A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 31

"I wish you to see it, and it contains no injunctions of secrecy.

Indeed, she has been taking some very open and decided steps which are here indicated."

Mrs. Arnot read:

"MY UNNATURAL SON--Though you will not write me a line, you still make it certain that I shall hear from you, as the inclosed clippings from Hillaton papers may prove to you. You have forfeited all claim on both your sisters and myself. Our lawyer has been here to-day, and has shown me, what is only too evident, that money would be a curse to you--that you would squander it and disgrace yourself still more, if such a thing were possible. As the property is wholly in my hands, I shall arrange it in such a way that you shall never have a chance to waste it. If you will comply with the following conditions I will supply all that is essential to one of your nature and tastes. I stipulate that you leave Hillaton, and go to some quiet place where our name is not known, and that you there live so quietly that I shall hear of no more disgraceful acts like those herein described. I have given up the hope of hearing anything good. If you will do this I will pay your board and grant you a reasonable allowance. If you will not do this, you end all communication between us, and we must be as strangers until you can show an entirely different spirit. Yours in bitter shame and sorrow,

"EMILY HALDANE."

The clippings were Mr. Shrumpf's version of his own swindle, and a tolerably correct account of the events which led to the present imprisonment.

"Will you accept your mother's offer?" Mrs. Arnot asked, anxiously, for she was much troubled as to what might be the effect of the unfortunate letter at this juncture.

"No!" he replied with sharp emphasis.

"Egbert, remember you have given your mother the gravest provocation."

"I also remember that she did her best to make me the fool I have been, and she might have a little more patience now. The truth is that mother's G.o.d was respectability, and she will never forgive me for destroying her idol."

"Read the other letters; there may be that in them which will be more rea.s.suring."

"No, I thank you," he replied, bitterly; "I have had all that I can stand for one day. She believes the infernal lie which that scoundrel Shrumpf tells, and gives me no hearing;" and he related to Mrs. Arnot the true version of the affair.

She had the tact to see that his present perturbed condition was not her opportunity, and she soon after left him in a mood that promised little of good for the future.

But in the long, quiet hours that followed her departure his thoughts were busy. However much he might think that others were the cause of his unhappy plight, he had seen that he was far more to blame. It had been made still more clear that, even if he could s.h.i.+ft this blame somewhat, he could not the consequences. Mrs. Arnot's words had given him a glimpse of light, and had revealed a path, which, though still vague and uncertain, promised to lead out of the present labyrinth of evil. During the morning hours he had dared to hope, and even to pray, that he might find a way of escape from his miserable self and the wretched condition to which it had brought him.

For a long time he turned the leaves of Mrs. Arnot's Bible, and here and there a text would flash out like a light upon the clouded future, but as a general thing the words had little meaning.

To his ardent and somewhat imaginative nature she had presented the struggle toward a better life in the most attractive light. He was not asked to do something which was vague and mystical; he was not exhorted to emotions and beliefs of which he was then incapable, nor to forms and ceremonies that were meaningless to him, nor to professions equally hollow. On the contrary, the evils, the defects of his own nature, were given an objective form, and he could almost see himself, like a knight, with lance in rest, preparing to run a tilt against the personal faults which had done him such injury. The deeper philosophy, that his heart was the rank soil from which sprang these faults, like Cadmus' armed men, would come with fuller experience.

But in a measure he had understood and had been inspired by Mrs. Arnot's thought. Although from a weak mother's indulgence and his own, from wasted years and bad companions.h.i.+ps, his life was wellnigh spoiled, he still had sufficient mind to see that to fight down the clamorous pa.s.sions of his heart into subjection would be a grand and heroic thing.

If from the yielding mire of his present self a n.o.ble and granite-like character could be built up, so strongly and on such a sure foundation that it would stand the shocks of time and eternity, it were worth every effort of which human nature is capable. Until Mrs. Arnot had spoken her wise and kind, yet honest words, he had felt himself unable to stand erect, much less to enter on a struggle which would tax the strongest.

But suppose G.o.d would deign to help, suppose it was the divine purpose and practice to supplement the feeble efforts of those who, like himself, sought to ally their weakness to his strength, might not the Creator and the creature, the Father and the child, unitedly achieve what it were hopeless to attempt unaided?

Thoughts like these more or less distinctly had been thronging his mind during the morning, and though the path out of his degradation was obscure and uncertain, it had seemed the only way of escape. He knew that Mrs. Arnot would not consciously mock him with delusive hopes, and as she spoke her words seemed to have the ring and echo of truth. When the courage to attempt better things was reviving, it was sad that he should receive the first disheartening blow from his mother. Not that she purposed any such cruel stroke; but when one commences wrong in life one is apt to go on making mischief to the end. Poor Mrs. Haldane's kindness and severity had always been ill-timed.

For some hours, as will be seen, the contents of the mother's letter inspired only resentment and caused discouragement; but calmer thoughts explained the letter, and confirmed Mrs. Arnot's words, that he had given the "gravest provocation."

At the same time the young man instinctively felt that if he attempted the knightly effort that Mrs. Arnot had so earnestly urged, his mother could not help him much, and might be a hindrance. Her views would be so conventional, and she would be so impatient of any methods that were not in accordance with her ideas of respectability, that she might imperil everything should he yield to her guidance. If, therefore, he could obtain the means of subsistence he resolved to remain in Hillaton, where he could occasionally see Mrs. Arnot. She had been able to inspire the hope of a better life, and she could best teach him how such a life was possible.

The next day circ.u.mstances prevented Mrs. Arnot from visiting the prison, and Haldane employed part of the time in writing to his mother a letter of mingled reproaches and apologies, interspersed with vague hopes and promises of future amendment, ending, however, with the positive a.s.surance that he would not leave Hillaton unless compelled to do so by hunger.

To Mrs. Haldane this letter was only an aggravation of former misconduct, and a proof of the unnatural and impracticable character of her son. The fact that it was written from a prison was hideous, to begin with. That, after all the pains at which she had been to teach him what was right, he could suggest that she was in part to blame for his course seemed such black ingrat.i.tude that his apologies and acknowledgments of wrong went for nothing. She quite overlooked the hope, expressed here and there, that he might lead a very different life in the future. His large and self-confident a.s.surances made before had come to naught, and she had not the tact to see that he would make this attempt in a different spirit.

It was not by any means a knightly or even a manly letter that he wrote to his mother; it was as confused as his own chaotic moral nature; but if Mrs. Haldane had had a little more of Mrs. Arnot's intuition, and less of prejudice, she might have seen scattered through it very hopeful indications. But even were such indications much more plain, her anger, caused by his refusal to leave Hillaton, and the belief that he would continue to disgrace himself and her, would have blinded her to them.

Under the influence of this anger she sat down and wrote at once:

Since you cast off your mother for strangers--since you attempt again what you have proved yourself incapable of accomplis.h.i.+ng--since you prefer to go out of jail to be a vagrant and a criminal in the streets, instead of accepting my offer to live a respectable and secluded life where your shame is unknown, I wash my hands of you, and shall take pains to let it be understood that I am no longer responsible for you or your actions. You must look to strangers solely until you can conform your course to the will of the one you have so greatly wronged.

Haldane received this letter on the morning of the day which would again give him freedom. Mrs. Arnot had visited him from time to time, and had been pleased to find him, as a general thing, in a better and more promising mood. He had been eager to listen to all that she had to say, and he seemed honestly bent on reform. And yet, while hopeful, she was not at all sanguine as to his future. He occasionally gave way to fits of deep despondency, and again was over-confident, while the causes of these changes were not very apparent, and seemingly resulted more from temperament than anything else. She feared that the bad habits of long standing, combining with his capricious and impulsive nature, would speedily betray him into his old ways. She was sure this would be the case unless the strong and steady hand of G.o.d sustained him, and she had tried to make him realize the same truth. This he did in a measure, and was exceedingly distrustful; and yet he had not been able to do much more than hope G.o.d would help him--for to anything like trustful confidence he was still a stranger.

The future was very dark and uncertain. What he was to do, how he was to live, he could not foresee. Even the prison seemed almost a refuge from the world, out into which he would be thrown that day, as one might be cast from a s.h.i.+p, to sink or swim, as the case might be.

While eager to receive counsel and advice from Mrs. Arnot, he felt a peculiar reluctance to take any pecuniary a.s.sistance, and he fairly dreaded to have her offer it; still, it might be all that would stand between him and hunger.

After receiving his mother's harsh reply to his letter, his despondency was too great even for anger. He was ashamed of his weakness and discouragement, and felt that they were unmanly, and yet was powerless to resist the leaden depression that weighed him down.

Mrs. Arnot had promised to call just before his release, and when she entered his cell she at once saw that something was amiss. In reply to her questioning he gave her the letter just received.

After reading it Mrs. Arnot did not speak for some time, and her face wore a sad, pained look.

At last she said, "You both misunderstand each other; but, Egbert, you have no right to cherish resentment. Your mother sincerely believes your course is all wrong, and that it will end worse than before. I think she is mistaken. And yet perhaps she is right, and it will be easier for you to commence your better and reformed life in the seclusion which she suggests. I am sorry to say it to you, Egbert, but I have not been able to find any employment for you such as you would take, or I would be willing to have you accept. Perhaps Providence points to submission to your mother's will."

"If so, then I lose what little faith I have in Providence," he replied impetuously. "It is here, in this city, that I have fallen and disgraced myself, and it is here I ought to redeem myself, if I ever do. Weeks ago, in pride and self-confidence, I made the effort, and failed miserably, as might have been expected. Instead of being a gifted and brilliant man, as I supposed, that had been suddenly brought under a cloud as much through misfortune as fault, I have discovered myself to be a weak, commonplace, illiterate fellow, strong only in bad pa.s.sions and bad habits. Can I escape these pa.s.sions and habits by going elsewhere? You have told me, in a way that excited my hope, of G.o.d's power and willingness to help such as I am. If he will not help me here, he will not anywhere; and if, with his aid, I cannot surmount the obstacles in my way here, what is G.o.d's promised help but a phrase which means nothing, and what are we but victims of circ.u.mstances?"

"Are you not reaching conclusions rather fast, Egbert? You forget that I and myriads of others have had proof of G.o.d's power and willingness to help. If wide and varied experience can settle any fact, this one has been settled. But we should ever remember that we are not to dictate the terms on which he is to help us."

"I do not mean to do this," said Haldane eagerly, "but I have a conviction that I ought to remain in Hillaton. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Arnot, I am afraid to go elsewhere," he added in a low tone, while tears suffused his eyes. "You are the only friend in the universe that I am sure cares for me, or that I can trust without misgivings. To me G.o.d is yet but little more than a name, and one that heretofore I have either forgotten or feared. You have led me to hope that it might be otherwise some day, but it is not so yet, and I dare not go away alone where no one cares for me, for I feel sure that I would give way to utter despondency, and recklessness would follow as a matter of course."

"O Egbert," sighed Mrs. Arnot, "how weak you are, and how foolish, in trusting so greatly in a mere fellow-creature."

"Yes, Mrs. Arnot, 'weak and foolish.' Those two words now seem to sum up my whole life and all there is of me."

"And yet," she added earnestly, "if you will, you can still achieve a strong, and n.o.ble character. O that you had the courage and heroic faith in G.o.d to fight out this battle to the end! Should you do so, as I told you before, you would be ideal knight. Heaven would ring with your praise, however unfriendly the world might be. I cannot conceive of a grander victory than that of a debased nature over itself. If you should win such a victory, Egbert--if, in addition, you were able, by the blessing of G.o.d on your efforts, to build up a strong, true character--I would honor you above other men, even though you remained a wood-sawyer all your days," and her dark eyes became l.u.s.trous with deep feeling as she spoke.

Haldane looked at her fixedly for a moment, and grew very pale. He then spoke slowly and in a low tone:

"To fail after what you have said and after all your kindness would be terrible. To continue my old vile self, and also remember the prospect you now hold out--what could be worse? And yet what I shall do, what I shall be, G.o.d only knows. But in sending you to me I feel that he has given me one more chance."

"Egbert," she replied eagerly, "G.o.d will give you chances as long as you breathe. Only the devil will tell you to despair. He, _never_. Remember this should you grow old in sin. To tell you the truth, however, as I see you going out into the world so humbled, so self-distrustful, I have far more hope for you than when you first left this place, fully a.s.sured that you were, in yourself, sufficient for all your peculiar difficulties. And now, once more, good-by, for a time. I will do everything I can for you. I have seen Mr. Growther to-day, and he appears very willing that you should return to his house for the present. Strange old man! I want to know him better, for I believe his evil is chiefly on the outside, and will fall off some day, to his great surprise."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A SACRED REFRIGERATOR

The glare of the streets was intolerable to Haldane after his confinement, and he hastened through them, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. A growl from Mr. Growther's dog greeted him as he entered, and the old man himself snarled:

"Well, I s'pose you stood me as long as you could, and then went to prison for a while for a change."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Growther; I went to prison because I deserved to go there, and it's very good of you to let me come back again."

"No, it ain't good of me, nuther. I want a little peace and comfort, and how could I have 'em while you was bein' kicked and cuffed around the streets? Here, I'll get you some dinner. I s'pose they only gave you enough at jail to aggravate your in'ards."