One Of Them

He was too much out of temper with the town to interest himself in what went on beneath his windows, and only longed for night, that he might leave it never to return. At last the day began to wane, the shadows fell longer across the empty street, some cawing rooks swept over the tree-tops to their homes in the tall pines, and an occasional wagon rolled heavily by, with field implements in it, – sign all that the hours of labor had drawn to a close. “I shall soon be off,” muttered he; “soon hastening away from a spot whose memory will be a nightmare to me.” In the gray half-light he sat, thinking the thought which has found its way into so many hearts. What meaning have these little episodes of loneliness? What are the lessons they are meant to teach? Are they intended to attach us more closely to those we love, by showing how wearily life drags on in absence from them; or are they meant as seasons of repose, in which we may gain strength for fresh efforts?

Mr. Heron broke in upon these musings. He came to say that crowds were hurrying to the lecture-room, and in a few minutes more Layton might steal away, and, reaching the outskirts of the town, gain the wagon that was to convey him to Lebanon.

“You ‘ll not forget this place, I reckon,” said he, as he assisted Layton to close and fasten up his carpet-bag. “You’ll be proud, one of these days, to say, ‘I was there some five-and-twenty, or maybe thirty, years back. There was only one what you ‘d call a first-rate hotel in the town; it was kept by a certain Dan Heron, the man that made Bunkumville, who built Briggs Block and the Apollonicon. I knew him.’ Yes, sir, I think I hear you sayin’ it.”

“I half suspect you are mistaken, my friend,” said Layton, peevishly. “I live in the hope never to hear the name of this place again, as assuredly I am determined never to speak of it.”

“Well, you Britishers can’t help envy, that’s a fact,” said Heron, with a sigh that showed how deeply he felt this unhappy infirmity. “Take a glass of something to warm you, and let’s be movin’. I’ll see you safe through the town.”

Layton thankfully accepted his guidance, and, each taking a share of the luggage, they set forth into the street. Night was now fast falling, and they could move along without any danger of detection; but, besides this, there were few abroad, the unaccustomed attraction of the lecture-room having drawn nearly all in that direction. Little heeding the remarks by which Heron beguiled the way, Layton moved on, only occupied with the thought of how soon he would be miles away from this unloved spot, when his companion suddenly arrested his attention by grasping his arm, as he said, “There; did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked Layton, impatiently.

“The cheerin’, the shoutin’! That’s for old Poll. It’s the joy of our folk to see the old boy once more about. It would be well for some of our public men if they were half as popular in their own States as he is with the people down here. There it is again!”

Layton was not exactly in the fit humor to sympathize with this success, and neither the lecturer nor his audience engaged any large share of his good-will; he, therefore, merely muttered an impatient wish to get along, while he quickened his own pace in example.

“Well, I never heerd greater applause than that. They ‘re at it again!”

A wild burst of uproarious enthusiasm at the same moment burst forth and filled the air.

“There ain’t no mockery there, stranger,” said Heron; “that ain’t like the cheer the slaves in the Old World greet their kings with, while the police stands by to make a note of the men as has n’t yelled loud enough.” This taunt was wrung from him by the insufferable apathy of Layton’s manner; but even the bitterness of the sneer failed to excite retort.

“Is this our shortest road?” was all the reply he made.

“No; this will save us something,” said Heron, with the quickness of one inspired by a sudden thought; and at the same instant he turned into a narrow street on his left.

They walked briskly along for a few minutes without speaking, when, suddenly turning the angle of the way, they found themselves directly in front of the assembly-room, from whose three great doors the light streamed boldly out across the great square before it. The place seemed densely thronged, and even on the pillars outside persons were grouped, anxious at this cheap expedient to participate in the pleasure of the lecture. By this time all was hushed and quiet, and it was evident by the rapt attention of the audience that all were eagerly bent on listening to the words of the speaker.

“Why have we come this way?” asked Layton, peevishly.

“Jest that you might see that sight yonder, sir,” said Heron, calmly; “that you might carry away with you the recollection of a set of hard-worked, horny-handed men, laborin’ like Turks for a livin’, and yet ready and willin’ to give out of their hard earnin’s to listen to one able to instruct or improve ‘em. That’s why you come this way, stranger. Ain’t the reason a good one?”

Layton did not reply, but stood watching with deep interest the scene of silent, rapt attention in the crowded room, from which now not the slightest sound proceeded. Drawn by an attraction he could not explain, he slowly mounted the steps and gained a place near the door, but from which he was unable to catch sight of the lecturer. He was speaking; but, partly from the distance, and in part from the low tones of his voice, Layton could not hear his words. Eager to learn by what sort of appeal an audience like this could be addressed, – curious to mark the tone by which success was achieved, – he pushed vigorously onward till he reached one of the columns that supported the roof of the hall, and which, acting as a conductor, conveyed every syllable to his ears. The lecturer’s voice, artificially raised to reach the limits of the room, was yet full, strong, and sonorous, and it was managed with all the skill of a practised speaker. He had opened his address by mentioning the circumstances which had then brought him before them. He explained that but from an adverse incident – a passing indisposition – they were on that night to have heard one of those accomplished speakers who had won fame and honor in the old country. There was a reserve and delicacy in the mention of the circumstances by which he became the substitute for this person that struck Layton forcibly; he was neither prepared for the sentiment nor the style of the orator; but, besides, there was in the utterance of certain words, and in an occasional cadence, something that made his heart beat quicker, and sent a strange thrill through him.

The explanation over, there was a pause, – a pause of silence so perfect that as the speaker laid down the glass of water he had been drinking, the sound was heard throughout the room. He now began, his voice low, his words measured, his manner subdued. Layton could not follow him throughout, but only catch enough to perceive that he was giving a short sketch of the relative conditions of England and Ireland antecedent to the Union. He pictured the one, great, rich, powerful, and intolerant, with all the conscious pride of its own strength, and the immeasurable contempt for whatever differed from it; the other, bold, daring, and defiant, not at all aware of its inability to cope with its more powerful neighbor in mere force, but reposing an unbounded trust in its superior quickness, its readiness of resource, its fertility of invention. He dwelt considerably on those Celtic traits by which he claimed for Irishmen a superiority in all those casualties of life which demand promptitude and ready-wittedness.

“The gentleman who was to have occupied this chair tonight,” said he, raising his voice, so as to be heard throughout the room, “would, I doubt not, have given you a very different portrait, and delivered a very different judgment. You would at this moment have been listening to a description of that great old country we are all so proud of, endeavoring, with all the wise prudence of a careful mother, to train up a wayward and capricious child in the paths of virtue and obedience. But you will bear more patiently with me; you will lend me a more favorable hearing and a kindlier sympathy, for America, too, was a runaway daughter, and though it was only a Gretna Green match you first made with Freedom, you have lived to see the marriage solemnized in all form, and acknowledged by the whole world.”

When the cheer which greeted these words had subsided, he went on to glance at what might possibly have been the theme of the other lecturer: “I am told,” said he, – “for I never saw him, – that he was a young, a very young man. But to speak of the scenes to which I am coming, it is not enough to have read, studied, and reflected. A man should have done more; he ought to have seen, heard, and acted. These confessions are bought dearly, for it is at the price of old age I can make them; but is it not worth old age to have heard Burke in all the majestic grandeur of his great powers, – to have listened to the scathing whirlwind of Grattan’s passion, – to have sat beneath the gallery when Flood denounced him, and that terrible duel of intellect took place, far more moving than the pistol encounter that followed it? Ay, I knew them all! I have jested with Parsons, laughed with Toler, laughed and wept both with poor Curran. You may find it difficult to believe that he who now addresses you should ever have moved in the class to which such men pertained. You here, whose course of life, sustained by untiring toil and animated by a spirit of resolute courage, moves ever upward, who are better to-day than yesterday, and will to-morrow be farther on the road than to-day, who labor the soil of which your grandchildren will be the proud possessors, may have some difficulty in tracing a career of continued descent, and will be slow to imagine how a man could fall from a station of respectability and regard, and be – such as I am!”

Just as the speaker had uttered these words, a cry, so wild and piercing as to thrill through every heart, resounded through the building; the great mass of men seemed to heave and swell like the sea in a storm. It was one of those marvellous moments in which human emotions seem whispered from breast to breast, and men are moved by a strange flood of sympathy; and now the crowd opened, like a cleft wave, to give passage to a young man, who with a strength that seemed supernatural forced his way to the front. There was that in his wild, excited look that almost bespoke insanity, while he struggled to effect his passage.

Astonished by the scene of commotion in front of him, and unable to divine its cause, the lecturer haughtily asked, “Who comes here to disturb the order of this meeting?” The answer was quickly rendered, as, springing over the rail that fenced the stage, Alfred cried out, “My father! my father!” and, throwing his arms around him, pressed him to his heart. As for the old man, he stood stunned and speechless for a moment, and then burst into tears.

CHAPTER XLV. OF BYGONES

Were we at the outset instead of the close of our journey, we could not help dwelling on the scene the lecture-room presented as the discovery became whispered throughout the crowd. Our goal is, however, now almost in sight, and we must not tarry. We will but record one thought, as we say that they who were accustomed to associate the idea of fine sympathies with fine clothes and elegance of manner, would have been astonished at the instinctive delicacy and good breeding of that dense mass of men. Many were disappointed at the abrupt conclusion of a great enjoyment, nearly all were moved by intense curiosity to know the history of those so strangely brought together again, and yet not one murmured a complaint, not one obtruded a question; but with a few words of kindly greeting, a good wish, or a blessing, they stole quietly away and left the spot.

Seated side by side in a room of the inn, old Layton and his son remained till nigh daybreak. How much had they to ask and answer of each other! Amidst the flood of questions poured forth, anything like narrative made but sorry progress; but at length Alfred came to hear how his father had been duped by a pretended friend, cheated out of his discovery, robbed of his hard-won success, and then denounced as an impostor.

“This made me violent, and then they called me mad. A little more of such persecution and their words might have come true.

“I scarcely yet know to what I am indebted for my liberation. I was a patient in Swift’s Hospital, when one day came the Viceroy to visit it, and with him came a man I had met before in society, but not over amicably, nor with such memories as could gratify. ‘Who is this?’ cried he, as he saw me at work in the garden. ‘I think I remember his face.’ The keeper whispered something, and he replied, ‘Ah! indeed!’ while he drew near where I was digging. ‘What do you grow here?’ asked he of me, in a half-careless tone. ‘Madder,’ shouted I, with a yell that made him start; and then, recovering himself, he hastened off to report the answer to the Viceroy.

“They both came soon after to where I was. The Viceroy, with that incaution which makes some people talk before the insane as though they were deaf, said, in my hearing, ‘And so you tell me he was once a Fellow of Trinity?’ ‘Yes, my Lord,’ said I, assuming the reply, ‘a Regius Professor and a Medallist, now a Madman and a Pauper. The converse is the gentleman at your side. He began as a fool, and has ended as a Poor Law Commissioner!’ They both turned away, but I cried out, ‘Mr. Ogden, one word with you before you go.’ He came back. ‘I have been placed here,’ said I, ‘at the instance of a man who has robbed me. I am not mad, but I am friendless. The name of my persecutor is Holmes. He writes himself Captain Nicholas Holmes – ’

“He would not hear another word, but hurried away without answering me. I know no more than that I was released ten days after, – that I was turned out in the streets to starve or rob. My first thought was to find out this man Holmes. To meet and charge him with his conduct towards me, in some public place, would have been a high vengeance; but I sought him for weeks in vain, and at last learned he had gone abroad.

“How I lived all that time I cannot tell you; it is all to me now like a long and terrible dream. I was constantly in the hands of the police, and rarely a day passed that I had not some angry altercation with the authorities. I was in one of these one morning, when, half stupefied with cold and want, I refused to answer further. The magistrate asked, ‘Has he any friends? Is there no one who takes any interest in him?’ The constable answered, ‘None, your worship; and it is all the better, he would only heap disgrace on them!’

“It was then, for the first moment of my life, the full measure of all I had become stood plainly before me. In those few words lay the sentence passed upon my character. From that hour forth I determined never to utter my name again. I kept this pledge faithfully, nor was it difficult; few questioned, none cared for me. I lived – if that be the word for it – in various ways. I compounded drugs for chemists, corrected the press for printers, hawked tracts, made auction catalogues, and at last turned pyrotechnist to a kind of Vauxhall, all the while writing letters home with small remittances to your mother, who had died when I was in the madhouse. In a brief interval of leisure I went down to the North, to learn what I might of her last moments, and to see where they had laid her. There was a clergyman there who had been kind and hospitable towards me in better days, and it was to his house I repaired.”

He paused, and for some minutes was silent. At length he said, —

“It is strange, but there are certain passages in my life, not very remarkable in themselves, that remain distinct and marked out, just as one sees certain portions of landscape by the glare of lightning flashes in a thunderstorm, and never forgets them after. Such was my meeting with this Mr. Millar. He was distributing bread to the poor, with the assistance of his clerk, on the morning that I came to his door. The act, charitable and good in itself, he endeavored to render more profitable by some timely words of caution and advice; he counselled gratitude towards those who bestowed these bounties, and thrift in their use. Like all men who have never known want themselves, he denied that it ever came save through improvidence. He seemed to like the theme, and dwelt on it with pleasure, the more as the poor sycophants who received his alms eagerly echoed back concurrence in all that he spoke disparagingly of themselves. I waited eagerly till he came to a pause, and then I spoke.

“‘Now,’ said I, ‘let us reverse this medal, and read it on the other side. Though as poor and wretched as any of those about, I have not partaken of your bounty, and I have the right to tell you that your words are untrue, your teaching unsound, and your theory a falsehood. To men like us, houseless, homeless, and friendless, you may as well preach good breeding and decorous manners, as talk of providence and thrift. Want is a disease; it attacks the poor, whose constitutions are exposed to it; and to lecture us against its inroads is like cautioning us against cold, by saying “Take care to wear strong boots, – mind that you take your greatcoat, – be sure that you do not expose yourself to the night air.” You would be shocked, would you not, to address such sarcastic counsels to such poor, barefoot, ragged creatures as we are? And yet you are not shocked by enjoining things fifty times more absurd, five hundred times more difficult. Thrift is the inhabitant of warm homesteads, where the abundant meal is spread upon the board and the fire blazes on the hearth. It never lives in the hovel, where the snowdrift lodges in the chimney and the rain beats upon the bed of straw!’

“‘Who is this fellow?’ cried the Rector, outraged at being thus replied to. ‘Where did he come from?’

“‘From a life of struggle and hardship,’ said I, ‘that if you had been exposed to and confronted with, you had died of starvation, despite all your wise saws on thrift and providence.’

“‘Gracious mercy!’ muttered he, ‘can this be – ’ and then he stopped; and beckoning me to follow him into an inner room, he retired.

“‘Do I speak to Dr. Layton?’ asked he, curtly, when we were alone.

“‘I was that man,’ said I. ‘I am nothing now.’

“‘By what unhappy causes have you come to this?’

“‘The lack of that same thrift you were so eloquent about, perhaps. I was one of those who could write, speak, invent, and discover; but I was never admitted a brother of the guild of those who save. The world, however, has always its compensations, and I met thrifty men. Some of them stole my writings, and some filched my discoveries. They have prospered, and live to illustrate your pleasant theory. But I have not come here to make my confessions; I would learn of you certain things about what was once my home.’

“He was most kind, – he would have been more than kind to me had I let him; but I would accept of nothing. ‘I did not even break bread under his roof, though I had fasted for a day and a half. He had a few objects left with him to give me, which I took, – the old pocket-book one of them, – and then I went away.”

The old man’s narrative was henceforth one long series of struggles with fortune. He concealed none of those faults by which he had so often wrecked his better life. Hating and despising the companionship to which his reduced condition had brought him, he professed to believe there was less degradation in drunkenness than in such association. Through all he said, in fact, there was the old defiant spirit of early days, a scornful rejection of all assistance, and even, in failure and misery, a self-reliance that seemed invincible. He had come to America by the invitation of a theatrical manager, who had failed, leaving him in the direst necessity and want.

The dawn of day found him still telling of his wayward life, its sorrows, its struggles, and defeats.

CHAPTER XLVI. THE DOCTOR’S NARRATIVE

Old Layton never questioned his son whither they were going, or for what, till the third day of their journeying together. Such, indeed, was the preoccupation of his mind, that he travelled along unmindful of new places and new people, all his thoughts deeply engaged by one single theme. Brief as this interval was, what a change had it worked in his appearance! Instead of the wild and haggard look his features used to wear, their expression was calm, somewhat stern, perhaps, and such as might have reminded one who had seen him in youth of the Herbert Layton of his college days. He had grown more silent, too, and there was in his manner the same trait of haughty reserve which once distinguished him. His habits of intemperance were abandoned at once, and without the slightest reference to motive or intention he gave his son to see that he had entered on a new course in life.

“Have you told me where we are going, Alfred, and have I forgotten it?” said he, on the third day of the journey.

“No, father; so many other things occurred to us to talk over that I never thought of this. It is time, however, I should tell you. We are going to meet one who would rather make your acquaintance than be the guest of a king.”

The old man smiled with a sort of cold incredulity, and his son went on to recount how, in collecting the stray papers and journals of the “Doctor,” as they styled him between them, this stranger had come to conceive the greatest admiration for his bold energy of temperament and the superior range of his intellect. The egotism, so long dormant in that degraded nature, revived and warmed up as the youth spoke, and he listened with proud delight at the story of all the American’s devotion to him.