Margret Howth, a Story of To-Day by Rebecca Harding Davis (best free e book reader TXT) 📖

as solitary and impenetrable as the Sphinx. He did not like such faces in this genial and gracious time, so hurried over his examination. The eye was cool, the pulse steady, the man's body, battered though it was, strong in its steely composure. "Ja wohl!--ja wohl!" he went on chuffily, summing up: latent fever,--the very lips were blue, dry as husks; "he would go,--oui?--then go!"--with a chuckle. "All right, gluck Zu!" And so shuffled out. Latent fever? Doubtless, yet hardly from broken bones, the doctor thought,--with no suspicion of the subtile, intolerable passion smouldering in every drop of this man's phlegmatic blood.
Evening came at last. He stopped until the cracked bell of the chapel had done striking the Angelus, and then put on his overcoat, and went out. Passing down the garden walk a miserable chicken staggered up to him, chirping a drunken recognition. For a moment, he breathed again the hot smoke of the mill, remembering how Lois had found him in Margret's office, not forgetting the cage: chary of this low life, even in the peril of his own. So, going out on the street, he tested his own nature by this trifle in his old fashion. "The ruling passion strong in death," eh? It had not been self-love; something deeper: an instinct rather than reason. Was he glad to think this of himself? He looked out more watchful of the face which the coming Christmas bore. The air was cold and pungent. The crowded city seemed wakening to some keen enjoyment; even his own weak, deliberate step rang on the icy pavement as if it wished to rejoice with the rest. I said it was a trading city: so it was, but the very trade to-day had a jolly Christmas face on; the surly old banks and pawnbrokers' shops had grown ashamed of their doings, and shut their doors, and covered their windows with frosty trees, and cathedrals, and castles; the shops opened their inmost hearts; some child's angel had touched them, and they flushed out into a magic splendour of Christmas trees, and lights, and toys; Santa Claus might have made his head-quarters in any one of them. As for children, you stumbled over them at every step, quite weighed down with the heaviness of their joy, and the money burning their pockets; the acrid old brokers and pettifoggers, that you met with a chill on other days, had turned into jolly fathers of families, and lounged laughing along with half a dozen little hands pulling them into candy-stores or toy-shops; all of the churches whose rules permitted them to show their deep rejoicing in a simple way, had covered their cold stone walls with evergreens, and wreaths of glowing fire-berries: the child's angel had touched them too, perhaps,--not unwisely.
He passed crowds of thin-clad women looking in through open doors, with red cheeks and hungry eyes, at red-hot stoves within, and a placard, "Christmas dinners for the poor, gratis;" out of every window on the streets came a ruddy light, and a spicy smell; the very sunset sky had caught the reflection of the countless Christmas fires, and flamed up to the zenith, blood-red as cinnabar.
Holmes turned down one of the back streets: he was going to see Lois, first of all. I hardly know why: the child's angel may have touched him, too; or his heart, full of a yearning pity for the poor cripple, who, he believed now, had given her own life for his, may have plead for indulgence, as men remember their childish prayers, before going into battle. He came at last, in the quiet lane where she lived, to her little brown frame-shanty, to which you mounted by a flight of wooden steps: there were two narrow windows at the top, hung with red curtains; he could hear her feeble voice singing within. As he turned to go up the steps, he caught sight of something crouched underneath them in the dark, hiding from him: whether a man or a dog he could not see. He touched it.
"What d' ye want, Mas'r?" said a stifled voice.
He touched it again with his stick. The man stood upright, back in the shadow: it was old Yare.
"Had ye any word wi' me, Mas'r?"
He saw the negro's face grow gray with fear.
"Come out, Yare," he said, quietly. "Any word? What word is arson, eh?"
The man did not move. Holmes touched him with the stick.
"Come out," he said.
He came out, looking gaunt, as with famine.
"I'll not flurr myself," he said, crunching his ragged hat in his hands,--"I'll not."
He drove the hat down upon his head, and looked up with a sullen fierceness.
"Yoh've got me, an' I'm glad of 't. I'm tired, fearin'. I was born for hangin', they say," with a laugh. "But I'll see my girl. I've waited hyur, runnin' the resk,--not darin' to see her, on 'count o' yoh. I thort I was safe on Christmas-day,--but what's Christmas to yoh or me?"
Holmes's quiet motion drove him up the steps before him. He stopped at the top, his cowardly nature getting the better of him, and sat down whining on the upper step.
"Be marciful, Mas'r! I wanted to see my girl,--that's all. She's all I hev."
Holmes passed him and went in. Was Christmas nothing to him? How did this foul wretch know that they stood alone, apart from the world?
It was a low, cheerful little room that he came into, stooping his tall head: a tea-kettle humming and singing on the wood-fire, that lighted up the coarse carpet and the gray walls, but spent its warmest heat on the low settee where Lois lay sewing, and singing to herself. She was wrapped up in a shawl, but the hands, he saw, were worn to skin and bone; the gray shadow was heavier on her face, and the brooding brown eyes were like a tired child's. She tried to jump up when she saw him, and not being able, leaned on one elbow, half-crying as she laughed.
"It's the best Christmas gift of all! I can hardly b'lieve it!"--touching the strong hand humbly that was held out to her.
Holmes had a gentle touch, I told you, for dogs and children and women: so, sitting quietly by her, he listened for a long time with untiring patience to her long story; looked at the heap of worthless trifles she had patched up for gifts, wondering secretly at the delicate sense of colour and grace betrayed in the bits of flannel and leather; and took, with a grave look of wonder, his own package, out of which a bit of woollen thread peeped forth.
"Don't look till to-morrow mornin'," she said, anxiously, as she lay back trembling and exhausted.
The breath of the mill! The fires of the world's want and crime had finished their work on her life,--so! She caught the meaning of his face quickly.
"It's nothin'," she said, eagerly. "I'll be strong by New-Year's; it's only a day or two rest I need. I've no tho't o' givin' up."
And to show how strong she was, she got up and hobbled about to make the tea. He had not the heart to stop her; she did not want to die,--why should she? the world was a great, warm, beautiful nest for the little cripple,--why need he show her the cold without? He saw her at last go near the door where old Yare sat outside, then heard her breathless cry, and a sob. A moment after the old man came into the room, carrying her, and, laying her down on the settee, chafed her hands, and misshapen head.
"What ails her?" he said, looking up, bewildered, to Holmes. "We've killed her among us."
She laughed, though the great eyes were growing dim, and drew his coarse gray hair into her hand.
"Yoh wur long comin'," she said, weakly. "I hunted fur yoh every day,--every day."
The old man had pushed her hair back, and was reading the sunken face with a wild fear.
"What ails her?" he cried. "Ther' 's somethin' gone wi' my girl. Was it my fault? Lo, was it my fault?"
"Be quiet!" said Holmes, sternly.
"Is it THAT?" he gasped, shrilly. "My God! not that! I can't bear it!"
Lois soothed him, patting his face childishly.
"Am I dyin' now?" she asked, with a frightened look at Holmes.
He told her no, cheerfully.
"I've no tho't o' dyin'. I dunnot thenk o' dyin'. Don't mind, dear! Yoh'll stay with me, fur good?"
The man's paroxysm of fear for her over, his spite and cowardice came uppermost.
"It's him," he yelped, looking fiercely at Holmes. "He's got my life in his hands. He kin take it. What does he keer fur me or my girl? I'll not stay wi' yoh no longer, Lo. Mornin' he'll send me t' th' lock-up, an' after"----
"I care for you, child," said Holmes, stooping suddenly close to the girl's livid face.
"To-morrow?" she muttered. "My Christmas-day?"
He wet her face while he looked over at the wretch whose life he held in his hands. It was the iron rule of Holmes's nature to be just; but to-night dim perceptions of a deeper justice than law opened before him,--problems he had no time to solve: the sternest fortress is liable to be taken by assault,--and the dew of the coming morn was on his heart.
"So as I've hunted fur him!" she whispered, weakly. "I didn't thenk it wud come to this. So as I loved him! Oh, Mr. Holmes, he's hed a pore chance in livin',--forgive him this! Him that'll come to-morrow 'd say to forgive him this."
She caught the old man's head in her arms with an agony of tears, and held it tight.
"I hev hed a pore chance," he said, looking up,--"that's God's truth, Lo! I dunnot keer fur that: it's too late goin' back. But Lo--Mas'r," he mumbled, servilely, "it's on'y a little time t' th' end: let me stay with Lo. She loves me,--Lo does."
A look of disgust crept over Holmes's face.
"Stay, then," he muttered,--"I wash my hands of you, you old scoundrel!"
He bent over Lois with his rare, pitiful smile.
"Have I his life in my hands? I put it into yours,--so, child! Now put it all out of your head, and look up here to wish me good-bye."
She looked up cheerfully, hardly conscious how deep the danger had been; but the flush had gone from her face, leaving it sad and still.
"I must go to keep Christmas, Lois," he said, playfully.
"Yoh're keepin' it here, Sir." She held her weak grip on his hand still, with the vague outlook in her eyes that came there sometimes.
"Was it fur me yoh done it?"
"Yes, for you."
"And fur Him that's comin', Sir?" smiling.
Holmes's face grew graver.
"No, Lois." She looked into his eyes bewildered. "For the poor child that loved me" he said, half to himself, smoothing her hair.
Perhaps in that day when the under-currents of the soul's life will be bared, this man will know the subtile instincts that drew him out of his self-reliance by the hand of the child that loved him to the Love beyond, that was man and died for him, as well as she. He did not see it now.
The clear evening light fell on Holmes, as he stood there looking down at the dying little lamiter: a