Tom Clark and His Wife Part 5

"He saw, as he floated there in the brine, that he had never done aught to call out his wife's affection, in which he resembled many another whiskered ninny, who insanely expect women to doat upon them merely because they happen to be married. Dolts! Not one in a host comprehends woman's nature; not one in two hosts will take the trouble to find it out; consequently, not one man in three hosts but goes down to the grave never having tasted life's best nectar--that of loving and being loved.

"'O Betsey, Betsey, I know you _now_! _What_ a stupid I have been, to be sure!'

"Profound e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n!

"'I've been an out-and-out fool!'

"Sublime discovery!

"Thus thought the dying man, in the dreadful hour of his destiny--that solemn hour wherein the soul refuses to be longer enslaved or deceived by the specious warp and woof of the sophistical robe it may have voluntarily worn through many a year, all the while believing it to be Truth, as some people do Davis' and Joe Smith's 'Philosophy.' It is not till a dose of Common Sense has caused us to eject from our moral stomachs the nice philosophical sweetmeats we have indulged in for years, until at last they have disturbed our digestion--sweets, very pleasant to the palate--like the 'All Right-ism' of the 'Hub of the Universe'--but which, like boarding-house hash, is very good in small quant.i.ties--seldom presented--and not permanently desirable--that we begin to have true and n.o.ble views of life, especially married life, its responsibilities and its truly royal joys and pleasures. Clark had reached this crisis, and in an instant the scales fell from his eyes--the same that blinds so many of us during the heyday and vigor of life.

"'If I could be spared, Betsey, I'd be a better man.'

"Bravo! Glorious Thomas Clark! Well said, even though the waters choke thine utterance.

"'I would. O wife, I begin to see your value, and what a treasure I have lost--lost--_lost_!'

"And the poor dying wretch struggled against the brine--struggled bravely, fiercely to keep off the salt death--the grim, scowling Death that had sat upon the taffrail; that had stalked about the deck, and stood at the cabin door; the same fearful Death that had whistled through the rigging, and ridden on the storm, and which had followed but had not yet touched him with his cold and icy sceptre."

PART VI.

WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.

Our entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken by those who listened to the tale--and doubtless these pages will fall in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the quarter-deck of the steamer "Uncle Sam," during the voyage begun from San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, "Kicking up a bobbery," all night long. We had at least a thousand pa.s.sengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people--sailors, soldiers, and divers trades and callings, and yet not one of us appreciated the blessing of the epigastrial disturbances--caused by the "bobbery"

aforesaid. Many could successfully withstand any amount of qualms of conscience--but those of the stomach were quite a different thing altogether! and not a few of us experienced strong yearnings toward "New York," and many "reachings forth" went in that direction. Indeed the weather was so rough, that scarce one of us in the cabin fully enjoyed our breakfasts. As for me, I'm very fond of mush and mola.s.ses, but I really _couldn't_ partake thereof on that occasion. No, _sir_! The gentleman from Africa who stood behind us at table to minister to our gustatory wants, found his office a perfect sinecure that morning; and both I and the Rosicrucian, in whose welfare that official took an especial interest--because, in a fit of enthusiasm, we had each given him four bits (ten dimes)--seemed to challenge his blandest pity and commiseration, for we both sat there, looking as if we had been specially sent for and couldn't go. The waiter--kind waiter!--discerned, by a wonderful instinct, that we didn't feel exactly "O fat," and he therefore, in dulcet tones, tried to persuade us to take a little coffee. Coffee! Only think of it! Just after Mrs. Thomas W. had poisoned her husband through that delectable medium. He suggested pork! "Pork, avaunt! We're sea-sick." "Beef." Just then I had a splendid proof of Psychological infiltration and transmission of thought; for my friend and I instantaneously received a strong impression--which we directly followed--to arise from our seats, go on deck, and look over the lee rail. Toward the trysting time, however, the sea smoothed its wrinkles, and the waters smiled again. Presently the expected one came, took his accustomed seat, and began the conclusion of

TOM CLARK'S DREAM

"There's a tide in the affairs of men, which, Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

SHAKSPEARE.

"There's a tide in the affairs of women, which, Taken at the flood, leads--G.o.d knows where."

BYRON.

"Neither do I! Last night, my friends, we left poor Tom in a desperate situation, from which it seems necessary that I should relieve him, but really without exactly knowing how--not feeling particularly well from the motion of the s.h.i.+p last night, it is not easy to think under such circ.u.mstances; still, believing as I do, in the sterling motto, Try, why, I will endeavor to gratify your curiosity, especially as I perceive we are honored with the presence of the ladies, and, for their sakes, if not for our own, I feel it inc.u.mbent to do something for him.

"Tom Clark had, by the waves, been already taken in, and by this time was nearly done for, so far as easy breathing was concerned. Slowly, but surely, his vision was fading away, and he felt that he was fast sinking into Night.

"'Deep the gulf that hides the dead-- Long and dark the road they tread.'

That road he felt that he was rapidly going; for his senses were becoming numb, and a nauseant sensation proved that if he was not sea-sick, he was remarkably sick of the sea, even to the point of dissolution.

"All dying persons hear musical sounds: all dying persons see strange, fitful gleams of marvellous light, and so did Thomas Clark--low, sweet music and soft and pearly light it was, but while he drank it in, and under its influence was being reconciled to Death, there suddenly rose high and shrill above the midnight tempest, a loud and agonizing shriek--the wild, despairing, woeful shriek of a woman--and it was more shrill and piercing than the ziraleet of Egyptian dame or Persian houri; and it broke upon the ear of the peris.h.i.+ng man, like a summons back to life and hope. Well and instantly did he recognize its tones. 'It must be--yet no!--still it can be no other than _her_ v-voice! It cannot be--and I am dy-ing!' and an angry wave dashed over him, drowning his utterance, and hurling his body, like a wisp of straw, high upon the ledge of rocks, whence the recoil, or undertow, was about to whirl it out again into the foaming waters, when it was prevented by a most wonderful piece of good fortune, which at that instant, intervened to save him, at what certainly was the most interesting and critical juncture of his entire earthly existence. Again that sharp voice rang out upon the storm, and a hand, small, soft, yet nerved with all a woman's desperate energy--desperate in Love! clutched him by the hair, and dragged--triumphantly dragged him to the hard and solid land, just over the ledge, on a winding path at the foot of the overhanging cliff.

It was Betsey Clark's voice; it was Betsey Clark's hand; it was she who saved him; and thus he received a new lease of life at the hands of the very woman whom, in a former dream, he had sent so gaily sailing down the empty air--down through four hundred feet of un.o.bstructed s.p.a.ce--with boulders at the bottom--solid boulders of granite and quartz--gold-bearing quartz at that, and very rich, too, but still quite solid and considerably harder than was agreeable to either the woman, the buggy, or the horse, for not one of them was

'Soft as downy pillows are'--

not even Governor Downie's of California.

"It was, indeed, his wife's voice that he heard; it was she that rescued him from what, in very truth, was a most unfortunate pickle--or _brine_--as you choose, or _both_--but at all events one into which he would never have got had he not been far greener than a cuc.u.mber.

"In a dream strange things come to pa.s.s. And in strict accordance with the proprieties of that weird life and Realm--a life and Realm no less real than weird--Tom was speedily cared for, and emptied of the overplus of salt water he had involuntarily imbibed, while Mrs. Clark carefully attended upon him, and a score or two of good people busied themselves in saving all they could from the wreck. After this they all retreated to a comfortable mansion, situated on the summit of this cliff, in the regions of Dream, and there the following explanations took place: It appeared that Betsey had been on a visit to her uncle, who kept the light-house, and had for several days been on the look-out for the arrival of the vessel--the wrecked one--in which, some time previous, Tom had sailed on a voyage to Honey-Lu-Lu, the Bay of Fun-dee, or some other such place that vessels trade to. The s.h.i.+p had at last been descried, laboring in the midst of a violent storm, just before dark, and under such circ.u.mstances as rendered it positively certain that she would drive headlong upon the rocks at the foot of the very cliff on which the light-house stood.

"But by a singular coincidence, perfectly unaccountable anywhere else, save in Dream-land, Betsey Clark had learned to love Tom dearly, at the precise instant that he had discovered, and repented his own great error. At the instant that Tom had declared that, could he be spared, he would be a better man, she saw his deadly peril; the icicles began to melt around her heart--melt very fast--so that by the time she reached him her soul was in a glow of pure affection for the man she had until that moment hated. She now saw, with unmitigated astonishment, that, with all his faults, there was a mine of excellent goodness; that G.o.d had not made anything either perfect or imperfect; and that, after all was said or done, he was of priceless consequence and value to her.

"Human nature and woman nature are very remarkable inst.i.tutions, especially the latter. We seldom value either a man or woman, until they are either dead or a long way off, and then--'Who'd a'thought it?'

"When Clark awoke from the gentle sleep into which he had fallen after the kind people had made him comfortable, he found his head pillowed on a bosom a great deal softer than down or Downie's--that of his loving and tender wife--for she was so now, and no mistake, in the full, true sense--A Wife!

"Tom Clark got well. He never grew rich, and never wanted to. He went to Santa Blarneeo, and had both their pictures taken in a single frame, on one canvas, and he hung it over the window in the little room--the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.

"Years rolled by. Long did they live in the enjoyment of a domestic bliss too great for expression or description--a happiness unsullied by an unworthy thought, unstained by any blot; for it was full, pure, husbandly, wifely; and daily, hourly, did they bless and learn to love each other more.

"'Cease dreaming,' said Hesperina--the beautiful Hesperina, the Genius of the Garden and the Star--'cease thy _dream_ of Perpetual Peace, and live to actualize it on thy way through the World! Cease dreaming, but awaken not. Remember the counsel of Otanethi, the radiant, Lord of the Temple, the Spirit of the Hour; and when thou wakest, TRY to be a n.o.bler and a better man. Waken not yet, O frail and weak! but still sleep--sweetly, soundly sleep, yet awhile, and only wake to be a full, true, loving man, forgiving and forgiven!' And then the peerless being waved her hand over the prostrate woman, and, lo! her movements gave token that the strange and mighty magic was felt, and that she was swiftly pa.s.sing the mystic Threshold of that sphere of new and marvellous activities where the Dream Fay reigns supreme."

At this point of the story, a lady, Mrs. V., invoked the narrator's attention, saying: "Thus far, sir, your story is an excellent one, and its moral is all that could be desired; yet how comes it that you, who so strongly deprecate all human hatreds and unkindness, are yet, in a measure, amenable to the very thing you decry? In the proem to the remarkable story you have been reciting, you have admitted that there was one man toward whom your soul felt bitter. Is this right? Is it just to yourself, your foe, the world, or G.o.d? Answer me!"

The Rosicrucian studied awhile, and then replied: "It is _not_ right or just, and yet it is very hard to forgive, much less to forget, a cool, deliberate injury, such as I suffered at the pen, and hand, and tongue of the man alluded to. It is hard to forget"----

"And still harder to forgive," said one of our company, a rather young-looking man, who had been one of the speaker's most attentive auditors. He spoke with much pa.s.sion.

Said the Stranger: "It is hard to forgive or forget. Few people in the world are capable of long-continued love in a single direction, unless self-trained; fewer still of deliberate, long-continued hatred, and fewer still are competent to full, free, unqualified forgiveness. _I am not._ In all my experience, I never knew but one man in whom unqualified Hatred was a paramount King-pa.s.sion, over-riding and surviving all others whatsoever. I will tell you that man's story as he told it to me, for he was a friend of mine whom I dearly loved, and who loved me in return. One day I asked him to open his heart to me, which, after a while, he did as follows, saying: 'Listen, while I briefly sketch the story of my life. There was a man who, because I differed with him on questions of Philosophy--for he claimed to be Nature's private secretary, which claim all sensible people laughed at, and only weaklings listened to and believed--he, this man, for this cause, called in question, not only my own, but the fair fame of the mother who bore me--that mother being already dead; and for this I hate him, as roses hate the foul malarious swamps of earth. The blazoned motto of that man was--Let no man call G.o.d his Father, who calls not man his brother. I rose in the world, and he hated me for the talent G.o.d gave me. Envy! I was in a sense his rival, and as such, this man, snake-like, used his very utmost influence and power, by tongue and pen, to injure me--and did--for he took the bread from my children by depriving me of employment. I wrote a pamphlet, under a _nom de plume_, and he joyfully exposed my secret. Jealousy! He attacked me personally, grossly in his paper, misrepresented well known facts--LIED! Robbing me of fair fame, as he had my dead mother before me. It is impossible for A to forgive B for a crime against C. I hated him for the dead one's sake; that hate I once thought would survive my death, and be the thing next my heart through all the Eternities. Perhaps it will not. He crushed me for a time, but "_Je renais de mes cendres!_" We two are yet in the World. He will not forget it! Will I? Never!--for the sake of my dead mother. I can overlook his crimes toward me, but before the Bar I hold him ever accountable for the injury to her--and to my little ones, who nearly starved, while this fiend of h.e.l.l, in the garb of heaven, triumphed in _my_ misery, and gloated over _their_ wrongs. I am the watchful proxy--the rightful Nemesis, of the living and the Dead! I put forth books to the world. This demon in saint's garb, and his minions, howled them down as blood-hounds do the panting slave. More bread lost to my hungry ones, more stern calling for reprisals. All men have foes. I had; and this man--this impostor, this conscienceless outrager of the dead and starver of little children, listened gladly, and covertly published their statements--and that when he morally knew them to be as false as his own black, polygamous, scoundrel heart. More wrong done, more little pale hands reaching vainly forth for bread; and more hatred laid up for him and his minions at the bottom of my heart of hearts, the core and centre of my soul!'

"Thus he spake, and the man's eyes flashed fire as the words escaped him, proving that they were not the impulsive utterances of temper, but the deep and cherished results of long and bitter years of feeling. Said I: 'And does this feeling demand a physical atonement?' With a look of ineffable scorn, he replied: 'Not for an empire's sceptre would I harm a single hair of that man's head. Were his wife in a burning building, I would rescue her, or perish in the trial; were his children--but, thank G.o.d, he cannot propagate his species--Monsters never do!--but had he such, and they were hungry, I would work till I fell from exhaustion, in the effort to procure them bread: were the man himself in want or danger, I would joyously risk my life to save or serve him. Why? Because my revenge is one that could not be appeased by blood. It is too vast--too deep--and I will wreak it in other worlds, a myriad ages from now. To this I pledge my very soul; and when hereafter I point him to what I am, and what he has brought me to, I will thunder, in the ears of his spirit, in the very presence of the Judge, "THOU ART THE MAN!"

Wherever he may be, in the Vault, or in the s.p.a.ce, there will I be also.

Nor can this feeling die before he shall undo his doing, and--no matter what. At length this feeling of mine grew strong. I loved. It drowned all love. I was ambitious, and ambition paled before it. I had wealth within my reach, and turned from the s.h.i.+ning gold to the superior brilliance of the pole star of my pa.s.sion against the soul of this man, not against his body. And then I said:--I will rise from my ashes. I will win fame and name. I, the Angular Character, will rise, and in my dealings with this fiend will be as remorseless and bitter as the quintessence of Hate; I will suffer patiently, and mount the steeps of fame, and I will ring the bells at the door of the world till all the peoples wake, and then, _then_ will I launch him down the tide of time in his own true colors--stripped to the centre, and show him to the Ages for the monster that he is. This is a revenge worthy of an immortal being; one that merely extends to the physical person is such as brutes enjoy, but is not full, broad, deep and enduring enough for a man. As for his minions they are too contemptible to engage my attention for a moment; but in their master's soul will I fix my talons so deep, that an eternity shall not witness their extraction; and henceforth I dedicate all my life to the one purpose of _avenging the dead_!'

"Five years rolled by after this recital, when again, in a foreign land, we met each other. In the meantime he had grown grey. His foe still attacked him; he had never once replied, but his hatred had crystallized in the centre of his soul, and, said he, 'I can wait a million years; but revenged I will be yet, by the Life of G.o.d!' That is my story; I believe my friend will keep his oath," said the young man as he turned from the company on the quarter-deck, and slowly walked toward the bow of the steamer.

The words he had spoken were bitter ones, and they were expressed with such a _verve_--such a vehemence of vigor, intensity and pa.s.sion, that not one man or woman on the quarter-deck of the steamer doubted for an instant that himself was the injured one, himself the vehement hater, notwithstanding his implied disclaimer. We saw that he fully, deeply, felt all he gave utterance to; and never, until that moment, did I comprehend the awful depths and capacity of the human soul for either love or hatred; nor had any of us, even the Rosicrucian, the faintest idea but that every word of his awful threat came from his heart; nor the slightest doubt that if there were a possibility of wreaking his revenge in the World to come, that he would find that possibility, and remorselessly execute it. Said the Rosicrucian, as the man finished his terrible recital: "This episode comes in quite _apropos_ to my own story's moral. It is well to beware, lest we, by some act or word of ours, so deeply plant the germ of hatred, that in after years it spring up to annoy us, and mar our peace of mind. Now, I have some knowledge of the soul, and am firmly convinced that the man who has just left us means all that he says; nor would I incur so dreadful a penalty as that man's hatred, for all the diadems on the terraqueous globe. His pa.s.sion is not merely external, else he would, by an a.s.sault, or by slander, seek its satisfaction. But his feeling is the offspring of a sense of outraged justice. I have not the least doubt that the object of his spleen laughs at the man. But Revenge will outlive laughter, wealth, position, influence--all things, when of the nature of the present case.

Thus, Madame, your question, I hope, has been answered to your satisfaction. Of course, I deprecate hatred, but demand justice.

"But see, the sun is setting again, and the conclusion of our story must be deferred until after supper, when, if you will again a.s.semble here upon the quarter-deck, you shall learn what befell Mr. Thomas W., and what other events transpired in the little chamber with a window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down."