Chapter 3

"'I lie here o' nights thinking. In that heap o' money I seem to hear the sighs an' sobs o' the poor people that toiled to earn it. I feel their sweat upon me, an' God! this heart o' mine is crowded to bursting with the despair o' hundreds. An', betimes, I hear the cry o' murder in the cursed heap as if there were some had blood upon it. An' then I dream it has caught fire beneath me an' I am burning raw in the flame.'"

The tinker paused again, crossing the room and watching the swing of a pendulum.

"Boy, boy," said he, returning to his chair, "think' o' that complaining, immovable heap lying there like the blood of a murder. An' thy reader must feel the toil an' sweat an' misery an' despair that is in a great sum, an' how it all presses on the heart o' him that gets it wrongfully.

"'Well, sor,' the poor fellow continued, 'now an' then I met those had known me, an' reports o' me poverty went home. An' those dear to me sent money, the sight o' which filled me with a mighty sickness, an' I sent it back to them. Long ago, thank God! they ceased to think me a thief, but only crazy. Tell me, man, what shall I do with the money? There be those living I have to consider, an' those dead, an' those unborn.'

"'Hide it,' said I, 'an' go to thy work an' God give thee counsel.'"

Man and boy rose from the table and drew up to the little stove.

"Now, boy," said the clock tinker, leaning toward him with knitted brows, "consider this poor thief who suffered so for his friends. Think o' these good words, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.' If thou should'st ever write of it, thy problem will be to reckon the good an' evil, an' give each a careful estimate an' him his proper rank!"

"What a sad tale!" said the boy, thoughtfully. "It's terrible to think he may be my father."

"I'd have no worry o' that, sor," said the clock tinker. "There be ten thousand--ay, more--who know not their fathers. An', moreover, 'twas long, long ago."

"Please tell me when was the boy taken," said Trove.

"Time, or name, or place, I cannot tell thee, lest I betray him," said the old man, "Neither is necessary to thy tale. Keep it with thee a while; thou art young yet an' close inshore. Wait until ye sound the further deep. Then, sor, write, if God give thee power, and think chiefly o' them in peril an' about to dash their feet upon the stones."

For a moment the clocks' ticking was like the voice of many ripples washing the shore of the Infinite. A new life had begun for Trove, and they were cutting it into seconds. He looked up at them and rose quickly and stood a moment, his thumb on the door-latch. Outside they could hear the rush and scatter of the snow.

"Poor youth!" said the old man. "Thou hast no coat--take mine. Take it, I say. It will give thee comfort an' me happiness."

He would hear no refusal, and again the coat changed owners, giving happiness to the old and comfort to the new.

Then Trove went down the rickety stairs and away in the darkness.

VI

A Certain Rick Man

Riley Brooke had a tongue for gossip, an ear for evil report, an eye for rascals. Every day new suspicions took root in him, while others grew and came to great size and were as hard to conceal as pumpkins. He had meanness enough to equip all he knew, and gave it with a lavish tongue. In his opinion Hillsborough came within one of having as many rascals in it as there were people. He had tried to bring them severally to justice by vain appeals to the law, having sued for every cause in the books, but chiefly for trespass and damages, real and exemplary. He was a money-lender, shaving notes or taking them for larger sums than he lent, with chattel mortgages for security. Foreclosure and sale were a perennial source of profit to him. He was tall and well past middle age, with a short, gray beard, a look of severity, a stoop in his shoulders, and a third wife whom nobody, within the knowledge of the townfolk, had ever seen. If he had no other to gossip with, he provided imaginary company and talked to his own ears. He thought himself a most powerful and agile man, boasting often that he still kept the vigour of his youth. On his errands in the village he often broke into an awkward gallop, like a child at play. When he slackened pace it was to shake his head solemnly, as if something had reminded him of the wickedness of the world.

"If I dared tell all I knew," he would whisper suggestively, and then proceed to tell much more than he could possibly have known. Any one of many may have started his tongue, but the shortcomings of one Ezekiel Swackhammer were for him an ever present help and provocation. If there were nothing new to talk about, there was always Swackhammer. Poor Swackhammer had done everything he ought not to have done. The good God himself was the only being that had the approval of old Riley Brooke. It was curious--that turning of his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray. Sundays and every Wednesday evening he wore a stove-pipe hat and a long frock coat of antique and rusty aspect. On his way to church--with hospitality even for the like of him, thank God!--he walked slowly with head bent until, remembering his great agility and strength, he began to run, giving a varied exhibition of skips and jumps terminating in a sort of gallop. Once in the sacred house he looked to right and left accusingly, and aloft with encouraging applause. His God was one of wrath, vengeance, and destruction; his hell the destination of his enemies. They who resented the screw of his avarice, and pulled their thumbs away; they who treated him with contempt, and whose faults, compared to his own, were as a mound to a mountain--they were all to burn with everlasting fire, while he, on account of that happy thought the day of the sheep-shearing, was to sit forever with the angels in heaven.

"Ye're going t' heaven, I hear," said Darrel, who had repaired a clock for him, and heard complaint of his small fee.

"I am," was the spirited reply.

"God speed ye!" said the tinker, as he went away.

In such disfavour was the poor man, that all would have been glad to have him go anywhere, so he left Hillsborough.

One day in the Christmas holidays, a boy came to the door of Riley Brooke, with a buck-saw on his arm.

"I'm looking for work," said the boy, "and I'd be glad of the chance to saw your wood."

"How much a cord?" was the loud inquiry.

"Forty cents."

"Too much," said Brooke. "How much a day?"

"Six shillings."

"Too much," said the old man, snappishly. "I used to git six dollars a month, when I was your age, an' rise at four o'clock in the mornin' an' work till bedtime. You boys now-days are a lazy good-fer-nothin' lot. What's yer name?"

"Sidney Trove."

"Don't want ye."

"Well, mister," said the boy, who was much in need of money, "I'll saw your wood for anything you've a mind to give me."

"I'll give ye fifty cents a day," said the old man.

Trove hesitated. The sum was barely half what he could earn, but he had given his promise, and fell to. Riley Brooke spent half the day watching and urging him to faster work. More than once the boy was near quitting, but kept his good nature and a strong pace. When, at last, Brooke went away, Trove heard a sly movement of the blinds, and knew that other eyes were on the watch. He spent three days at the job--laming, wearisome days, after so long an absence from heavy toil.

"Wal, I suppose y& want money," Brooke snapped, as the boy came to the door. "How much?"

"One dollar and a half."

"Too much, too much; I won't pay it."

"That was the sum agreed upon."

"Don't care, ye hain't earned no dollar 'n a half. Here, take that an' clear out;" having said which, Brooke tossed some money at the boy and slammed the door in his face. Trove counted the money--it was a dollar and a quarter. He was sorely tempted to open the door and fling it back at him, but wisely kept his patience and walked away. It was the day before Christmas. Trove had planned to walk home that evening, but a storm had come, drifting the snow deep, and he had to forego the visit. After supper he went to the Sign of the Dial. The tinker was at home in his odd little shop and gave him a hearty welcome. Trove sat by the fire, and told of the sawing for Riley Brooke.

"God rest him!" said the tinker, thoughtfully puffing his pipe. "What would happen, think ye, if a man like him were let into heaven?"

"I cannot imagine," said the boy.

"Well, for one thing," said the tinker, "he'd begin to look for chattels, an' I do fear me there'd soon be many without harps."

"What is one to do with a man like that?" Trove inquired.

"Only this," said the tinker; "put him in thy book. He'll make good history. But, sor, for company he's damnably poor."

"It's a new way to use men," said Trove.

"Nay, an old way--a very old way. Often God makes an example o' rare malevolence an' seems to say, 'Look, despise, and be anything but this.' Like Judas and Herod he is an excellent figure in a book. Put him in thine, boy."

"And credit him with full payment?" the boy asked.

"Long ago, praise God, there was a great teacher," said the old man. "It is a day to think of Him. Return good for evil--those were His words. We've never tried it, an' I'd like to see how it may work. The trial would be amusing if it bore no better fruit."

"What do you propose?"

"Well, say we take him a gift with our best wishes," said the tinker.

"If I can afford it," the boy replied.

The tinker answered quickly: "Oh, I've always a little for a Christmas, an' I'll buy the gifts. Ah, boy, let's away for the gifts. We'll--we'll punish him with kindness."

They went together and bought a pair of mittens and a warm muffler for Riley Brooke and walked to his door with them and rapped upon it. Brooke came to the door with a candle.

"What d'ye want?" he demanded.

"To wish you Merry Christmas and present you gifts," said Trove.

The old man raised his candle, surveying them with surprise and curiosity.

"What gifts?" he inquired in a milder tone.

"Well," said the boy, "we've brought you mittens and a muffler."

"Ha! ha! Yer consciences have smote ye," said Brooke, "Glory to God who brings the sinner to repentance!"

"And fills the bitter cup o' the ungrateful," said the tinker. And they went away.

"I'd like to bring one other gift," said Darrel.

"What's that?"

"God forgive me! A rope to hang him. But mind thee, boy, we are trying the law o' the great teacher, and let us see if we can learn to love this man."

"Love Riley Brooke?" said Trove, doubtfully.

"A great achievement, I grant thee," said the tinker. "For if we can love him, we shall be able to love anybody. Let us try and see what comes of it."

A man was waiting for Darrel at the foot of the old stairs--a tall man, poorly dressed, whom Trove had not seen before, and whom, now, he was not able to see clearly in the darkness.

"The mare is ready," said Darrel. "Tis a dark night."

He to whom the tinker had spoken made no answer.

"Good night," said the tinker, turning. "A Merry Christmas to thee, boy, an' peace an' plenty."

"I have peace, and you have given me plenty to think about," said Trove.

On his way home the boy thought of the stranger at the stairs, wondering if he were the other tinker of whom Darrel had told him. At his lodging he found a new pair of boots with only the Christmas greeting on a card.

"Well," said Trove, already merrier than most of far better fortune, "he must have been somebody that knew my needs."

VII

Darrel of the Blessed Isles

The clock tinker was off in the snow paths every other week. In more than a hundred homes, scattered far along road lines of the great valley, he set the pace of the pendulums. Every winter the mare was rented for easy driving and Darrel made his journeys afoot. Twice a day Trove passed the little shop, and if there were a chalk mark on the dial, he bounded upstairs to greet his friend. Sometimes he brought another boy into the rare atmosphere of the clock shop--one, mayhap, who needed some counsel of the wise old man.

Spring had come again. Every day sowers walked the hills and valleys around Hillsborough, their hands swinging with a godlike gesture that summoned the dead to rise; everywhere was the odour of broken field or garden. Night had come again, after a day of magic sunlight, and soon after eight o'clock Trove was at the door of the tinker with a schoolmate.

"How are you?" said Trove, as Darrel opened the door.

"Better for the sight o' you," said the old man, promptly. "Enter Sidney Trove and another young gentleman."

The boys took the two chairs offered them in silence.

"Kind sor," the tinker added, turning to Trove, "thou hast thy cue; give us the lines."

"Pardon me," said the boy. "Mr. Darrel, my friend Richard Kent."

"Of the Academy?" said Darrel, as he held to the hand of Kent.

"Of the Academy," said Trove.

"An', I make no doubt, o' good hope," the tinker added. "Let me stop one o' the clocks--so I may not forget the hour o' meeting a new friend."

Darrel crossed the room and stopped a pendulum.

"He would like to join this night-school of ours," Trove answered.

"Would he?" said the tinker. "Well, it is one o' hard lessons. When ye come t' multiply love by experience, an' subtract vanity an' add peace, an' square the remainder, an' then divide by the number o' days in thy life--it is a pretty problem, an' the result may be much or little, an' ye reach it--"

He paused a moment, thoughtfully puffing the smoke.

"Not in this term o' school," he added impressively.

All were silent a little time.

"Where have you been?" Trove inquired presently.

"Home," said the old man.

There was a puzzled look on Trove's face.

"Home?" he repeated with a voice of inquiry.

"I have, sor," the clock tinker went on. "This poor shelter is not me home--it's only for a night now an' then. I've a grand house an' many servants an' a garden, sor, where there be flowers--lovely flowers--an' sunlight an' noble music. Believe me, boy, 'tis enough to make one think o' heaven."

"I did not know of it," said Trove.

"Know ye not there is a country in easy reach of us, with fair fields an' proud cities an' many people an' all delights, boy, all delights? There I hope thou shalt found a city thyself an' build it well so nothing shall overthrow it--fire, nor flood, nor the slow siege o' years."

"Where?" Trove inquired eagerly.

"In the Blessed Isles, boy, in the Blessed Isles. Imagine the infinite sea o' time that is behind us. Stand high an' look back over its dead level. King an' empire an' all their striving multitudes are sunk in the mighty deep. But thou shalt see rising out of it the Blessed Isles of imagination. Green--forever green are they--and scattered far into the dim distance. Look! there is the city o' Shakespeare--Norman towers and battlements and Gothic arches looming above the sea. Go there an' look at the people as they come an' go. Mingle with them an' find good company--merry-hearted folk a-plenty, an' God knows I love the merry-hearted! Talk with them, an' they will teach thee wisdom. Hard by is the Isle o' Milton, an' beyond are many--it would take thee years to visit them. Ah, sor, half me time I live in the Blessed Isles. What is thy affliction, boy?"

He turned to Kent--a boy whose hard luck was proverbial, and whose left arm was in a sling.

"Broke it wrestling," said the boy.

"Kent has bad luck," said Trove. "Last year he broke his leg."

"Obey the law, or thou shalt break the bone o' thy neck," said Darrel, quickly.

"I do obey the law," said Trent.

"Ay--the written law," said the clock tinker, "an' small credit to thee. But the law o' thine own discovery,--the law that is for thyself an' no other,--hast thou ne'er thought of it? Ill luck is the penalty o' law-breaking. Therefore study the law that is for thyself. Already I have discovered one for thee, an' it is, 'I have not limberness enough in me bones, so I must put them in no unnecessary peril.' Listen, I'll read thee me own code."

The clock tinker rose and got his Shakespeare, ragged from long use, and read from a fly-leaf, his code of private law, to wit:--

"Walk at least four miles a day.

"Eat no pork and be at peace with thy liver.

"Measure thy words and cure a habit of exaggeration.

"Thine eyes are faulty--therefore, going up or down, look well to thy steps.

"Beware of ardent spirits, for the curse that is in thy blood. It will turn thy heart to stone.

"In giving, remember Darrel.

"Bandy no words with any man.

"Play at no game of chance.

"Think o' these things an' forget thyself."

"Now there is the law that is for me alone," Darrel continued, looking up at the boys. "Others may eat pork or taste the red cup, or dally with hazards an' suffer no great harm--not I. Good youths, remember, ill luck is for him only that is ignorant, neglectful, or defiant o' private law."

"But suppose your house fall upon you," Trove suggested.

"I speak not o' common perils," said the tinker. "But enough--let's up with the sail. Heave ho! an' away for the Blessed Isles. Which shall it be?"

He turned to a rude shelf, whereon were books,--near a score,--some worn to rags.

"What if it be yon fair Isle o' Milton?" he inquired, lifting an old volume.

"Let's to the Isle o' Milton," Trove answered.

"Well, go to one o' the clocks there, an' set it back," said the tinker.

"How much?" Trove inquired with a puzzled look.

"Well, a matter o' two hundred years," said Darrel, who was now turning the leaves. "List ye, boy, we're up to the shore an' hard by the city gates. How sweet the air o' this enchanted isle!

"'And west winds with musky wing Down the cedarn alleys fling Nard and cassia's balmy smells.'"

He quoted thoughtfully, turning the leaves. Then he read the shorter poems,--a score of them,--his voice sounding the noble music of the lines. It was revelation for those raw youths and led them high. They forgot the passing of the hours and till near midnight were as those gone to a strange country. And they long remembered that night with Darrel of the Blessed Isles.

VIII

Dust of Diamonds in the Hour-glass

The axe of Theron Allen had opened the doors of the wilderness. One by one the great trees fell thundering and were devoured by fire. Now sheep and cattle were grazing on the bare hills. Around the house he left a thicket of fir trees that howled ever as the wind blew, as if "because the mighty were spoiled." Neighbours had come near; every summer great rugs of grain, vari-hued, lay over hill and dale.

Allen bad prospered, and begun to speculate in cattle. Every year late in April he went to Canada for a drove and sent them south--a great caravan that filled the road for half a mile or more, tramping wearily under a cloud of dust. He sold a few here and there, as the drove went on--a far journey, often, to the sale of the last lot.

The drove came along one morning about the middle of May, 1847. Trove met them at the four corners on Caraway Pike. Then about sixteen years of age, he made his first long journey into the world with Allen's drove. He had his time that summer and fifty cents for driving. It was an odd business, and for the boy full of new things.

A man went ahead in a buckboard wagon that bore provisions. One worked in the middle and two behind. Trove was at the heels of the first section. It was easy work after the cattle got used to the road and a bit leg weary. They stopped them for water at the creeks and rivers; slowed them down to browse or graze awhile at noontime; and when the sun was low, if they were yet in a land of fences, he of the horse and wagon hurried on to get pasturage for the night.

That first day some of the leaders had begun to wander and make trouble. For that reason Trove was walking beside the buckboard in front of the drove.

"We'll stop to-night on Cedar Hill," said the boss, about mid-afternoon. "Martha Vaughn has got the best pasture and the prettiest girl in this part o' the country. If you don't fall in love with that girl, you ought t' be licked."

Now Trove had no very high opinion of girls. Up there in Brier Dale he had seen little of them. At the red schoolhouse, even, they were few and far from his ideal. And they were a foolish lot there in Hillsborough, it seemed to him--all save two or three who were, he owned, very sweet and beautiful; but he had seen how they tempted other boys to extravagance, and was content with a sly glance at them now and then.

"I don't ever expect to fall in love," said Trove, confidently.

"Wal, love is a thing that always takes ye by surprise," the other answered. "Mrs. Vaughn is a widow, an' we generally stop there the first day out. She's a poor woman, an' it gives her a lift."

They came shortly to the little weather-stained house of the widow. As they approached, a girl, with arms bare to the elbow, stood looking at them, her hand shading her eyes.

"Co' boss! Co' boss! Co' boss!" she was calling, in a sweet, girlish treble.

Trove came up to the gate, and presently her big, dark eyes were looking into his own. That very moment he trembled before them as a reed shaken by the wind. Long after then, he said that something in her voice had first appealed to him. Her soft eyes were, indeed, of those that quicken the hearts of men. It is doubtful if there were, in all the world, a lovelier thing than that wild flower of girlhood up there in the hills. She was no dream of romance, dear reader. In one of the public buildings of a certain capital her portrait has been hanging these forty years, and wins, from all who pass it, the homage of a long look. But Trove said, often, that she was never quite so lovely as that day she stood calling the cows--her shapely, brown face aglow with the light of youth, her dark hair curling on either side as it fell to her shoulders.

"Good day," said he, a little embarrassed.

"Good day," said she, coolly, turning toward the house.

Trove was now in the midst of the cattle. Suddenly a dog rushed upon them, and they took fright. For a moment the boy was in danger of being trampled, but leaped quickly to the backs of the cows and rode to safety. After supper the men sat talking in the stable door, beyond which, on the hay, they were to sleep that night. But Trove stood a long time with the girl, whose name was Polly, at the little gate of the widow.

They seemed to meet there by accident. For a moment they were afraid of each other. After a little hesitation Polly picked a sprig of lilac. He could see a tremble in her hand as she gave it to him, and he felt his own blushes.

"Couldn't you say something?" she whispered with a smile.

"I--I've been trying to think of something," he stammered.

"Anything would do," said the girl, laughing, as she retreated a step or two and stood with an elbow leaning on the board fence. She had on her best gown.

It was a curious interview, the words of small account, the silences full of that power which has been the very light of the world. If there were only some way of reporting what followed the petty words,--swift arrows of the eye, lips trembling with the peril of unuttered thought, faces lighting with sweet discovery or darkening with doubt,--well, the author would have better confidence.

Their glances met--the boy hesitated.

"I--don't think you look quite as lovely in that dress," he ventured.