I like to think of him in that last walk. I like to bring up as nearly as I can his intense exaltation. It _had_ been a beautiful day. And now, as he looked aloft, walking with an automatic precision, his eyes must have beheld glorious vistas, in which he rode a chariot of triumph at the head of a splendid procession, while his ears rang with chaste tributes to his worth trumpeted by outriding heralds. And the good earth was firm beneath his tread, stretching broadly off for him to walk upon and behold his apotheosis.

I cannot wonder that he stepped high, nor can I find it in my heart to begrudge him his day. Cunningly had he clutched a few golden moments from the h.o.a.rd that Fate, the n.i.g.g.ard, guards from us so jealously. To myself I acclaimed him as one to be envied.

I have always liked to believe that the splendors of that last walk endured to the end--that there was no uncertainty, no hesitation, above all, no vulgar stumbling; but that the last high step, which plunged him into the chill waters of the race, was lifted in the same exulting serenity as the first.

I stood in my garden that evening, charmed by the wild, sweet, gusty-gentle music of the spring night.

Northward, in the gathering dusk, came a solitary figure walking rapidly--a slight, nervous figure, a soft hat drawn well over the face, the skirts of its coat streaming to the breeze. As it pa.s.sed me, I recognized Solon Denney. He was gesticulating with some violence, and I could see his expressive face work as if he uttered words to himself. I thought it possible that he might be composing a piece for his newspaper. Instantly there came to my mind that rather coa.r.s.e paraphrase of Westley Keyts--"A hand of mush in a glove of the _same!_"

I did not intrude upon my friend as he pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER III

THE PERFECT LOVER

To the crime of being Potts the wretched Colonel had now added malversation of a trust fund. But I crave surcease, while it may be mine, from the immediately troubling waters of Potts. Let me turn more broadly to our town and its good people for that needed recreation which they never fail to afford me.

"Arcady of the Little Country," we often say. On maps it is Little Arcady, county seat of Sloc.u.m County, an isle and haven in the dreary land sea that flattens away from it on every side,--north to the big woods, south to the swamp counties, and east and west, one might almost say, a thousand miles to the mountains. Our point is one from which to say either "back East" or "out West." It is neither, of itself, though it touches both.

We are so ancient that plenty of us remember the stone fireplace in the log-cabin, with its dusters for the hearth of buffalo tail and wild-turkey wing, with iron pot hung by a chain from the chimney hook, with pewter or wooden plates from which to eat with horn-handled knives and iron spoons. But yet are we so modern that we have fine new houses with bay windows, ornamental cupolas, and porches raving woodenly in that frettish fever which the infamous scroll-saw put upon fifty years of our land's domestic architecture. And these houses are furnished with splendid modern furniture, even with black walnut, gold touched and upholstered in blue plush and maroon, fresh from the best factories. Our fairly old people remember when they hunted deer and were hunted by the red Indian on our town site, while their grandchildren have only the memories of the town-born, of the cottage-organ, the novel railroad, and the two-story brick block with ornamental false front. In short, we round an epoch within ourselves, historically and socially.

The country, however, keeps its first purity of charm, a country of little hills and little valleys lined with little quick rivers. These beauties, indeed, have not gone unsung. Years ago a woman poet eased her heart of ecstasies about this Little Country.

"Here swells the river in its boldest course," she wrote, "interspersed by halcyon isles on which Nature has lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked by n.o.ble bluffs three hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a sh.e.l.l; their summits adorned with those same beautiful trees and with b.u.t.tresses of rich rock, crested with old hemlocks that wear a touching and antique grace amid the softer and more luxuriant vegetation."

Not spectacular, this--not sensational--not even unusual. Common enough little hills, as the world goes, with the usual ragged-edged village between them and the river, peopled by human beings entirely usual both in their outer and inner lives. It seems to be, indeed, not a place in which events could occur with any romantic fitness.

Perhaps I have grown to love this Little Country because I am a usual man. Perhaps I would have felt as much for it even had I not been held to it by a memory that would bind me to any spot howsoever unlovely. But I rejoiced always in its beauty, and more than ever when it made easier for me the only life it once appeared that I should live. I quote again from our visiting poet: "The aspect of this country was to me enchanting beyond any I have ever seen, from its fulness of expression, its bold and impa.s.sioned sweetness. Here the flood has pa.s.sed over and marked everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with a mildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and suggest. Here the eye and heart are filled."

Here, too, my eye and heart were filled--emptied--and wondrously filled yet again, for which last I hold Potts to be curiously--but I wander.

Enough to say that I stored a harvest of memories in a secret place here years ago. And I went to this on days when I was downhearted. Your boy of fifteen, I think, is the only perfect lover--giving all, demanding nothing, save, indeed, the right to his secret cherishings.

Tremors, born within me that day when old gray, bristling Leggett, our Princ.i.p.al, opened the schoolroom door upon Lucy Tait, are as poignant, as sweetly terrible, now as in that far time when the light of her wondrous presence first fell upon me.

An instant she hesitated timidly in the sombre frame of the doorway, looking far over our heads. Then old Leggett came in front of her. There was a word of presentation to Miss Berham, our teacher, the vision was escorted to a seat at my left front, and I was bade to continue the reading lesson if I ever expected to learn anything. As a matter of truth I did not expect to learn anything more. I thought I must suddenly have learned all there is to know. The page of the ancient reader over which I then mumbled is now before me. "A Good Investment" was the t.i.tle of the day's lesson, and I had been called upon to render the first paragraph. With lightness, unrecking the great moment so perilously at hand, I had begun: "'Will you lend me two thousand dollars to establish myself in a small retail business?' inquired a young man, not yet out of his teens of a middle-aged gentleman who was poring over his ledger in the counting room of one of the largest establishments in Boston."

The iron latch rattled, the door swung fatefully back, our heads were raised, our eyes bored her through and through.

Then swung a new world for me out of primeval chaos, and for aeons of centuries I dizzied myself gazing upon the pyrotechnic marvel.

"_Continue, Calvin!_--if you ever expect to learn anything."

The fabric of my vision crumbled. Awake, I glared upon a page where the words ran crazily about like a disrupted colony of ants. I stammered at the thing, feeling my cheeks blaze, but no two words would stay still long enough to be related. I glanced a piteous appeal to authority, while old Leggett, still standing by, crumpled his shaven upper lip into a professional sneer that I did not like.

"That will _do_, Calvin. Sit down! Solon Denney, you may go on."

With careless confidence, brushing the long brown lock from his fair brow, came Solon Denney to his feet. With flawless self-possession he read, and I, disgraced, cowering in my seat, heard words that burned little inconsequential brands forever into my memory. Well do I recall that the middle-aged gentleman regarded the young man with a look of surprise, and inquired, "What security can you give me?" to which the latter answered, "Nothing but my note."

"'Which I fear would be below par in the market,' replied the merchant, smiling.

"'Perhaps so,' said the young man, 'but, Mr. Barton, remember that the boy is not the man; the time may come when Hiram Strosser's note will be as readily accepted as that of any other man.'

"'True, very true,' replied Mr. Barton, thoughtfully, 'but you know business men seldom lend money without adequate security; otherwise they might soon be reduced to penury.'"

"Benny Jeliffe, you may go on!"

During this break I stole my second look at her. The small head was sweetly bent with an air of studious absorption--a head with two long plaits of braided gold, a scarlet satin bow at the end of each.

It seems to me now that these bows were like the touch of frosted woodbine in a yellowing elm, though at the moment I must have been unequal to this fancy. I saw, too, the tiny chain that clasped her fair throat, her dress of pale blue, and, most wonderful of all, two ta.s.sels that danced from the tops of her trim little boots. The air was indeed too heavy with beauty. But the reading lesson continued.

The years that stretch between that time and this have not bereaved me of the knowledge that Mr. Barton graciously accommodated Hiram Strosser, after vainly seeking to induce "Mr. Hawley, a wealthy merchant of Milk Street," to share half the risk.

At this point a row of stars on the page indicated a lapse of ten years.

Mr. Barton, "pale and agitated," examines with deepening despair, "page after page of his ponderous ledger." At last he exclaims, "I am ruined, utterly ruined!" "How so?" inquires Hiram Strosser, who enters the room just in time to hear the cry. Mr. Barton explains,--the failure of Perleg, Jackson & Co. of London--news brought on last steamer--creditors pressing him.

"'What amount would tide you over this crisis?' asks Hiram Strosser, respectfully.

"'Seventy-five thousand dollars!'

"'Then, sir, you shall have it,' replied Hiram, and stepping to the desk he drew a check for the full amount."

Nor can I ever forget the stroke of poetic justice with which the anecdote concluded. Mr. Hawley of Milk Street was also embarra.s.sed by the failure of Perleg, Jackson & Co., but, for want of a trustful friend in funds, was thrown into bankruptcy. Mr. Barton had the chastened pleasure of telling Mr. Hawley about Hiram's loan, and of reminding him that he had neglected a fair opportunity to become a co-benefactor of that upright and open-handed youth; whereupon the ruined Hawley--deservedly ruined, the tale implied--"moved on, dejected and sad, while Mr. Barton returned to his establishment cheered and animated."

The gross, the immoral romanticism of this tale was not then, of course, apparent to me. Children are so defenceless! Child that I was, I believed it would be entirely practicable for a lad in his teens to borrow two thousand dollars from a Boston merchant, by reminding him that the boy is not the man. So readily is the young mind poisoned.

During the latter part of the lesson, between looks stolen fearfully at her profile, I was mentally engaged in borrowing two thousand dollars from a convenient Mr. Barton with which to establish myself in a small retail business--preferably a candy store with an ice-cream parlor in the rear. Then I took her to wife, not forgetting to reward Mr. Barton handsomely in the day of his ruin. Dimly, in the background of this hasty dramatization, the distrustful Mr. Hawley, who refused to share the loan with Mr. Barton, figured as a rival for my love's hand; and lived to hear her say that she hated, loathed, and despised him.

At recess the others crowded about her, girls at the centre, within a straggling circ.u.mference of young males, who dissembled their gallantry under a pretence of being mere brutal marauders.

But I, solitary, moped and gloomed in a far gra.s.sy corner of the school yard. I could not be of that crowd, and it was then I perceived for the first time that the world was too densely populated. I saw how much better it would be if every one but she and I were dead. Thereupon, in a breath, I dispeopled the earth of all but us two, and with the courage gained of this solitude, I saw myself approach her there at the corner of the old brick schoolhouse, greeting her with a.s.surances that everything was all right,--and then, after she understood what I had done, and how fine it was, we came into our own. Alas, how bitter the crude truth! Instead of this, those wondrous ta.s.sels now danced from her boot tops as she gave chase to Solon Denney, who had pulled one of the scarlet bows from its yellow braid. Grimly I was aware that he should be the first to go out of the world, and I called upon a just heaven to slay him as he fled with his trophy. But nothing sweet and fitting happened. He went unblasted.

She came back to the group of girls, flushed and lovely beyond compare, holding up the ravished end of that golden braid with a comic dismay, while her despoiler laughed coa.r.s.ely from a distance and pinned the trophy to his coat lapel. I now saw that blasting was too merciful. He should be removed by a slower process if the thing could as easily be arranged.

That was a bitter recess, even though I learned her wonderful name and the enchanted state "back East" from which she had come. A still more bitter experience awaited me when we were again in the schoolroom. Miss Berham, fastening a steely gaze upon Solon Denney, launched heaven upon him from tightly drawn lips, without in the least meaning to do so.

"Solon Denney, you may return that ribbon at once to its owner!"

With a conscious smirk, amid the t.i.tters of the room and the sharp raps of the ruler on Miss Berham's desk, Solon swaggered offensively to the seat that enshrined my idol, and flung down the scarlet treasure before her. She merely pushed the thing away, bending her head lower above her book--pushed it away with a blind little hand, and with undiminished bravado her despoiler returned, scathless of heaven's vengeance, to his seat.

"And you may remain half an hour after school. The A-cla.s.s, ready for geography!"

Thus, lightly did our ruler turn from tragedy to comedy. For tragedy, there was the look my queen lavished upon Solon when she heard his sentence; a look of blushing merriment, with a maddening dash of pity in it,--he was to suffer because of her.

"'Twas your beauty that made me do it," he might have quoted, with the old result. How I longed for the jaunty lightness that would have let me do a thing like that, tossing me fairly to the pinnacle of a public a.s.sociation with her! But I, instead, moped alone, knowing well that the gifts of graceful brigandage were not mine. Had _I_ s.n.a.t.c.hed that ribbon, there would have been tears and a mad outcry at my brutal roughness.