How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's Part 3

"Trusty eats very little," replied the old man, respectfully, "and he amuses people a great deal, especially the children; and, besides, he is a great comfort to me, and G.o.d knows that I have nothing else to comfort me in all the world--wealth, home, friends, and one dearer than all,--all lost, and thou'rt all I have left, Trusty, to comfort me," and he looked affectionately at his companion, whose head was resting lovingly on his knee.

"Oh, I've heard the whining of your cla.s.s before to-night," replied the fellow, "and am not to be taken in by any of your sniffling, so you needn't try that trick on me. Law is law, and I shall see it enforced, and on you, too, in spite of your shuffling, you miserable old sneak of a beggar, you."

"Friend," answered the old man with dignity, as he rose from the chair and looked the fellow calmly in the face, "better men than you or I have begged their daily bread before now, and eaten it, too, with an honest conscience and a grateful heart, and more than once when night has overtaken me, weary of journeying along inhospitable roads, and I have been compelled to make my bed on the leaves under some hedge, I've remembered that the Son of G.o.d when on the earth to teach us the sweet lesson of charity, 'had not where to lay his head.' The lesson he came to teach, you certainly have not learned, or you would never have made my poverty and my misfortunes the b.u.t.t of your scoffings."

The old man spoke with dignity, but the coa.r.s.eness of the fellow's nature and the hardening influence of the business he was engaged in prevented him from feeling either shame or sympathy, for he turned toward the door with an oath, saying: "You'll hear from me in the morning, old chap, but I'll tell you this to chew on over night; that if your tax money isn't ready when I come again, I'll teach you what it is to break the laws in this city, and insult the officers whose duty it is to see them enforced against just such white-headed old dead-beats as you!" and with another oath, he pa.s.sed out of the door and shut it with a slam.

I don't know how the old man pa.s.sed the night. But little sleep, I warrant, came to his old eyes, for he was as timid as a child, and easily frightened, and a threat against his own life would have disturbed him less than one against the life of his dog. But whether he slept or not, the hours of the night wheeled along their dark courses without stopping, and speedily brought the dreaded morning. I know not when he died, or where, but well I know that the memory of that dreadful morning and the woe that came to him on it haunted him to the close of his life, and embittered the last hours of it.

The morning came as all mornings, whether they bring joy or grief to us, do come. The threat the fellow had uttered against his dog the evening before had naturally disturbed him and the old man was nervous and excited, but he managed to cook his frugal breakfast and eat it with his companion. I can well imagine his thoughts and his worriment. "Law! what law?" I can hear him say. "I've broken no law. I've only loved and been loved by my dog. That's not wicked, surely. He said he'd come again, and if I didn't have the money ready. Money! what money? He knows I've no money. Tax! what tax? Do they tax a man's heart in this city? Can't a man love anything here unless he's rich? Kill my dog! I don't believe it. There isn't a man on the earth wicked enough to kill an old man's dog, an old man's harmless dog; no, he didn't, he couldn't mean that! he just said it to scare me. Yes, yes, I see now; he'd been drinking and he said it just to scare me." Thus, as I fancy, the poor old man sat muttering to himself, listening with dread to every pa.s.sing step, listening and muttering to himself, while his old heart, quaked in his bosom, and his soul, which had so little to cheer it, as it journeyed along its lonely path, was sorely tried and disquieted within him.

The clock in a neighboring steeple was striking the ninth hour, and the old man paused in his muttering and sat counting the strokes as the iron tongue pealed them forth; counting them in his fear as if each stroke was a knell, and so indeed to him it was, and many of the chimes we listen carelessly to, would be knells to us, if we knew what would happen twixt them and their next chiming.

The vibration of the last stroke was swelling and sinking in the air, when a heavy step sounded on the stair, and without even the ceremony of knocking, the door was pushed suddenly open, and the fellow, who had intruded upon him the evening before, entered the room. In one hand he held a rope and in the other a club.

"Well, old chap," he said, "you see I am here as I told you I would be.

I've given you a whole night to study up the law."

"Law! what law?" exclaimed the old man, interrupting him, "I don't know that I broken"--

"Come, come, old shuffler, none of your blarney, if you please," broke in the fellow; "you know well enough what law I mean. I mean the dog-law."

"Dog-law! dog-law!" answered the old man, "what law is that?"

"Oh, you don't pull the wool over my eyes," sneered the other; "you know what law I mean well enough, but, to jog your memory, I'll say that the law I mean makes the owner of a dog pay a tax of three dollars, and if the tax isn't paid"--

"Three dollars!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the poor man. "Three dollars! when have I had so much money as that? Three dollars! you might as well have asked me to pay three thousand as three."

"Very well, very well," exclaimed the other; "the law covers just such cases as yours--covers them perfectly," and he laughed a coa.r.s.e, cruel laugh. "Out with the money, or I take the dog."

"Take my dog!" screamed the old man, "take Trusty! What should you take him for? You can't want him."

"Oh, yes, I do, old fellow," retorted the other; "I want him very much indeed, I know just what to do with him, I'll see to that."

"Do with him?" cried the other, whose mind, perhaps because paralyzed by fear, perhaps because of the enormity of the deed, would not receive the horrible suggestion, "what would you do with Trusty?"

"Kill him, d.a.m.n you!" shouted the other; "kill him as I have a hundred other curs this fall and pocket the money the law gives me for doing it.

Do you understand that, you old dead-beat?"

For a moment the wretched man never spoke, his lips paled to the color of ashes, and shrivelled as if suddenly parched against the teeth, and he clutched the back of a chair for support. Twice he essayed to speak, his lips moved, but his tongue in its dryness clove to the roof of his mouth. At last he gasped forth in the hoa.r.s.e whisper of mortal terror:

"Kill my dog! kill Trusty!"

It was a sorry sight, truly, and might well touch the hardest heart. But the officer of the law--G.o.d save the mark!--remained unmoved. What was one dog more or less to him? had he not already killed hundreds, as he said? The sportsman's favorite hunter, astray without his collar, the lady's pet, crying pitifully in the street, unable to find its mistress's door, the children's playmate, waiting in front of the school house for school to close, the poor man's help and comfort, his household's joy, guardian and friend, caught in the street on his return from his humble master, to whom he carried his homely dinner. What was one dog more or less to him, hardened by the murderous habit of his office and eager to earn his wretched fee,--what was one dog more or less to _him_?

"Come, come," he cried, as he uncoiled the rope he held in his hand, "out with the money or I take the dog."

"How much is it? how much is it?" cried the old man, fumbling in his pockets and bringing forth a few small pieces of silver and some pennies. "Here take it, take it, it's all I have--there's a ten-cent piece, isn't it? and there's two fives, and here, yes, G.o.d be praised, here's a quarter of a dollar; Trusty earned that yesterday. Let's see, twenty-five, that's the quarter, and ten is thirty-five, and two fives, that makes forty-five, and eight pennies, that makes fifty-three cents; won't that do? It's every cent I have, as G.o.d is my witness--it will do, won't it?" And the old man seized one of the hands of the fellow, and strove to put his little h.o.a.rding into it.

But the hard-hearted wretch drew his hand back with a jerk, and, seizing the dog by the neck, slipped the rope over his head and saying, "The law allows me four times that for killing him," opened the door and pulled the poor dog out after him into the street.

"G.o.d of heaven!" screamed the poor old man, as he rushed, bareheaded as he was, out of the door, and hurried in pursuit of the man, who was pulling the dog along and walking as fast as he could, while Trusty struggled and cried and did all he could to get rid of the rope. "Where is thy justice or thy mercy? Oh, sir; oh, sir;" he shouted, running after the man, "give me back my dog; oh, give him back to me, good people;" he cried, for his own cries and those of the dog, too, had already drawn a crowd to the scene, "good people, tell him not to kill my dog."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_It was to the honor of the crowd that they hooted the officer roundly._"]

It was to the honor of the crowd that they hooted the officer roundly, and called on him and shouted, "Give the old man back his dog," and greater honor yet to them that some of the boys pelted him with s...o...b..a.l.l.s and junks of ice as he hurried on, and one brawny chap, sitting on the seat of his cart, struck him a stinging blow with his black whip as he scuttled past, with, "d.a.m.n you, take that, for killing _my_ dog." The officer shook his club at the honest fellow and said, "I'll pay you for that, see if I don't," but he dared not stop to make the arrest, for the crowd was thickening and the air getting fuller of missiles, and every door and window was hooting him as he pa.s.sed them, with the poor dog crying and moaning pitifully at his heels. Even the women, G.o.d bless them (for the feeling against the law ran high in the city), opened the doors and lifted the windows of their houses, the ladies crying, "Shame on you, shame on you!" and the cooks and chamber maids from the nadir and zenith of their household worlds, with homelier and more piquant phrase and saucier tongues, scoffed him for the miserable work he was doing; but in spite of the popular uprising, now almost swelled to the dimensions of a mob, and the verbal uproar, through the hoa.r.s.e murmur of which the boy's gibe, the woman's taunt and the strong man's curse, came and smote upon him in volleys, still he clutched the rope and rushed along, threatening the crowd that was closing in ahead of him with his club, and so making headway on his dreadful errand, while the poor old man, unable to keep up with him, was filling the air with his cries, and, without knowing what he was saying, perhaps, kept calling on the people, saying, "Oh, good people, good people, don't let him kill my dog."

Indeed, his grief was piteous to see, for he was half distraught with fear, and like as a mother whose child had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from her and was being hurried to death, so he, with tears, sobs and screams, kept entreating one moment the crowd and the next beseeching heaven, saying, "Don't let him kill my dog," and being an old man and white-headed, and as his countenance and gestures were eloquent with the eloquence of true grief, the people were filled with pity for him and their hearts melted with sympathy at the piteous spectacle they beheld.

Then up spake the honest carter, saying, "Friends, let's give the old man a lift, for it's a shame that one so old should lose his dog. How much is it you lack of the tax?" he asked of the poor old gentleman as he came panting up. But he was so confused and tremulous with terror that he could not answer, and so being unable to do more he stretched his old shaken hands in which the money was still, tightly clutched, up to him, but the old hands shook so that the carter could not count it, until he had taken it into his own steady palm.

"Here's fifty cents and a few odd pennies," he shouted, "and the law demands three dollars; two dollars and a half is wanted; who'll help make up the three dollars and save the old man's dog? Here's fifty cents," he added as he took a silver half-dollar from his pocket and dropped it into the hat, "it's half I earnt yesterday, and more than I'll earn to-day, perhaps, for times be dull, but the old man shall have it, if Mary and I go without sugar and tea for a week."

'Twas a good speech and bravely said, and the crowd responded to it as bravely, for it fairly rained dimes and quarters and pennies, not only into the carter's hat until it sagged, but into his cart, too, until the bottom of it was speckled all over with copper and silver coin, and the honest fellow held up his hands for the crowd to give no more, crying:

"Hold, hold! Here's enough, and more than enough."

But he could scarcely make himself heard, because of the cheering and the laughing and the rattling of the pieces as the crowd continued to rain them all the faster into his cart. Ah, me, what is that sweet something in human hearts, which, in its response to human want, translates us like a flash from low to highest mood; aye, which breaketh through all barriers of selfish habit, and even the adamantine of foreign tongues and poureth out its rich largess in a common tide to meet a brother's need, where'er that brother is or whatever he may be?

But the old man did not wait to gather up the offerings of the generous and sympathetic crowd, but s.n.a.t.c.hing a handful of silver from the carter's hat pushed his way out of the jam, and, holding the hand in which he clutched the silver high above his head, hurried on after the officer, crying at the top of his voice: "Here's the money, here's the money; oh, good people," for the street was nearly blocked with those that swarmed thickly in the wake of the officer and he could make but slow progress through it, "tell him I have the money and am coming; don't let him go any farther; I shall never catch him; stop him, stop him, for the love of heaven, stop him; here's the money." And thus crying aloud and calling, with his thin, tremulous voice, upon the officer to stop, he ran frantically along the street, as fast as he could, in pursuit.

But it is certain that the old man would not have caught up with the officer had the latter been uninterrupted in his progress, for the street was filled with people and he could not push his way with much speed because of his feebleness, but fortune, or perhaps I should say misfortune, favored him, so that he shortly overtook the object of his pursuit and came up with the officer and the dog. But, alas! his old heart got little gain thereby, but a grievous loss, rather, for when he came to the spot both lay stretched senseless on the ground, the man knocked flat to the earth by the fist of an indignant citizen, and the dog lying with his skull broken in by a brutal blow from the fellow's club.

When the old man came to the spot where the dog and the officer lay, he stopped, and when he saw what had happened, the money he had brought with which to deliver his dog, fell rattling, unheeded to the ground, and then he raised his palms toward heaven, as if entreating the vengeance or the benignity of the skies, and with tears streaming down his cheeks, he lifted up his voice and wept, saying: "Oh, G.o.d, he's killed my dog!" And then he sank down all in a heap, as if he would die beside his dying dog, for the dog was not yet dead, but dying.

This his master soon perceived, and heedless of the mult.i.tude who thronged the street from side to side, he lifted the dying dog into his lap and laid his poor crushed head against his breast and mourned over him as a mother, deserted by husband and friends, might mourn for an only babe when, alone in a foreign land, it lay on her bosom dying; and the mult.i.tude, who, by this, had knowledge of the dreadful deed, stood in silence while he mourned.

"Trusty, Trusty," he said, "do you know me, Trusty?" and his tears fell fast into the dog's bristly coat. The poor creature, now far gone in that unconsciousness which deafens the ear to the voice of love itself, still faintly heard the familiar tones, for he lifted his eyes to his master's face and nestled closer into his bosom. It was a touching sight, in truth, and those who stood close enough to see the moving spectacle, wiped their own eyes, divinely moist with the mist of sympathy.

It was evident to all, and to the old man himself, that above and around and closing in upon them was the mystery which men call death--a mystery as inscrutable as it hovers over the kennel and stable as when it enters the habitations of men--and that in a few moments the life still within the body of the poor animal, with all its powers of doing, of thinking, and of loving, would depart the structure in which it had found so pleasant an abode and so facile a medium of expression.

For a few moments nothing more was said; the old man continued to sob and the life of his companion continued to ebb away. The brutal blow that caused his death had mercifully numbed the power of feeling, so that whatever the gloomy journey he was about to take might mean to him, whether the same life he was leaving, or a larger, or none at all, he would move on through the darkness toward the one or the other at least without pain.

"You and I have fared in company for many a year," said the old man at last, "and bread, whether scant or plenty, and bed, whether hard or soft, we have shared together. Thou hast made the days brighter, and the nights shorter, by thy presence as I suffered through them, and dark will the one be, and long the other, when I see thee no more; would to G.o.d I could die with thee, my dog, my dog!"

Did the dog indeed understand what he said or did he merely sense the sorrow in the tones and seek once more, as he had done so many times before, to comfort his disconsolate master? I know not; I only know that the poor animal, with dying strength, lifted his muzzle to his master's face, and twice he lapped it with his tongue. Aye, lapped the salt tears tenderly from his master's wrinkled and pallid cheeks with his tongue; only this, for no more could he do. "My dog," cried the old man once more, amid his tears. "My dog, the G.o.d who made thee so loving and worthy to be loved, and filled thee with such sweet feeling and the wish to comfort human woe, will not surely let thee perish. In his great universe there is, there must be, room for thee. I will not mourn thee as wholly lost. I cannot do it. For amid the false thou hast been true, and surely falsehood shall hot live on and sweet truth die. Tell me, my dog, give me some sign that we shall meet in the great hereafter?"

But in response to this appeal the dog gave no motion, for, indeed, his strength, like a tide ebbing in the night, was gliding silently and swiftly outward in the gloom, gliding outward and beyond all questioning and answering, but he opened wide his glorious eyes and fixed them steadily on his master's face with such a great love in their depths that mortal might not doubt that in that love was hope and its sustaining evidence; and then the fatal dimness crept along their edges, the pure, sweet light faded away in their clear depths, and the impenetrable shadow settled forever over the l.u.s.trous...o...b... The lids at last gradually closed as in sleep, and the beggar's dog, with his head on his master's neck and his body resting on his bosom, lay dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tail piece]

The Ball

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vignette Initial IT]