The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863

"No matter," he said under his breath, shaking his head, and putting his hand in a feeble way to his mouth.

"Inanition of soul as well as body," thought the Doctor. "I'll rouse him, cruel or not."

"Have you anything to which to turn, if this disappoints you? Home or friends?"

He waited for an answer. When it came, he felt like an intruder, the man was so quiet, far-off.

"I have nothing,—no friends,—unless I count that boy in the next room. Eh? He has fragments of the old knightly spirit, if his brain be cracked. No others."

"Well, well! You'll forgive me?" said the Doctor. "I did not mean to be coarse. Only I—The matter will succeed, I know. You will find happiness in that. Money and fame will come after."

The old man looked up and came towards him with a certain impressive dignity, though the snuff-colored clothes were bagging about his limbs, and his eyes were heavy and unsteady.

"You're not coarse. No. I'm glad you spoke to me in that way. It is as if you stopped my life short, and made me look before and behind. But you don't understand. I"—

He put his hand to his head, then began buttoning his coat uncertainly, with a deprecating, weak smile.

"I don't know what the matter is. I'm not strong as I used to be."

"You need success."

How strong and breezy the Doctor's voice sounded!

"Cheer up, Mr. Starke. You're a stronger-brained man than I, and twenty years younger. It's something to have lived for a single high purpose like yours, if you succeed. And if not, God's life is broad, and needs other things than air-engines. Perhaps you've been 'in training,' as the street-talk goes, getting your muscles and nerves well grown, and your real work and fight are yet to come."

"I don't know," said the man, dully.

Dr. Bowdler, perhaps, with well-breathed body and soul, did not quite comprehend how vacant and well worn out both heart and lungs were under poor Starke's bony chest.

"You don't seem to comprehend what this engine is to me.—You said the world was broad. I had a mind, even when I was a boy, to do something in it. My father was a small farmer over there in the Jerseys. Well, I used to sit thinking there, after the day's work was done, until my head ached, of how I might do something,—to help, you understand?"

"I understand."

"To make people glad I had lived. I was lazy, too. I'd have liked to settle down and grub like the rest, but this notion kept driving me like, a sting. I can understand why missionaries cross the seas when their hearts stay behind. It grew with me, kept me restless, like a devil inside of me. I'm not strong-brained, as you said. I had only one talent,—for mechanism. They bred me a lawyer, but I was a machinist born. Well,—it's the old story. What's the use of telling it?"

He stopped abruptly, his eyes on the floor.

"Go on. It will be good for both of us. Aikens has not come."

"There's nothing to tell. If it was God or the Devil that led me on to this thing I don't know. I sold myself to it, soul and body. The idea of this invention was not new, but my application was. So it got possession of me. Whatever I made by the law went into it. I tried experiments in a costly way then, had laboratories there, and workshops in the city. My father left me a fortune; that was swallowed up. I worked on with hard struggle then. I was forty years old. I thought success lay just within my reach. God! You don't know how I had fought for it, day by day, all that long life! I was near mad, I think. And then"—

He stopped again, biting his under lip, standing motionless. The Doctor waited until he was controlled.

"Never mind," gently. "Don't go on."

"Yes, I'll tell you all. I was married. A little Quaker girl she was, uneducated, but the gentlest, truest woman God ever made, I think. It rested one to look at her. There were two children. They died. Maybe, if they had lived, it would have been different with me,—I'm so fond of children. I was of her,—God knows I was! But after the children were gone, and the property sunk, and the experiments all topped just short of success, for want of means, I grew irritable and cross,—used to her. It's the way with husbands and wives, sometimes. Well"—

He swallowed some choking in his throat, and hurried on.

"She had some money,—not much, but her own. I wanted it. Then I stopped to think. This engine seemed like a greedy devil swallowing everything. Another step, and she was penniless, ruined: common sense told me that. And I loved her,—well enough to see how my work came between us every hour, made me cruel to her, kept her wretched. If I were gone, she would be better off. I said that to myself day after day. I used to finger the bonds of that money, thinking how it would enable me to finish all I had to do. She wanted me to take it. I knew some day I should do it."

"Did you?"

"No,"—his face clearing. "I was not altogether lost, I think. I left her, settling it on herself. Then I was out of temptation. But I deceived her: I said I was tired of married life, wished to give myself to my work. Then I left her."

"What did she say?"

"She? Nothing that I remember. 'As thee will, Joseph,' that was all, if anything. She had suspected it a long time. If I had stayed with her, I should have used that money,"—his fingers working with his white whiskers. "I've been near starving sometimes since. So I saved her from that,"—looking steadily at the Doctor, when he had finished speaking, but as if he did not see him.

"But your wife? Have you never seen her since?"

"Once." He spoke with difficulty now, but the clergyman suffered him to go on. "I don't know where she is now. I saw her once in the Fulton ferry-boat at New York; she had grown suddenly old and hard. She did not see me. I never thought she could grow so old as that. But I did what I could. I saved her from my life."

Dr. Bowdler looked into the man's eyes as a physician might look at a cancer.

"Since then you have not seen her, I understand you? Not wished to see her?"

There was a moment's pause.

"I have told you the facts of my life, Sir," said the old machinist, with a bow, his stubbly gray hair seeming to stand more erect; "the rest is of trifling interest."

Dr. Bowdler colored.

"Don't be unjust to me, my friend," he said, kindly. "I meant well."

There had been some shuffling noises in the next room in the half-hour just past, which the Doctor had heard uneasily, raising his voice each time to stifle the sound. A servant came to the door now, beckoning him out. As he went, Starke watched him from under his bushy brows, smiling, when he turned and apologized for leaving him.

That man was a thorough man, of good steel. What an infinite patience there was in his voice! He was glad he had told him so much; he breathed freer himself for it. But he was not going to whine. Whatever pain had been in his life he had left out of that account. What right had any man to know what his wife was to him? Other men had given up home and friends and wife for the truth's sake, and not whimpered over it.

What a long time they were waiting to examine the engine! He began his walk up and down the room, with the habitual stoop of the shoulders, and an occasional feeble wandering of the hand to his mouth, wondering a little at himself, at his coolness. For this was the last throw of the dice. After to-day, no second chance. If it succeeded—Well, he washed his hands of the world's work then. His share was finished, surely. Then for happiness! What would she say when he came back? He had earned his reward in life by this time; his work was done, well done,—repeating that to himself again and again. But would she care? His long-jawed, gaunt face was all aglow now, and he rubbed his hands softly together, his thought sliding back evidently into some accustomed track, one that gave him fresh pleasure, though it had been the same these many years, through days of hammering and moulding and nights of sleeping in cheap taverns or under market-stalls. When they were first married, he used to bring her a peculiar sort of white shawl,—quite outside of the Quaker dress, to be sure, but he liked it. She used to look like a bride, freshly, every time she put one on. One of those should be the first thing he bought her. Dr. Bowdler was not wrong: he was a young man yet; they could enjoy life strongly and heartily, both of them. But no more work: with a dull perception of the fact that his strength was sapped out beyond the power of recuperation. That baby (stopping before the picture) was like Rob, about the forehead. But Rob was fairer, and had brown eyes and a snub-nose, like his mother. Remembering how, down in the farm-house, she used to sit on the front-porch step nursing the baby, while he smoked or read, in the evenings: where they could see the salt marshes. Jane liked them, for their color: a dead flat of brown salt grass with patches of brilliant emerald, and the black, snaky lines up which the tide crept, the white-sailed boats looking as if they were wedged in the grass. She liked that. Her tastes were all good.

How long did they mean to wait? He went to the window and looked out. Just then a horse neighed, and the sound oddly recalled the country-town where they had lived after they came into this State. On market-days it was one perpetual whinny along the streets from the colts trotting along-side of the wagons. He and Jane used to keep open table for their country-friends then, and on court- or fair-days. What a hard-fisted, shrewd people they were! talking bad English (like Jane herself); but there was more refinement and softness of feeling among them than among city-bred men. He should relish that life again; it suited him. To die like a grub? But he had done his work. Thank God!

He opened the window to catch the damp air, as Dr. Bowdler came in and touched him on the arm.

"Shall we stay here? Mr. Aikens has come, and they have been testing the machine for some time, I find. Go? Certainly, but—You're a little nervous, Mr. Starke, and—Wouldn't it be better if you were not present? They would be freer in deciding, and—suppose you and I stay here?"

"Eh? How? At it for some time?" hurrying out. "At it?" as the Doctor tried to keep pace with him. "Why, God bless my soul, Sir, what can they do? Nobody understands the valves but myself. A set of ignoramuses, Sir. I saw that at a glance. But it's my last chance,"—panting and wheezing before he reached the back lobby, and holding his hand to his side.

Dr. Bowdler stopped outside.

"What are you waiting here for, Mary?"

"I want to hear. What chance has it? I think I'd give something off my own life, if that man had succeeded in doing a great thing."

"Not much of a chance, Aikens says. The theory is good, but they are afraid the expense will make it of no practical use. However, they have not decided. It is well it is his last chance, though, as he says. I never saw a man who had dragged himself so near to insanity in pursuit of a hobby. Nothing but a great reaction can save him."

"Success, you mean? I think that man's life is worth a thousand aimless ones, Sir. If it fails, where's your 'justice on earth'? I"—