The Old Homestead Part 34

Joseph paused irresolute, with the last dying gold of sunset falling on his head, from a neighboring window.

The artist glanced from him to the Mayor, and a look of sudden pain swept across his face. It was a strange, jealous pang to strike a man of his age.

"Go," said the Mayor gently to the lad; "go, and leave us alone, I wish to speak with your father."

Joseph looked at his father questioningly.

"Go!" said the old man, in a voice so husky that he could only force himself to utter that single word.

Joseph went out, and those two old men--for the Mayor looked very old that night--sat down in the dim chamber, and talked together for the first time in their lives.

Joseph shut himself in the dark hall, and found a seat upon the stairs, filled with vague wonder; for his keen imagination seized upon this event, and his affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old men, whose voices came through the ill-fitting door in indistinct murmurs.

It must have been an hour when the door opened, and Joseph saw the Mayor and his father standing just within the room. The light from a tallow candle fell upon them from behind, striking their side faces with singular effect. Both were pale, but the cheek of the Mayor, on which the light lay strongest, glistened with moisture. Could it be that this was the trace of tears?--and, if so, what power had that humble artist, to make a man weep who had not been known to shed tears since his boyhood!

The artist too had a look of tender sadness on his face, as if all his deeper feelings had been moved.

The two old men--we call them old, but events rather than time had left h.o.a.ry marks upon them--the two old men held each other by the hand; Joseph arose and drew back, that the Mayor might pa.s.s, but when he went by without a word, the boy was seized with a pang of disappointment, and followed him.

"Mayor," he said, "please won't you say good-bye to me, I have wanted to see you so much all day?"

The Mayor turned his face; the light from a street-lamp shone upon it, as he stood in the lower entrance. Surely there had been tears on that stern face.

"Yes," answered Mr. Farnham, looking into those deep earnest eyes, "I will bid you good-bye."

"Mr. Farnham," said Joseph, "won't you stay a little?"

The Mayor stepped back into the hall, but wavered in his walk, and supported himself by the lad. Joseph could feel that the hands which were laid on his shoulders trembled.

"Are you sick?" questioned the lad, with his forehead up lifted in reverential tenderness.

"Sick--no! I think it is not sickness, but, but"--

"Have I or father done anything to hurt you, sir?"

"Hurt me!--no, no--but Joseph you said once that I had murdered Mr.

Chester, did you believe it?"

Joseph's head drooped forward. His eyes were suffused with sadness, he could not answer.

"Did you think so, Joseph?" repeated the Mayor, in a voice of strange solicitude.

"I thought so then, but now I am sure you could not have intended to do it."

"No!" answered the Mayor, impressively. "I did not intend it; when you think of me hereafter you will remember this--and remember too, my child, that when a man takes the first step toward an unjust act, he loses a great portion of his power to control the second--great crime grows out of small errors, my boy, remember that, and I charge you, repeat it to my son, when he has need of such warning."

"I will repeat it to him, as you wish me to, sir!"

"And now farewell."

Joseph felt a kiss quiver upon his forehead, like the touch of a spirit that had taken flight. He looked around, the Mayor was gone.

"Farewell--why did not he say good-bye--or good-night, Joseph?

Farewell! that is a very solemn word. I wish he had not said farewell!"

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WALK AND THE WILL.

Now do I drop my heavy load of woe, As some wet mantle saturate with rain, And rise as a soft spirit that doth glow In rays of light beyond the realm of pain.

W. W. FORd.i.c.k.

The Mayor walked home very slowly, for remorse, while softening into penitence, had sapped the foundations of his life; and he had grown a feeble old man in so short a time, that those who look upon G.o.d as an avenger, rather than a chastiser, might have supposed that old age had fallen as a judgment upon him. But the All-wise one knows best how to redeem the souls he has created, and that weary man as he walked home in the darkness, was a thousand times more worthy of respect, than he had ever been in his whole lifetime before.

There was a private room in the lower story of his house, in which Mr.

Farnham had usually received his const.i.tuents and persons who came to his residence on private business. It had been little used of late, for the routine of his old life was broken up, and when he went to this apartment, it was usually to be secure of the solitude which daily became more necessary to his habits of self-communion. That night he found company in the drawing-room. Mrs. Farnham had guests from the South; other friends were invited to meet them, and the lower portion of the house was in a blaze of magnificence. This scene was so at variance with his state of feelings, that the Mayor recoiled from its glitter, as the sick man shrinks from a noonday sun.

His wife, who was standing in the centre of a group near the door, resplendent with jewels and brocade, saw him pa.s.s through the hall, and playfully shaking her fan called after him.

Either he did not hear, or he did not heed her, and with the usual obstinacy of a silly woman, she called to her son and bade him go bring his father back.

Frederick went and found Mr. Farnham in his private room, looking cold and weary. The greatest retribution that had fallen upon this man for his evil act had been the effect it had produced upon his own son.

Frederick had known and loved Chester. With his energy and quickness of character, it was impossible that he should not have gathered all the facts regarding his trial and death. The very silence which he maintained on the subject was a proof of this. His manner too had changed so completely that it was a constant reproach to the suffering man. There had always existed a certain reserve between the father and son, but now it amounted almost to coldness. Perhaps this repulsion had driven the unhappy man to seek sympathy in the child of another, for it became a weary trial to seek his home day after day, and find all affection chilled there.

That night Farnham's heart was softened toward the whole world, and most of all did he yearn for the old look of confidence from the now constantly averted eyes of his son. Just as these feelings were strongest in his bosom, Frederick entered the room where he sat. The Mayor looked up wistfully.

"My mother wishes me to call you, sir; she has company in the drawing room." The cold respectfulness of his manner fell like snow upon the Mayor.

"I cannot come, Frederick; tell your mother that I am not well enough for company," he said, so mournfully that the warm heart of the lad was touched.

"Are you really ill, father?" he said.

The Mayor could not answer. It was the first time that his son had called him father since Chester's burial.

The boy was struck by his silence.

"Tell me--speak to me father, are you ill?"

The Mayor held out his hands.

"Frederick!"

It was enough--the boy fell upon his knees and kissed those trembling hands.