A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 40

"Think twice."

"I have thought more than twice."

"Then yer blood be on yer own head," said Mr. Growther with tragic solemnity, as if he were about to take Haldane's life. "My skirts is clear after this warnin'."

"Indeed they are. You haven't done me a bit of harm."

"Where does the trouble come from then? Who is a-harmin' you?"

"Well, Mr. Growther," said Haldane, wearily, "I hardly know what is the matter. I am losing zest and courage unaccountably. My old, happy and hopeful feelings are about all gone, and in their place all sorts of evil thoughts seem to be swarming into my mind. I have tried to keep all this to myself, but I have become so wretched that I must speak. Mrs.

Arnot is away, or she might help me, as she ever does. I wish that I felt differently; I pray that I may, but in spite of all I seem drifting back to my old miserable self. Every day I fear that I shall have trouble at the mill. When I felt so strong and happy I did not mind what they said. One day I was asked by a workman, who is quite a decent fellow, how I stood it all? and I replied that I stood it as any well-meaning Christian man could. My implied a.s.sertion that I was a Christian was taken up as a great joke, and now they call me the 'pi'us jail-bird.' As long as I felt at heart that I was a Christian, I did not care; but now their words gall me to the quick. I do not know what to think. It seems to me that if any one ever met with a change I did. I'm sure I wish to feel now as I did then; but I grow worse every day. I am losing self-control and growing irritable. This evening, as I pa.s.sed liquor saloons on my way home, my old appet.i.te for drink seemed as strong as ever. What does it all mean?"

Mr. Growther's wrinkled visage worked curiously, and at last he said in a tone and manner that betokened the deepest distress:

"I'm awfully afeerd you're a-backslidin'."

"I wish I had never been born," exclaimed the youth, pa.s.sionately, "for I am a curse to myself and all connected with me, I know I shall have trouble with one man at the mill. I can see it coming, and then, of course, I shall be discharged. I seem destined to defeat in this my last attempt to be a man, and I shall never have the courage or hope to try again. If I do break down utterly, I feel as if I will become a very devil incarnate. O! how I wish that Mrs. Arnot was home."

"Now this beats me all out," said Mr. Growther, in great perplexity. "A while ago you felt like a saint and acted like one, now you talk and act as if Old Nick and all his imps had got a hold on ye. How do you explain all this, for it beats me?"

"I don't and can't explain. But here are the facts, and what are you going to do with them?"

"I ain't a-goin' to do nothin' with 'em except cuss 'em; and that's all I kin do in any case. You've got beyond my depth."

The sorely tempted youth could obtain but little aid and comfort, therefore, from his quaint old friend, and, equally perplexed and unable to understand himself, he sought to obtain such rest as his disquieted condition permitted.

As a result of wakefulness in the early part of the night, he slept late the following morning, and hastened to his work with scarcely a mouthful of breakfast. He was thus disqualified, physically as well as mentally, for the ordeal of the day.

He was a few minutes behind time, and a sharp reprimand from the foreman rasped his already jangling nerves. But he doggedly set his teeth and resolved to see and hear nothing save that which pertained to his work.

He might have kept his resolve had there been nothing more to contend with than the ordinary verbal persecution. But late in the afternoon, when he had grown weary from the strain of the day, his special tormentor, a burly Irishman, took occasion, in pa.s.sing, to push him rudely against a pert and slattern girl, who also was foremost in the tacit league of petty annoyance. She acted as if the contact of Haldane's person was a purposed insult, and resented it by a sharp slap of his face.

Her stinging stroke was like a spark to a magazine; but paying no heed to her, he sprang toward her laughing ally with fierce oaths upon his lips, and by a single blow sent him reeling to the floor. The machinery was stopped sharply, as far as possible, by the miscellaneous workpeople, to whom a fight was a boon above price, and with shrill and clamorous outcries they gathered round the young man where he stood, panting, like a wounded animal at bay.

His powerful antagonist was speedily upon his feet, and at once made a rush for the youth who had so unexpectedly turned upon him; and though he received another heavy blow, his onset was so strong that he was able to close with Haldane, and thus made the conflict a mere trial of brute force.

As Haldane afterward recalled the scene, he was conscious that at the time he felt only rage, and a mad desire to destroy his opponent.

In strength they were quite evenly matched, and after a moment's struggle both fell heavily, and Haldane was able to disengage himself.

As the Irishman rose, and was about to renew the fight, he struck him so tremendous a blow on the temple that the man went to the floor as if pierced by a bullet, and lay there stunned and still.

When Haldane saw that his antagonist did not move, time was given him to think; he experienced a terrible revulsion. He remembered his profanity and brutal rage, he felt that he had broken down utterly. He was overwhelmed by his moral defeat, and covering his face with his hands, he groaned "Lost, lost!"

"By jocks," exclaimed a rude, half-grown fellow, "that clip would have felled an ox."

"Do you think he's dead?" asked the slattern girl, now thoroughly alarmed at the consequences of the blow she had given.

"Dead!" cried Haldane, catching the word, and, pus.h.i.+ng all aside, he knelt over his prostrate foe.

"Water, bring water, for G.o.d's sake!" he said eagerly, lifting up the unconscious man.

It was brought and dashed in his face. A moment later, to Haldane's infinite relief he revived, and after a bewildered stare at the crowd around him, fixed his eyes on the youth who had dealt the blow, and then a consciousness of all that had occurred seemed to return. He showed his teeth in impotent rage for a moment, as some wild animal might have done, and then rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Go back to your work, all on ye," thundered the foreman, who, now that the sport was over, was bent on making a great show of his zeal; "as for you two bull-dogs, you shall pay dearly for this; and let me say to you, Mister Haldane, that the pious dodge won't answer any longer."

A moment later, with the exception of flushed faces and excited whisperings, the large and crowded apartment wore its ordinary aspect, and the machinery clanked on as monotonously as ever.

Almost as mechanically Haldane moved in the routine of his labor, but the bitterness of despair was in his heart.

He forgot that he would probably be discharged that day; he forgot that a dark and uncertain future was before him. He only remembered his rage and profanity, and they seemed to him d.a.m.ning proofs that all he had felt, hoped, and believed was delusion.

CHAPTER XLI

MRS. ARNOT'S CREED

When Haldane entered the cottage that evening his eyes were bloodshot and his face so haggard that Mr. Growther started out of his chair, exclaiming: "Lord a' ma.s.sy! what's the matter?"

"Matter enough," replied the youth, with a reckless oath. "The worst that I feared has happened."

"What's happened?" asked the old man excitedly.

"I've been fighting in the work-room like a bull-dog, and swearing like a pirate. That's the kind of a Christian I am, and always will be. What I was made for, I don't see," he added, as he threw himself into a chair.

"Well, well, well!" said Mr. Growther dejectedly, "I was in hopes she'd git here in time; but I'm afeered you've just clean backslid."

"No kind of doubt on that score," replied the young man, with a bitter laugh; "though I now think I never had very far to slide. And yet it all seems wrong and unjust. Why should my hopes be raised? why should such feelings be inspired, if this was to be the end? If I was foreordained to go to the devil, why must an aggravating glimpse of heaven be given me? I say it's all cruel and wrong. But what's the use! Come, let's have supper, one must eat as long as he's in the body."

It was a silent and dismal meal, and soon over. Then Haldane took his hat without a word.

"Where are you goin'?" asked Mr. Growther, anxiously.

"I neither know nor care."

"Don't go out to-night, I expect somebody."

"Who, in the name of wonder?"

"Mrs. Arnot."

"I could as easily face an angel of light now as Mrs. Arnot," he replied, pausing on the threshold; for even in his reckless mood the old man's wistful face had power to restrain.

"You are mistaken, Egbert," said a gentle voice behind him. "You can face me much more easily than an angel of light. I am human like yourself, and your friend."

She had approached the open door through the dusk of the mild autumn evening, and had heard his words. He trembled at her voice, but ventured no reply.