Chapter 4

"Olaf, Mr. Hardy come to see you."

"Hardy? Hardy?" queried the man in a peevish tone. "What do I know him to be?"

"The manager. The one who donate so really much moneys to you."

"Ah?" with an indescribable accent. "He make me work on a Sunday. He lose me my two eyes. A bad man, Svord! I will no have anything to do with him."

And the old descendant of a thousand kings turned his face to the wall, and would not even so much as make a motion towards his visitor. His brother offered a rude apology. Mr. Hardy replied in a low tone:

"Say nothing about it. I deserve all your brother says. But for a good reason I wish Olaf would say he forgives me."

Mr. Hardy came nearer the bed and spoke very earnestly and as if he had known the man intimately:

"I did you a great wrong to order the work on Sunday, and in not doing my duty concerning the inspection of the machinery. I have come to say so, and to ask your forgiveness. I may never see you again. Will you say to me, 'Brother, I forgive you'?"

There was a moment of absolute passivity on the part of the big fellow, then a very large and brawny hand was extended and the blind man said:

"Yes, I forgive. We learned that in the old Bible at Svendorf."

Mr. Hardy laid his hand in the other, and his lips moved in prayer of humble thanksgiving. What! Robert Hardy! Is this that proud man who only the day before was so lifted up with selfishness that he could coldly criticise his own minister for saying that people ought to be more Christlike? Are you standing here in this poor man's house which two days ago you would not have deigned to enter, and beseeching him as your brother in the great family of God to forgive you for what you have done and left undone? Yes; you have looked into the face of Eternity; you realise now what life really means and what souls are really worth.

He went out after a few words with the family, and saw all the other injured men. By the time he had finished these visits it was dark, and he eagerly turned home, exhausted with the day's experience, feeling as if he had lived in a new world, and at the same time wondering at the rapidity with which the time had fled.

He sighed almost contentedly to himself as he thought of the evening with his family, and how he would enjoy it after the disquiet of the day. His wife was there to greet him, and Alice and Clara and Bess clung about him as he took on his coat and came into the beautiful room where a cheerful fire was blazing. Will came downstairs as his father came in, and in the brief interval before dinner was ready Mr. Hardy related the scenes of the day.

They were all shocked to hear of Scoville's death, and Mrs. Hardy at once began to discuss some plans for relieving the family. Bess volunteered to give up half her room to one of the children, whilst Alice outlined a plan which immediately appeared to her father businesslike and feasible. In the midst of this discussion dinner was announced, and they sat down.

"Where is George?" asked Mr. Hardy. Ordinarily he would have gone on with the meal without any reference to the boy, because he was so often absent from the table. To-night he felt an irresistible longing to have all his children with him.

"He said he was invited out to dinner with the Bramleys," said Clara.

Mr. Hardy received the announcement in silence. He felt the bitterness of such indifference on the part of his older son. "What!" he said to himself, "when he knows I had such a little while left, could he not be at home?" Then almost immediately flashed into him the self-reproach even stronger than his condemnation of his boy: "How much have I done for him these last ten years to win his love and protect him from evil?"

After supper Mr. Hardy sat down by his wife, and in the very act he blushed with shame at the thought that he could not recall when he had spent an evening thus. He looked into her face and asked gently:

"Mary, what do you want me to do? Shall I read as we used to in the old days?"

"No; let us talk together," replied Mrs. Hardy, bravely driving back her tears. "I cannot realise what it all means. I have been praying all day. Do you still have the impression you had this morning?"

"Mary, I am, if anything, even more convinced that God has spoken to me. The impression has been deepening with me all day. When I looked into poor Scoville's face, the terrible nature of my past selfish life almost overwhelmed me. Oh, why have I abused God's goodness to me so awfully?"

There was silence a moment. Then Mr. Hardy grew more calm. He began to discuss what he would do the second day. He related more fully the interview with the men in the shop and his visits to the injured. He drew Clara to him and began to inquire into her troubles in such a tender, loving way, that Clara's proud, passionate, wilful nature broke down, and she sobbed out her story to him as she had to her mother the night before.

Mr. Hardy promised Clara that he would see James the next day. It was true that James Caxton had only a week before approached Mr. Hardy and told him in very manful fashion of his love for his daughter; but Mr. Hardy had treated it as a child's affair, and, in accordance with his usual policy in family matters, had simply told Clara and Bess to discontinue their visits at the old neighbour's. But now that he heard the story from the lips of his own daughter, he saw the seriousness of it, and crowding back all his former pride and hatred of the elder Caxton, he promised Clara to see James the next day.

Clara clung to her father in loving surprise. She was bewildered, as were all the rest, by the strange event that had happened to her father; but she never had so felt his love before, and forgetting for a while the significance of his wonderful dream, she felt happy in his presence and in his affection for her.

The evening had sped on with surprising rapidity while all these matters were being discussed, and as it drew near to midnight again Robert Hardy felt almost happy in the atmosphere of that home and the thought that he could still for a little while create joy for those who loved him. Suddenly he spoke of his other son:

"I wish George would come in. Then our family circle would be complete. But it is bedtime for you, Bess, and all of us, for that matter."

It was just then that steps were heard on the front porch, and voices were heard as if talking in whispers. The bell rang. Mr. Hardy rose to go to the door. His wife clung to him terrified.

"Oh, don't go, Robert! I am afraid for you."

"Why, Mary, it cannot be anything to harm me. Don't be alarmed."

Nevertheless he was a little startled. The day had been a trying one for him. He went to the door, his wife and the children following him close behind. He threw it wide open, and there, supported by two of his companions, one of them the young man Mr. Hardy had seen in the hotel lobby at noon, was his son George, too drunk to stand alone! He leered into the face of his father and mother with a drunken look that froze their souls with despair, as the blaze of the hall lamp fell upon him reeling there.

So the first of Robert Hardy's seven days came to an end.

TUESDAY--THE SECOND DAY.

Mr. Hardy was a man of great will power, but this scene with his drunken son crushed him for a moment, and seemed to take the very soul out of him. Mrs. Hardy at first uttered a wild cry and then ran forward, and, seizing her elder boy, almost dragged him into the house, while Mr. Hardy, recovering from his first shock, looked sternly at the companions of the boy and then shut the door. That night was a night of sorrow in that family. The sorrow of death is not to be compared with it.

But morning came, as it comes alike to the condemned criminal and to the pure-hearted child on a holiday, and after a brief and troubled rest Mr. Hardy awoke to his second day, the memory of the night coming to him at first as an ugly dream, but afterwards as a terrible reality. His boy drunk! He could not make it seem possible. Yet there in the next room he lay, in a drunken stupor, sleeping off the effects of his debauch of the night before. Mr. Hardy fell on his knees and prayed for mercy, again repeating the words, "Almighty God, help me to use the remaining days in the wisest and best manner." Then calming himself by a tremendous effort, he rose and faced the day's work as bravely as any man could under such circumstances.

After a family council, in which all of them, on account of their troubles, were drawn nearer together than ever before, Mr. Hardy outlined the day's work something as follows:

First, he would go and see James Caxton and talk over the affair between him and Clara. Then he would go down to the office and arrange some necessary details of his business. If possible, he would come home to lunch. In the afternoon he would go to poor Scoville's funeral, which had been arranged for two o'clock. Mrs. Hardy announced her intention to go also. Then Mr. Hardy thought he would have a visit with George and spend the evening at home, arranging matters with reference to his own death. With this programme in mind he went away, after an affectionate leave-taking with his wife and children.

George slept heavily until the middle of the forenoon, and then awoke with a raging headache. Bess had several times during the morning stolen into the room to see if her brother were awake. When he did finally turn over and open his eyes, he saw the young girl standing by the bedside. He groaned as he recalled the night and his mother's look, and Bess said timidly as she laid her hand on his forehead:

"George, I'm so sorry for you! Don't you feel well?"

"I feel as if my head would split open. It aches as if someone were chopping wood inside of it."

"What makes you feel so?" asked Bess innocently. "Did you eat too much supper at the Bramleys'?"

Bess had never seen anyone drunk before, and when George was helped to bed the night before by his father and mother, she did not understand his condition. She had always adored her big brother. It was not strange she had no idea of his habits.

George looked at his sister curiously; then, under an impulse he could not explain, he drew her nearer to him and said:

"Bess, I'm a bad fellow. I was drunk last night! Drunk!--do you understand? And I've nearly killed mother!"

Bess was aghast at the confession. She put out her hand again.

"Oh, no, George!" Then with a swift revulsion of feeling she drew back and said: "How _could_ you, with father feeling as he does?"

And little Bess, who was a creature of very impulsive emotions, sat down crying on what she supposed was a cushion, but which was George's tall hat, accidentally covered with one end of a comforter which had slipped off the bed. Bess was a very plump little creature, and as she picked herself up and held up the hat, George angrily exclaimed:

"You're always smashing my things!" But the next minute he was sorry for the words.

Bess retreated toward the door, quivering under the injustice of the charge. At the door she halted. She had something of Clara's passionate temper, and once in a while she let even her adored brother George feel it, small as she was.

"George Hardy, if you think more of your old stovepipe hat than you do of your sister, all right! You'll never get any more of my month's allowance. And if I do smash your things, I don't come home drunk at night and break mother's heart. That's what she's crying about this morning--that, and father's queer ways. Oh, dear! I don't want to live; life is so full of trouble!" And little twelve-year-old Bess sobbed in genuine sorrow.

George forgot his headache for a minute.

"Come, Bess, come, let's kiss and make up. Honest, now, I didn't mean it. I was bad to say what I did. I'll buy a dozen hats and let you sit on them for fun. Don't go away angry; I'm so miserable!"

He lay down and groaned, and Bess went to him immediately, all her anger vanished.

"Oh, let me get you something to drive away your headache; and I'll bring you up something nice to eat. Mother had Norah save something for you--didn't you, mother?"

Bessie asked the question just as her mother came in.

Mrs. Hardy said "Yes," and going up to George sat down by him and laid her hand on his head as his sister had done.

The boy moved uneasily. He saw the marks of great suffering on his mother's face, but he said nothing to express sorrow for his disgrace.

"Bess, will you go and get George his breakfast?" asked Mrs. Hardy; and the minute she was gone the mother turned to her son and said:

"George, do you love me?"

George had been expecting something different. He looked at his mother as the tears fell over her face, and all that was still good in him rose up in rebellion against the animal part. He seized his mother's hand and carried it to his lips, kissed it reverently, and said in a low tone:--

"Mother, I am unworthy. If you knew--"

He checked himself as if on the verge of confession. His mother waited anxiously, and then asked:

"Won't you tell me all?"

"No; I can't!"

George shuddered, and at that moment Bess came in, bearing a tray with toast and eggs and coffee. Mrs. Hardy left Bess to look after her brother, and went out of the room almost abruptly. George looked ashamed, and, after eating a little, told Bess to take the things away. She looked grieved, and he said:

"Can't help it; I'm not hungry. Besides, I don't deserve all this attention. Say, Bess, is father still acting under his impression, or dream, or whatever it was?"

"Yes, he is," replied Bessie, with much seriousness; "and he is ever so good now, and kisses mother and all of us good-bye in the morning; and he is kind and ever so good. I don't believe he is in his right mind. Will said yesterday he thought father was _non campus meant us_; and then he wouldn't tell me what it meant; but I guess he doesn't think father is just right intellectually."

Now and then Bess got hold of a big word and used it for all it would bear. She said "intellectually" over twice, and George laughed a little; but it was a bitter laugh, not such as a boy of his age has any business to possess. He lay down and appeared to be thinking, and, after a while, said aloud:

"I wonder if he wouldn't let me have some money while he's feeling that way?"

"Who?" queried Bess. "Father?"

"What! you here still, Curiosity? Better take these things downstairs!"

George spoke with his "headache tone," as Clara called it, and Bess, without reply, gathered up the tray things and went out, while George continued to figure out in his hardly yet sober brain the possibility of his father letting him have more money with which to gamble.

In the very next room Mrs. Hardy kneeled in an agony of petition for that firstborn son, crying out of her heart, "O God, it is more than I can bear! To see him growing away from me so! Dear Lord, be Thou merciful to me. Bring him back again to the life he used to live! How proud I was of him! What a joy he was to me! And now, and now! O gracious Father, if Thou art truly compassionate, hear me! Has not this foul demon of drink done harm enough? And yet it still comes, and even into my home! Ah, I have been indifferent to the cries of other women, but now it strikes me! Spare me, great and powerful Almighty! My boy! my heart's hunger is for him! I would rather see him dead than see him as I saw him last night. Spare me, spare me, O God!" Thus the mother prayed, dry-eyed and almost despairing, while he for whom she prayed that heart-broken prayer calculated, with growing coldness of mind, the chances of getting more money from his father to use in drink and at the gaming table.

O appetite, and thou spirit of gambling, ye are twin demons with whom many a fair-browed young soul to-day is marching arm in arm down the dread pavement of hell's vestibule, lined with grinning skeletons of past victims! Yet men gravely discuss the probability of evil, and think there is no special danger in a little speculation now and then. Parents say, "Oh, _my_ boy wouldn't do such a thing!" But how many know what their boy is really doing, and how many of the young men would dare reveal to their mothers or fathers the places where they have been, and the amusements they have tasted, and the things for which they have spent their money?

Mr. Hardy went at once to his neighbours, the Caxtons, who lived only a block away. He had not been on speaking terms with the family for some time, and he dreaded the interview with the sensitiveness of a very proud and stern-willed man. But two days had made a great change in him. He was a new man in Christ Jesus; and as he rang the bell he prayed for wisdom and humility.

James himself came to the door with his overcoat on and hat in hand, evidently just ready to go down town. He started back at seeing Mr. Hardy.

"Are you going down town? I will not come in then, but walk along with you," said Mr. Hardy quietly.

So James came out, and the two walked along together. There was an awkward pause for a minute, then Mr. Hardy said:

"James, is it true that you and Clara are engaged?"

"No, sir; that--is--not exactly what you might call engaged. We would like to be." Mr. Hardy smiled in spite of himself; and James added in a quickened tone: "We would like to be, with your consent, sir."

Mr. Hardy walked on thoughtfully, and then glanced at the young man at his side. He was six feet tall, not very handsome, as Bessie had frankly said, but he had a good face, a steady, clear blue eye, and a resolute air, as of one who was willing to work hard to get what he wanted. Mr. Hardy could not help contrasting him with his own prematurely broken down son George, and he groaned inwardly as he thought of the foolish pride that would bar the doors of his family to a young man like James Caxton simply because he was poor and because his father had won in a contested election in which the two older men were candidates for the same office.

It did not take long to think all this. Then he said, looking again at the young man with a businesslike look:

"Supposing you had my permission, what are your prospects for supporting my daughter? She has always had everything she wanted. What could you give her?"

The question might have seemed cold and businesslike. The tone was thoughtful and serious.

A light flashed into James' eyes, but he said simply: "I am in a position to make a thousand dollars a year next spring. I earn something extra with my pen at home."

Mr. Hardy did not reply to this. He said: "Do you know what a wilful, quick-tempered girl Clara is?"

"I have known her from a little child, Mr. Hardy. I feel as if I know her about as well as you do."

"Perhaps you know her better than I do; I do not know my child as I should."

The tone was not bitter but intensely sad. The young man had, of course, been greatly wondering at this talk from Mr. Hardy, and had observed the change in his manner and his speech. He looked at him now and noted his pale, almost haggard face and his extremely thoughtful appearance.

"Mr. Hardy," said James frankly, "you are in trouble. I wish I could"--

"Thank you; no, you can't help me in this--except," continued Mr. Hardy with a faint smile, "except you solve this trouble between you and my daughter."

"There is no trouble between us, sir," replied James simply. "You know I love her and have loved her for a long time, and I believe I am able to support her and make her happy. Won't you give your consent, sir? We are not children. We know our minds."

James spoke very earnestly. He was beginning to hope that the stern, proud man who had so curtly dismissed him a little while before would in some unaccountable manner relent and give him his heart's desire.

Mr. Hardy walked along in silence a little way. Then he said almost abruptly:

"James, do you drink?"

"No, sir!"

"Or gamble?"

"You forget my mother, Mr. Hardy." The reply was almost stern.

Mrs. Caxton's younger brother had been ruined by gambling. He had come to the house one night, and in a fit of anger because his sister would not give him money to carry on his speculations, he had threatened her life. James had interposed, and at the risk of his own life had probably saved his mother's. Mrs. Caxton had been so unnerved by the scene that her health had suffered from it seriously. All this had happened when James was growing out of boyhood. But not a day had passed that the young man did not see a sad result of that great gambling passion in his own mother's face and bearing. He loathed the thought of a vice so debasing that it ignored all the tender ties of kindred and was ready to stop at nothing in order to get means for its exercise.

Mr. Hardy knew the story, and he exclaimed: "Forgive me, James, I did not think!" Then, after a pause, "Are you a Christian? I mean, do you have a faith in the revelation of God to men through Jesus Christ, and do you try to live according to His teachings, with a supreme love for God controlling your life? Do you live every day as if it might be the last you would have to live?"

James started. Was Mr. Hardy out of his mind? He had never heard him talk like this before. The idea of Mr. Hardy caring about his religious character in the event of his becoming a son-in-law was an idea too remote for occurrence. He could see, however, that some very powerful change had taken place in Mr. Hardy's usual demeanour. His words also produced a strong effect upon the young man. He was like thousands of young men--temperate, honest, industrious, free from vices, strictly moral, but without any decided religious faith. "Am I a Christian?" he asked himself, echoing Mr. Hardy's question. No; he could not say that he was. He had, in fact, never been confronted with the question before. So he replied to Mr. Hardy:

"No, sir; I don't think I am what would be called a Christian. As for living as if every day were to be my last--do you think that is possible, sir?"

Mr. Hardy did not answer. He walked along thoughtfully. In the course of the conversation they had reached the corner where the young man turned down to his office, and the two paused.

"I want to have another talk with you," Mr. Hardy said. "To-day is Tuesday; say to-morrow evening. I want to see your father also, and"--Mr. Hardy was on the point of saying that he wanted to ask the elder Caxton's forgiveness, but for some reason he stopped without doing so.

James exclaimed eagerly as Mr. Hardy turned to go:

"Then you don't forbid my entertaining some hope of your good will in the matter of my love for Clara?" He lowered his voice and spoke very strongly. "You don't forget your own youth, and the way in which you yourself began your home?"

Mr. Hardy answered never a word to this appeal, but looked into the young man's face with a gaze he did not forget all day, then wrung his hand and turned on his heel abruptly and walked rapidly down the street.

James looked after him as he disappeared among the crowds of people going to their business, and then turned to his own tasks. But something in him gave him hope. Another something appealed all day to his inner nature, and he could not shake off the impression of Mr. Hardy's question--"Are you a Christian?" Even when he went home at night that question pursued him more strenuously than any other, and would not give him peace.