Читать книгу: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873», страница 8
SAINT MARTIN'S TEMPTATION
For forty-and-five long years
I have followed my Master, Christ,
Through frailty and toils and tears,
Through passions that still enticed;
Through station that came unsought,
To dazzle me, snare, betray;
Through the baits the Tempter brought
To lure me out of the way;
Through the peril and greed of power
(The bribe that he thought most sure);
Through the name that hath made me cower,
"The holy bishop of Tours!"
Now, tired of life's poor show,
Aweary of soul and sore,
I am stretching my hands to go
Where nothing can tempt me more.
Ah, none but my Lord hath seen
How often I've swerved aside—
How the word or the look serene
Hath hidden the heart of pride.
When a beggar once crouched in need,
I flung him my priestly stole,
And the people did laud the deed,
Withholding the while their dole:
Then I closed my lips on a curse,
Like a scorpion curled within,
On such cheap charity. Worse
Was even than theirs, my sin!
And once when a royal hand
Brake bread for the Christ's sweet grace,
I was proud that a queen should stand
And serve in the henchman's place.
But sorest of all bestead
Was a night in my narrow cell,
As I pondered with low-bowed head
A purpose that pleased me well.
'Twas fond to the sense and fair,
Attuned to the heart and will,
And yet on its face it bare
The look of a duty still;
And I said, as my doubts took wing,
"Where duty and choice accord,
It is even a pleasant thing,
To the flesh, to serve the Lord."
I turned and I saw a sight
Wondrous and strange to see—
A being as marvelous bright
As the visions of angels be:
His vesture was wrought of flame,
And a crown on his forehead shone,
With jewels of nameless name,
Like the glory about the Throne.
"Worship thou me," he said;
And I sought, as I sank, to trace,
Through his hands above me spread,
The lineaments of his face.
I pored on each palm to see
The scar of the stigma, where
They had fastened him to the Tree,
But no print of the nails was there.
Then I shuddered, aghast of brow,
As I cried, "Accurst! abhorred!
Get thee behind me! for thou
Art Satan, and not my Lord!"
He vanished before the spell
Of the Sacred Name I named,
And I lay in my darkened cell
Smitten, astonied, shamed.
Thenceforth, whatever the dress
That a seeming duty wear,
I knew 'twas a wile, unless
The print of the nail was there!
MARGARET J. PRESTON.
THE LONG FELLOW OF TI
Colman put down his book and looked about the parlors and piazzas of the hotel, and went and spoke to the barkeeper: "Have you seen Mr. Field lately?"
"No: he hasn't been in here since supper."
Colman went out and walked down toward the head of the lake. Passing out of the shadow of the trees, the open shore was before him, and the wharf at some distance, with the tiny steamer, the Wanita, lying by it in the moonlight. There was some one coming along the sandy road, and Colman leaned against a tree and waited for him. The dark side of the boat was toward him, and though it was quite late, a light showed in one of her windows. When the person on the beach came near Colman, he turned and stood watching the light till it went out, and then came on. Colman stepped out, and the comer said, "Halloa, Phil! is that you? You startled me. Going in?"
Philip only nodded, and they walked back to the house together, Field whistling absently. They went up to their room, and Field sat by the window while Colman struck a light.
"Dan," said Philip abruptly, "I want you to come on with me to-morrow."
Field was looking out through the trees toward the wharf and boats at the head of the lake. He turned sharply and answered: "Phil, you're a prig. I'll do nothing of the kind."
"We've been here long enough, Dan," Philip went on, taking no notice of the rudeness except in his manner. "I shall go north in the morning. I wish you would come with me."
"The deuce you do!" Field retorted. "You may do as you please. We came to stay as long as we enjoyed it here, and there's nothing to go for, that I know of."
No more was said. Colman went to bed, and Field sat smoking by the window. After a while he forgot his cigar, and it went out. He heard the wind whispering among the trees that almost brushed his face. Through the branches he got glimpses of the lake placid under the moon, and the black breadths of shadow below the opposite hills. He sat a long while, and the house became still. He seemed alone with the night, and the hush and awe of it touched him and moulded his thought. It was very late when he got up at last. The lamp was still burning, and Field had not taken off his hat. He went over and sat down on the edge of the bed, and looked at his sleeping friend until the latter opened his eyes.
"Phil," said Field, "you're not a prig, but I'm a fool. I'm coming with you in the morning."
"All right, Dan," Philip answered. "I'm glad you are coming. Good-night."
They went on north next day with no definite plan, came to the lower lake and the old fort on the cliff, and, taking a great liking to the place, lingered in the neighborhood from day to day. They happened one evening upon a queer, secluded public-house across the lake, where they fell in with a long, lean, leathery young native, who appeared to be a guide and waterman, and told them stories of the hunting and fishing among the lakes and mountains in a vein of unconscious humor and a low, even, husky voice which the friends found very agreeable. They met him again at a fair and horse-race at Scalp Point, and found their liking for him increased. Finally, they were to go south at noon on Friday, and then put it off till the night boat. After supper they took out the skiff from the rocky landing for a last row. They pulled round under the dark cliffs that rose sheer from the water and were crowned with the wall of the old fort, the cliffs themselves seamed across with strata of white, like mortar-lines of some Titanic masonry. They gave chase to a tug puffing northward half a mile to the right, towing two or three canal-boats through the still water and the stiller night. Then a sail came ghostily out of the shadow astern, and stole on them as they drew away and waited for it. By and by the boat crept up, dropped away a little from the light wind, and passed close to leeward. There was one man in her sitting in the stern, and the whole made hardly a sound. They knew the man at the tiller: it was the long fellow again. He took them in, and they talked as they drifted on. The lights behind the locusts fell far astern.
"Come, come!" said Colman at last: "this won't do. We have a long pull now, and we're to be off at two in the morning."
Field turned and asked the young fellow if he was engaged for a week or two. No, not especially: he had been running parties a good deal off and on, but they were getting pretty thin now, and there was not much call for boats.
"Will you go with me on a gunning and fishing cruise through the lakes?" asked Field; and the long fellow said he'd go with him as soon as any other man, and when should they start? "To-morrow morning," answered Field, "any time you like."
They got into the skiff, threw off the line, and pulled back to the Fort House; that is, Field pulled and Colman lay in the stern and listened to the water gurgling under the boat. They landed and climbed up the rocks.
"So you're going back?" said Colman. "Dan, I wish you'd come home."
Field flushed and turned sharply. "Oh, hang your preaching, Phil!" he snapped out. "You're too infernally flat. Who said anything about going back?"
The steamer was due in three or four hours. They went straight to bed, and it seemed about ten minutes afterward when Colman woke with a start and saw Field striking a light: it was twenty minutes of two. They waited an hour for the boat, walking about or sitting by the fire. Then the landlord came in with a lantern and said the boat was coming, and they went down to the wharf and waited for her. The bell rang, the wheels ploughed in, the friends bade each other good-night, gave a hearty grip of the hand, and then there was one left alone. Field went back to bed. In the morning he made himself a rough outfit of clothes and boots, and started on foot with his guide. He did not know the guide's name, and called him "Long" to begin with, and the guide answered as if that had been his name from his christening, only glancing askance at Field the first time with a twinkle in his eye, and would give no other name after that. "A name was only a handle to a man, any way, and one was as good as another, or better."
It would be hard to define the motive that led Field to answer. "Well, if it's the same to you, Long it is. You can call me Meadow when you don't think of anything better."
Long had an evident admiration for his companion which increased every day. Field was a good shot, as good a fisherman as himself, rowed and walked and sailed with about equal strength and skill, could do wonderful tricks of tossing balls and other feats, could eat anything or go without, sleep anywhere, and be good-humored in any circumstances; and Field found Long a trusty, self-contained, clever fellow, and was much entertained by his dry humor and amusing stories of bear-hunts and deer-hunts and queer adventures. They tramped that region pretty thoroughly, camping out at nights or sleeping at the nearest of the little settlements.
One morning they took a boat at the head of the lake and rowed down toward a pond on the east side among the hills, where Long said the ducks came "so thick you couldn't see through 'em, and where the water was so shallow and the mud so deep that, when the ducks were shot, the Devil couldn't get 'em 'thout he had a dog." After a while a wind came swooping down on the quiet water through a dip in the hills, and nearly blew the skiff's bows out of water. The sleeping lake woke up, pitched and foamed, and beat upon the bows and dashed over the young men till they were nearly as wet as the waves themselves. Field was pulling to Long's stroke, the wind fluttering his hair in his eyes and the water running down his back, but he would not say anything till Long did. Presently Long looked round over his shoulder, and hailed, "I guess we'd best throw up and get a tow: I hear the Wanita coming down."
Presently the little steamer came along and threw them a line. Long caught it and made it fast. They were nearly jerked out of the water or flung into it, and then went boiling along in the steamer's wake. A boat-hand drew in the line, and they climbed out, swaying and floundering through a cloud of spray, and all the passengers crowding back to see. They went forward and up on deck, and the captain spoke to Long from the pilot-house, calling him Trapp. Long talked to him through the window and introduced Field when he came along: "Mr. Meadow, Cap'n Charner. I'm showing him bear-tracks and things around the pond."
"How do you do, captain?" said Field. "Don't know me in the part of Neptune, eh?"
"Oho!" said the captain, glancing aside from the wheel. "It's you, is it? Where's your friend?—Trapp," he continued, "you'd better take Mr. Meadow down and get Hess to dry his coat." They went down to the little cabin, where a trim, plainly dressed, but very pretty girl was busy with some sewing. She started and laughed when she saw Long and how wet he was. Then she saw there was somebody else, and she blushed a little.
"Mr. Meadow, Hess," and "Miss Hessie Charner, Meadow," introduced Long; and he told her what the captain had bidden him.
The girl brought a coat of her father's for Field, and hung his up to dry near the furnace, and the three chatted together till the boat warped in to the wharf at her trip's end.
Long did not know how it was, but it happened constantly after that that they fell in with the Wanita somewhere on her trip. He found that accident pleasant enough at first, but somehow changed his mind before long, and managed that they did not happen upon the boat the next day. That afternoon Field had some business in Bee, and set off in that direction, engaging to meet Long with traps and bear-bait at the Hexagon Hotel the next morning. His business in Bee could not have required much time, for when Long happened down at Leewell that evening, Field was smoking with Captain Charner in the little cabin of the Wanita, the captain's daughter sitting by with some sewing. Long sat with them a while, but he would not smoke, and his conversation could not be called brilliant or amusing. Field, on the other hand, talked his best and was in the highest spirits. Long got up and went away presently, with only a good-night to the captain.
One evening, a little later, two persons were looking out on the lake and the dark hills beyond, and talking in low tones by the rail on the lower deck of the Wanita as she lay at her wharf. A tall man passed down along the shore, and went by without looking round. An hour later Field was walking quickly along the shore-road in the moonlight, crushing the gravel and whistling an air under his breath, when Long came out of the shaded piece ahead and started past without any sign of recognition.
On Thursday of that same week Field left Long at a point on the east side of the lake, to go to Bee; and half an hour after arriving there was out on the Leewell road, on horseback, galloping south, singing a stave of a song as he dashed along. There was a dance that night at the George Hotel, and Field was there, the handsomest and gayest of men; and there was no prettier girl in the rooms than the one he brought and danced so well with, and whom no one else knew. Late at night, looking up from her flushed and happy face in a pause of the dance, his eyes fell on another face, neither flushed nor happy, looking at him from a door across the length of the saloon, and he was doubly spirited and devoted after that. He did not see the face again, but he was half conscious of being watched as the ball came at last to an end, and he saw his charge home to the house of the friend in the town with whom she was to spend the night. He turned away with a set face when the door had closed upon her, and walked back quickly the way he had come, peering into the shadows, but he saw nothing. He got his horse from the stable and rode north along the shore as the gray morning stole over the sky and the ever-sleeping hills and the broad, calm, misty lake. He gave the black mare heel and rein, and brought her white and panting into Bee. He did not put on the rough clothes again, but went as he was to meet Long at the appointed place across the lake. He ordered the boatman who rowed him to wait. Long was waiting for him, lying on a grassy slope. He nodded when Field came up.
"Long," said the latter, "I guess this is about played out."
"Just about," answered Long, looking at him steadily without moving. "guess you'd best quit."
"Very well, come up to the Ti House at noon and we'll settle up." And he turned and strode away. He was smoking on the porch of the Ti House when Long came up about noon. He took down his feet from the rail, threw away his cigar and went in with him. He sat down at a table, and Long took a chair opposite without a word. Field made a calculation on a scrap of paper, took out a roll of bills' and counted out the amount. "There, Long," he said good-humoredly, "this week won't be up till Monday, but we'll call it even time."
Something unpleasant came into the guide's eyes when Field said "Long." "I'll trouble you," he said, "not to mention that there name again, meaning me."
He put out his long arm and knuckled hand and drew the bills across the board. He counted out part and pushed the rest back. "This is mine," he said: "I'd ha' made about that on the lake, average luck. I don't want to be beholden to you, nor you to me."
"As you please," answered Field, folding up the bills. He wrote on a slip of paper, wrapped it round the roll and tied all with a bit of string: "I'll keep this for you if you say so. When you want it, just let me know. There is my number."
He twirled a card across the table, and it fell face down before Long. He took it up without turning it over, tore it across and dropped it on the floor.
"Stranger," he said, "you and me's quits. I don't know you and you don't know me. But if I was a friend of yours, and advisin' you what was best for you, I'd say to you, 'Go home.'" His skull-cap drawn forward, and his face set and threatening, he leaned forward with his powerful arms on the table and spoke in his usual low, unemphatic way, and with his deliberate, huskily-musical voice. Field laughed: his right arm was back upon the arm of his chair, and his fingers under his coat played with something that clicked.
"Just so," Long went on, as if Field had spoken, perhaps a shade darker in the face, but with the same even manner and voice. "Our bears don't carry no coward's devil-fingers that kill by p'inting at twenty foot, but they hev got teeth and claws."
Field started up and flushed like fire. "Did you say coward?" he said. "By –! that's more than I'll take from you!" And his voice and his hand on the back of his chair shook a little as he spoke.
Long lay back in his chair, folded his arms and nodded: "You heard what I said. Maybe it ain't York English, but it's such as we hev in these parts."
Field stood a minute looking at him. Then he drew out a silver-mounted revolver from his pocket and laid it on the table.
"There," he said, "I make you a present of it. Be careful: it is loaded and cocked."
Long looked up with something like admiration in his face. He took the pistol in his hand, went to the window and fired the six barrels, one after the other. The landlord came in to see what it was.
"Mr. Wannock," said Long, "lockup this pistol till Mr. Meadow calls for it."
"It is not mine," said Field: "I gave it to you, and you took it."
Long went out without a word.
Field did not go home. He was back and forth about the lakes, mostly about the upper one, for a week or two after that. He turned up in all sorts of places, fished in deep water and shoal, rowed and shot and climbed the mountains. He fell in with the Wanita and her people very often. One evening—it was Thursday, the twentieth—he was in the village of Ti, and walked out with his cigar, alone. He strolled up the road to the high levels and walked on. The moon was high and bright, and the country about him surpassingly peaceful and beautiful under the white sheen. He came at last to the old fort and wandered through the ruins, ghostly and weird in the calm moonlight. A flock of sheep was lying under the trembling old walls. "Peace and war," he muttered to himself, and leaned against a crumbling wall a little while, looking at the dreamy picture. He got up on the old ramparts and picked his way out till he stood on the outermost point of the star, where the massive wall stands almost as solid as when the Frenchmen built it a century and a half ago. This outer angle of the fort rises sheer from the edge of the perpendicular cliff whose foot is washed by the waters of the lake.
Field sat down on the stones with his feet hanging over, and looked down and around. The still, bright water, the hills bright and black in light or shadow, and the serene sky made a scene exceedingly solemn and impressive. Below, in the sombre shadow of the cliff, Field heard the faint, musical bubble of the water among the rocks, and a sheep bleated once behind the ruined fort: those were the only sounds. He dropped the end of his cigar, and watched the spark till it went out suddenly far down.
The scene very naturally reminded him of his friend. Down there they had rowed together—twice was it, or three times? Strange that he had forgotten already, but it seemed a long time since. Below this wall on the left they had stood the first day they were here, and chipped bits of mortar and stone for mementoes. He remembered how Phil had hunted the whole place for a flower without finding one—he wondered whether it was for any one in particular that he had wanted it so much. Yes, it seemed an age since that day, and how everything had changed! Under the cliff there to the left—he could not see it, but he knew it was there—was the little wooden wharf where he had parted from Phil between night and morning. And he wished to God he had gone home with him.
He heard a crunching sound behind him, and looked round sharply. Then he turned and got up on his feet, and stood with his back to the precipice. The long fellow stood in the path facing him, with his hands in his pockets and his dark face in the shadow. A glance told Field, what he knew already, that there was only one way to go back. His face was white, but there was no more tremor in his voice than if he had leaned against a pyramid instead of a hundred feet of thin air, when he said, "Well?"
There was something just a little strained and by no means pleasant to hear in the familiar, husky voice that answered, "Ain't it kind o' dangerous out there? Suppose you was to fall off there?"
"I don't choose to suppose it," was the steady answer. "Let's talk about something else."
"It ain't pleasant to think of, is it?" the huskily-musical voice went on. "It must be something like a hundred foot to the rocks down there." He paused and began again: "Moonshine's a queerish light, though, ain't it? Makes you look as white now as if you was scared."
"That's very strange, isn't it?" Field replied. "Do you think it would have the same effect on you if you stood in my place?"
"I'm – if I don't!" Long broke out, with a twitching motion of his head, and trembling as he spoke; "and I'd be so cold my teeth would chatter and my veins grog."
"Come," Field said sternly, beginning to feel that if he stood much longer on that spot he should grow dizzy and fall, "let's have no more of this. Have you anything you wish to propose? If you haven't, I'll trouble you to move on and let me pass."
"I propose," replied the other, with a twist of his head, as if there was something in his throat hard to swallow, speaking slowly and repeating the words—"I propose to throw you over."
Field knew that the fellow united the strength of the bear and the agility of the wild-cat. He knew that, even if he had not the terrible disadvantage of position, he would stand no chance in a struggle. Glancing down, he caught the flash of a wave upon the black rocks far below. But he only bit his lip and stood still, a little whiter perhaps, but his eyes never flinching from the other's face. When he did not speak, Long asked, "Do you know what that means?"
The answer came straight and startling, "Yes, it means death."
"I guess you're about right," Long continued. "And I calculate you're about as well prepared as you'll 'most ever be."
Field began to show the strain upon his nerves and the sense of his desperate state, but only by the evident tension of the muscles of the jaw and the unnatural calm of his manner and low, forced tone. "Very likely," he said; and added slowly, "but I'll not go alone."
"Maybe not. I don't much care," was the sullen reply. "This place or that since you come, there ain't much choice. But if you've got anything on your mind that you'd like to have off before you quit, you'd best have it up."
"I have only one thing to say to you," was the reply: "you are not going to throw me over." There was a dimness in his young eyes then and a rising in his throat. He thought of a great many things and people in a very brief space, and the world and a score of friendly faces seemed very sweet and hard to let go. And yet at the same time another and sterner self steadfastly put all that aside, and triumphed over the shrinking of the flesh from the dreadful certainty, and of the spirit from the dread unknown; and to the long fellow's advance and fierce question, "Who'll hinder me?" he cried aloud, "I will." He turned and shut his eyes, gathered himself together, and sprang out into the awful abyss. With his arms by his side and his feet together, swift and straight as an arrow, he dropped through the moonlight and through the black shadow, and struck with a quick, keen plunge a moment afterward a dizzy distance down.
Lying on his face, looking down with staring eyes, and clinging fiercely to the stones for a great fear that took hold of him and shook him, the long fellow suddenly heard the shock of an oar, and saw round to the left a boat slide out of the black shadow under the cliffs and into the calm stretch of moonlit water. He rose up then and fled for miles like a hunted hare.
Field was quickly missed, and suspicion immediately set upon long Bill Trapp. More people knew of the little drama they and one more had been playing than either had any idea of. A boy from the Ti House had passed Field up near the old battle-ground, and coming back from the village soon after had followed Trapp and seen him turn up toward the old fort. A handkerchief was found on the top of the cliff marked "D.F.," and Field's hat was found among the rocks along the shore. A warrant was issued for Trapp's arrest, and he was hunted high and low by a posse of constables, but not taken. And meanwhile Field was lying unconscious in an old farm-house by the lake-side a mile or two north. Old Trapp had been out that night, looking for his son—he and Bill's mother had been a good deal worried about him the last week or two—and the old man had been down to Ti inquiring for him, having heard nothing of him for some days. He was pulling out, on his way home, from under the rocks below the fort, and saw the two men standing out in the angle of the wall high up. He saw the awful leap and plunge, rowed round and fished out the limp shape of a young man he had never seen, worked the water out of him, rowed him home and carried him and laid him in bed. He left him there, breathing but unconscious, and went for Dr. Niedever of Rawdon. He must have struck his head in some way: there was a cut on his forehead, but no other serious injury that could be seen. If he had struck sidewise, it would not have mattered much whether it was water or rock that he struck; but his leap had carried him beyond the debris at the cliff's foot, and, coming down perfectly straight as he did, ten feet deeper water would have let him off little the worse. As it was, he was unconscious for some time. When he came to himself he was extremely weak and hungry, and perfectly contented to let them do with him as they pleased. The doctor's daily visits, the movements of the queer old couple as they came in and out, fed him and gave his draughts, the homely old place and the placid expanse of the lake which he saw by turning his head, were as much and no more to him than his own body lying there day after day. They were parts of a pantomime, of which he was actor and spectator, but in which he had no special interest, and which he was perfectly happy to go to sleep and leave. Gradually his brain cleared, and slowly he got back the thread of recollection where it had broken so sharply, and began to spin again; and among the first clear new ideas that took shape out of his scattered wits was one, that the queer old couple had been exceedingly good to him, and that they had no special reason for kindness in his case; and, second, that this gruff, ruddy, Indian-haired doctor was a man of skill and decision, and one not too fond of Mr. Daniel Field.
The second Sunday afternoon Field was lying quietly looking out on the lake from the bed, and thinking in a mood uncommonly serious for him, not very complacent nor very proud. Some feelings that had been stronger than he cared to resist these last few weeks had grown vague and intermittent—some new ones had come into their place.
Dr. Niedever came in and looked at him, giving him no greeting and treating him brusquely enough. He took a turn about the room, and faced round. "Well, young man," he said, "we pulled you through a pretty tight place."
The manner and tone angered Field. "That's your trade, isn't it?" he answered. "I suppose money will pay you."
"Money!" roared the old doctor. "Of course you'll pay, and pay well. But do you think I've done it for your sake, or your money? Look here: he served you right when he threw you over."
"I suppose he'd hang as well as another," answered Field.
"He wouldn't hang. There's no evidence but hearsay and surmise against him. If you had died, your body would never have been found. A hundred good men would testify to his character, and I'd have been one. He stands a worse chance now than if you were anchored to the bottom of the lake. I haven't saved your life for his sake nor for yours: I have done it for this old man. You owe me nothing but money, but everything you've got, and all you'll ever have, and the chance of redeeming yourself, you owe to old Joe Trapp; and I wish him joy of his debtor!"
"Now, old man," Field answered, "you can go. You needn't come back. I haven't the money now, but old Trapp will give you my card out of my coat. Send your bill to that address and I'll pay you when I can."
The doctor stood looking at him a minute with his hands in his pockets, his red face scowling savagely. He muttered something, turned on his heel and went down. Old Trapp was away at the time, and came home an hour later. He came up and into Field's room with his queer gait and face and stooping old figure.
"My friend," said Field, "I'll trouble you to bring me my clothes: I'm going to get up."
The old man went down and brought them, helped him to dress and come down stairs, and set him by the fire in an easy-chair. The old wife brought and laid on the table a knife, a bunch of keys, a letter, a card-case and cigar-case, a handkerchief newly washed and ironed, a pair of soiled gloves, some pennies and trifles, and two rolls of bills.
"They was wet, you know, and we had to dry 'em separate," said the old man, "but you'll find 'em right, I guess."
Field flushed up when he saw one of the rolls: it was tied with a string, and a bit of paper about it was marked in pencil, partly obliterated, "Long Fellow of Ti." He put that package into his pocket with the' other things, and left the other roll of money on the table.
