't down--everything is so changed--everything--"

Father Honoré rose to turn on the electric lights. He did not take his seat again, but stood on the hearth, back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him. The clear light from the shaded bulbs shone full upon the face of the man before him, and the priest, searching that face to read its record, saw set upon it, and his heart contracted at the sight, the indelible seal of six years of penal servitude. The close-cut hair was gray; the brow was marked by two horizontal furrows; the cheeks were deeply lined; and the broad shoulders--they were bent. Formerly he stood before the priest with level eyes, now he was shorter by an inch of the six feet that were once his. He noticed the hands--the hands of the day-laborer.

He managed to reply to Champney's last remark without betraying the emotion that threatened to master him.

"Outwardly, yes; things have changed and will continue to change. The town is making vast strides towards citizenship. But you will find those you know the same--only grown in grace, I hope, with the years; even Mr. Wiggins is convinced by this time that the foreigners are not barbarians."

Champney smiled. "It was rough on Elmer Wiggins at first."

"Yes, but things are smoothing out gradually, and as a son of Maine he has too much common sense at bottom to swim against the current. And there's old Joel Quimber--I never see him that he doesn't tell me he is marking off the days in his 'almanack,' he calls it, in anticipation of your return."

"Dear old Jo!--No!--Is that true? Old Jo doing that?"

"To be sure, why not? And there's Octavius Buzzby--I don't think he would mind my telling you now--indeed, I don't believe he'd have the courage to tell you himself--" Father Honoré smiled happily, for he saw in Champney's face the light of awakening interest in the common life of humanity, and he felt a prolongation of this chat would clear the atmosphere of over-powering emotion,--"there have never three months passed by these last six years that he hasn't deposited half of his quarterly salary with Emlie in the bank in your name--"

"Oh, don't--don't! I can't bear it--dear old Tave--" he groaned rather than spoke; the blood mounted to his temples, but his friend proved merciless.

"And there's Luigi Poggi! I don't know but he will make you a proposition, when he knows you are at home, to enter into partnership with him and young Caukins--the Colonel's fourth eldest. Champney, he wants to atone--he has told me so--"

"Is--is he married?"

Father Honoré noticed that his lips suddenly went dry and he swallowed hard after his question.

"No," the priest hastened to say, then he hesitated; he was wondering how far it was safe to probe; "but it is my strong impression that he is thinking seriously of it--a lovely girl, too, she is--" he saw the man's face before him go white, the jaw set like a vise--"little Dulcie Caukins, you remember her?"

Champney nodded and wet his lips.

"He has been thrown a good deal with the Caukinses since he took their son into partnership; the Colonel's boys are all doing well. Romanzo is in New York."

"Still with the Company?"

"Yes, in the main office. He married in that city two years ago--rather well, I hear, but Mrs. Caukins is not reconciled yet. Now, there's a friend! You don't know the depth of her feeling for you--but she has shown it by worshipping your mother."

Champney Googe's eyes filled to overflowing, but he squeezed the springing drops between his eyelids, and asked with lively interest:

"Why isn't Mrs. Caukins reconciled?"

"Well, because--I suppose it's no secret now, at least Mrs. Caukins has never made one of it, in fact, has aired the subject pretty thoroughly, you know her way--"

Champney looked up and smiled. "I'm glad she hasn't changed."

"But of course you don't know it. The fact is she had set heart on having for a daughter-in-law Aileen Armagh--you remember little Aileen?"

Champney Googe's hands closed spasmodically on the arms of his chair. To cover this involuntary movement, he leaned forward suddenly and kicked a burning brand, that had fallen on the hearth, back into the fireplace. A shower of sparks flew up chimney.

Father Honoré went on without waiting for the answer he knew would not be forthcoming: "Aileen gave me a fright the other day. I met her on the street, and she took that occasion, in the midst of a good deal of noise and confusion, to inform me with her usual vivacity of manner that she was to be housekeeper to a man--'a job for life,' she added with the old mischief dancing in her eyes and the merry laugh that is a tonic for the blues. Upon my asking her gravely who was the fortunate man--for I had no one in mind and feared some impulsive decision--she pursed her lips, hesitated a moment, and, manufacturing a charming blush, said:--'I don't mind telling you; it's Mr. Octavius Buzzby. I'm to be his housekeeper for life and take care of him in his old age after his work and mine is finished at Champo.' I confess, I was relieved."

"My aunt is still living, then?" Champney asked with more eagerness and energy than the occasion demanded. His eyes shone with suppressed excitement, and ever-awakening life animated every feature. Father Honoré, noting the sudden change, read again, as once six years before, deep into this man's heart.

"Yes, but it is death in life. Aileen is still with her--faithful as the sun, but rebelling at times as is only natural. The girl gave promise of rich womanhood, but even you would wonder at such fine development in such an environment of continual invalidism. Mrs. Champney has had two strokes of paralysis; it is only a question of time."

"There is _one_ who never was my friend--I've often wondered why."

Into the priest's inner vision flashed that evening before his departure for New York--the bedroom--the mother--that confession--

"It looks that way, I admit, but I've thought sometimes she has cared for you far more than any one will ever know."

Champney started suddenly to his feet.

"What time is it? I must be going."

"Going?--You mean home--to-night?"

"Yes, I must go home. I came to ask you to go to my mother to prepare her for this--I dared not shock her by going unannounced. You'll go with me--you'll tell her?"

"At once."

He reached for his coat and turned off the lights. The two went out arm and arm into the March night. The wind was still rising.

"It's only half-past nine, and Mrs. Googe will be up; she is a busy woman."

"Tell me--" he drew his breath short--"what has my mother done all these years--how has she lived?"

"As every true woman lives--doing her full duty day by day, living in hope of this joy."

"But I mean _what_ has she done to live--to provide for herself; she has kept the house?"

"To be sure, and by her own exertions. She has never been willing to accept pecuniary aid from any friend, not even from Mr. Buzzby, or the Colonel. I am in a position to know that Mr. Van Ostend did his best to persuade her to accept something just as a loan."

"But what has she been doing?"

"She has been taking the quarrymen for meals the last six years, Champney--at times she has had their families to board with her, as many as the house could accommodate."

The arm which his own held was withdrawn with a jerk. Champney Googe faced him: they were on the new iron bridge over the Rothel.

"You mean to say my mother--_my_ mother, Aurora Googe, has been keeping a quarrymen's boarding-house all these years?"

"Yes; it is legitimate work."

"My mother--_my_ mother--" he kept repeating as he stood motionless on the bridge. He seemed unable to grasp the fact for a moment; then he laid his hand heavily on Father Honoré's shoulder as if for support; he spoke low to himself, but the priest caught a few words:

"I thank Thee--thank--for life--work--"

He seemed to come gradually to himself, to recognize his whereabouts. He began to walk on, but very slowly.

"Father Honoré," he said, and his tone was deeply earnest but at the same time almost joyful, "I'm not going home to my mother empty-handed, I never intended to--I have work. I can work for her, free her from care, lift from her shoulders the burden of toil for my sake."

"What do you mean, Champney?"

"I made application to the manager of the Company this afternoon; I saw they were all strangers to me, and they took me on in the sheds--Shed Number Two. I went to work this afternoon. You see I know my trade; I learned it during the last six years. I can support her now--Oh--"

He stopped short just as they were leaving the bridge; raised his head to the black skies above him, reached upwards with both hands palm outwards--

"--I thank my Maker for these hands; I thank Him that I can labor with these hands; I thank Him for the strength of manhood that will enable me to toil with these hands; I thank Him for my knowledge of good and evil; I thank Him that I have 'won sight out of blindness--'" his eyes strained to the skies above The Gore.

The moon, struggling with the heavy drifting cloud-masses, broke through a confined ragged circle and, for a moment, its splendor shone upon the heights of The Gore; its effulgence paled the arc-lights in the quarries; a silver shaft glanced on the Rothel in its downward course, and afar touched the ruffled waters of Lake Mesantic....

* * * * *

"I'll stay here on the lawn," he said five minutes afterwards upon reaching the house. A light was burning in his mother's bedroom; another shone from her sitting-room on the first floor.

The priest entered without knocking; this house was open the year round to the frequent comers and goers among the workmen. He rapped at the sitting-room door. Mrs. Googe opened it.

"Why, Father Honoré, I didn't expect you to-night--didn't you have the--What is it?--oh, what is it!" she cried, for the priest's face betrayed him.

"Joyful news, Mrs. Googe,"--he let her read his face--"your son is a free man to-night."

There was no outcry on the mother's part; but her hands clasped each other till the nails showed white.

"Where is he now?"

"Here, in Flamsted--"

"Let me go--let me go to him--"

"He has come to you--he is just outside--"

She was past him with a rush--at the door--on the porch--

"Champney!--My son!--where are you?" she cried out into the night.

Her answer came on swift feet. He sprang up the steps two at a time, they were in each other's arms--then he had to be strong for both.

He led her in, half carrying her; placed her in a chair; knelt before her, chafing her hands....

Father Honoré made his escape; they were unconscious of his presence or his departure. He closed the front door softly behind him, and on feet shod with light-heartedness covered the road to his own house in a few minutes. He flung aside his coat, took his violin, and played and played till late into the night.

Two of the sisters of The Mystic Rose, who had been over to Quarry End Park nursing a sick quarryman's wife throughout the day, paused to listen as they passed the house. One of them was Sister Ste. Croix.

The violin exulted, rejoiced, sang of love heavenly, of love earthly, of all loves of life and nature; it sang of repentance, of expiation, of salvation--

"I can bear no more," whispered Sister Ste. Croix to her companion, and the hand she laid on the one that was raised to hush her, was not only cold, it was damp with the sweat of the agony of remembrance.

The strains of the violin's song accompanied them to their own door.

VII

The Saturday-night frequenters of The Greenbush have changed with the passing years like all else in Flamsted. The Greenbush itself is no longer a hostelry, but a cosy club-house purveyed for, to the satisfaction of every member, by its old landlord, Augustus Buzzby. The Club's membership, of both young and old men, is large and increasing with the growth of the town; but the old frequenters of The Greenbush bar-room head the list--Colonel Caukins and Octavius Buzzby paying the annual dues of their first charter member, old Joel Quimber, now in his eighty-seventh year.

The former office is a grill room, and made one with the back parlor, now the club restaurant. On this Saturday night in March, the white-capped chef--Augustus prided himself in keeping abreast the times--was busy in the grill room, and Augustus himself was superintending the laying of a round table for ten. The Colonel was to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday by giving a little supper.

"Nothing elaborate, Buzzby," he said a week before the event, "a fine saddle of mutton--Southdown--some salmon trout, a stiff bouillon for Quimber, you know his masticatory apparatus is no longer equal to this whole occasion, and a chive salad. _The_ cake Mrs. Caukins elects to provide herself, and I need not assure you, who know her culinary powers, that it will be a _ne plus ultra_ of a cake, both in material and execution; fruits, coffee and cheese--Roquefort. Your accomplished chef can fill in the interstices. Here are the cards--Quimber at my right, if you please."

Augustus looked at the cards and smiled.

"All the old ones included, I see, Colonel," he ran over the names, "Quimber, Tave, Elmer Wiggins, Emlie, Poggi and Caukins"--he laughed outright; "that's a good firm, Colonel," he said slyly, and the Colonel smiled his appreciation of the gentle insinuation--"the manager at the sheds, and the new boss of the Upper Quarry?" He looked inquiringly at the Colonel on reading the last name.

"That's all right, Buzzby; he's due here next Saturday, the festal day; and I want to give some substantial expression to him, as a stranger and neighbor, of Flamsted's hospitality."

Augustus nodded approval, and continued: "And me! Thank you kindly, Colonel, but you'll have to excuse me this time. I want everything to go right on this special occasion. I'll join you with a pipe afterwards."

"As you please, Buzzby, only make it a cigar; and consider yourself included in the spirit if not in the flesh. Nine sharp."

At a quarter of nine, just as Augustus finished putting the last touch to an already perfect table, the Colonel made his appearance at The Greenbush, a pasteboard box containing a dozen boutonnières under his arm. He laid one on the table cloth by each plate, and stood back to enjoy the effect. He rubbed his hands softly in appreciation of the "color scheme" as he termed it--a phrase that puzzled Augustus. He saw no "scheme" and very little "color" in the dark-wainscoted room, except the cheerful fire on the hearth and some heavy red half-curtains at the windows to shut out the cold and dark of this March night. The walls were white; the grill of dark wood, and the floor painted dark brown. But the red carnations on the snow-white damask did somehow "touch the whole thing up," as he confided later to his brother.

The Colonel's welcome to his companions was none the less cordial because he repressed his usual flow of eloquence till "the cloth should be removed." He purposed then to spring a surprise, oratorical and otherwise, on those assembled.

After the various toasts,--all given and drunk in sweet cider made for the occasion from Northern Spies, the Colonel being prohibitive for example's sake,--the good wishes for many prospective birthdays and prosperous years, the Colonel filled his glass to the brim and, holding it in his left hand, literally rose to the occasion.

"Gentlemen," he began in full chest tones, "some fourteen years ago, five of us now present were wont to discuss in the old office of this hospitable hostelry, now the famous grill room of the Club, the Invasion of the New--the opening of the great Flamsted Quarries--the migrations of the nations hitherwards and the consequent prospective industrial development of our native village."

He paused and looked about him impressively; finally his eye settled sternly on Elmer Wiggins who, satisfied inwardly with the choice and bounteous supper provided by the Colonel, had made up his mind to "stand fire", as he said afterwards to Augustus.

The Colonel resumed his speech, his voice acquiring as he proceeded a volume and depth that carried it far beyond the grill room's walls to the ears of edified passers on the street:

"There were those among us who maintained--in the face of extreme opposition, I am sorry to say--that this town of Flamsted would soon make itself a factor in the vast industrial life of our marvellous country. In retrospect, I reflect that those who had this faith, this trust in the resources of their native town, were looked upon with scorn; were subjected to personal derision; were termed, to put it mildly, 'mere dreamers'--if I am not mistaken, the original expression was 'darned boomers.' Mr. Wiggins, here, our esteemed wholesale and retail pharmacist, will correct me if I am wrong on this point--"

He paused again as if expecting an answer; nothing was forthcoming but a decidedly embarrassed "Hem," from the afore-named pharmacist. The Colonel was satisfied.

"Now, gentlemen, in refutation of that term--I will not repeat myself--and what it implied, after fourteen years, comparable to those seven fat kine of Pharaoh's dream, our town can point throughout the length and breadth of our land to its monumental works of art and utility that may well put to blush the renowned record of the Greeks and Romans."

Prolonged applause and a ringing cheer.