Part 14

In the small kitchen, on the walls of which, and even on the dresser, Taffy's books fought for room with Humility's plates and tin-ware, the Chief Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. Toward Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which flattered her considerably. And when he praised her tea, she almost forgave him for his detestable habit of snuff-taking.

He had heard something (it appeared) from the President of Taffy's college, and also from — (he named Taffy's old friend in the velvet college-cap). In later days Taffy maintained not only that every man must try to stand alone, but that he ought to try the harder because of its impossibility; for in fact it was impossible to escape from men's helpfulness. And though his work lay in lonely places where in the end fame came out to seek him, he remained the same boy who, waking in the dark, had heard the bugles speaking comfort.

As a matter of fact his college had generously offered him a chance, which would have cost him nothing or next to nothing, of continuing to read for his degree. But he had chosen his line, and against Humility's entreaties he stuck to it. The Chief Engineer took a ceremonious leave. He had to drive back to his hotel, and Taffy escorted him to his carriage.

"I shall run over again to-morrow," he said at parting; "and we'll have a look at that island rock." He was driven off, secretly a little puzzled.

Well, it puzzled Taffy at times why he should be working here with Mendarva's men for twenty shillings a week (it had been eighteen to begin with) when he might be reading for his degree and a fellowship. Yet in his heart he knew the reason. _That_ would be building, after all, on the foundations which Honoria had laid.

Pride had helped chance to bring him here, to the very spot where Lizzie Pezzack lived. He met her daily, and several times a day. She, and his mother and grandmother, were all the womanfolk in the hamlet—if three cottages deserve that name. In the first cottage Lizzie lived with her father, who was chief lighthouse-man, and her crippled child; two under-keepers, unmarried men, managed together in the second; and this accident allowed Taffy to rent the third from the Brethren of the Trinity House and live close to his daily work. Unless brought by business, no one visited that windy peninsula; no one passed within sight of it; no tree grew upon it or could be seen from it. At daybreak Taffy's workmen came trudging along the track where the short turf and gentians grew between the wheel-ruts; and in the evening went trudging back, the level sun flashing on their empty dinner-cans. The eight souls left behind had one common gospel—Cleanliness. Very little dust found its way thither; but the salt, spray-laden air kept them constantly polishing window-panes and brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish, grew into the one absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even in their own dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and dwindled away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to night, mechanically, they washed and scoured and polished. Paper was not whiter than the deal table and dresser which Humility scrubbed daily with soap and water, and once a week with lemon-juice as well. Never was cleaner linen to sight and smell than that which she pegged out by the furze-brake on the ridge. All the life of the small colony, though lonely, grew wholesome as it was simple of purpose in cottages thus sweetened and kept sweet by lime-wash and the salt wind.

And through it moved the forlorn figure of Lizzie Pezzack's child. Somehow Lizzie had taught the boy to walk, with the help of a crutch, as early as most children; but the wind made cruel sport with his first efforts in the open, knocking the crutch from under him at every third step, and laying him flat. The child had pluck, however, and when autumn came round again, could face a fairly stiff breeze.

It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board's intention to replace the old light-house with one upon the outer rock. For the Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was right. To be sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but the great man took the first opportunity to offer him the post of foreman of the works, so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled at. The work did not actually start until the following spring; for the rock, to receive the foundations, had to be bored some feet below high-water level, and this could only be attempted on calm days or when a southerly wind blew from the high land well over the workmen's heads, leaving the inshore water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking up from his work, would catch sight of a small figure on the cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and watching.

For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness. Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition of childhood—something he would grow out of. His mother could not keep him indoors; he fidgetted continually. But he would sit or stand quiet by the hour on the cliff-top, watching the men as they drilled and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the lighthouse, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the oiling and trimming of the great lantern and the ships moving slowly on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them.

"I think," said he, one day before he was three years old, "that my father is in one of those ships."

"Bless the child!" exclaimed old Pezzack. "Who says you have a father?"

"_Everybody_ has a father. Dicky Tregenza has one; they both work down at the rock. I asked Dicky and he told me."

"Told 'ee what?"

"That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of those ships, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she was washing-up and wouldn't listen."

Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. "'Twas to be, I s'pose," he muttered.

Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds' cottage. Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as unchristian as other women. As time went on, it seemed that not a soul beside herself and Taffy knew of Honoria's suspicion. She even doubted, and Taffy doubted, too, if Lizzie herself knew such an accusation had been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie hinted at it. Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to forgive her. "She may be innocent," was the thought; "but through her came the injury to my son." Taffy by this time had no doubt at all. It was George who poisoned Honoria's ear; George's shame and Honoria's pride would explain why the whisper had never gone further; and nothing else would explain.

Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times; but they never spoke of it.

The lame child was often in the Raymonds' kitchen. Lizzie did not forbid or resent this. And he liked Humility and would talk to her at length while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. "People don't tell the truth," he observed, sagely, on one of these occasions. (He pronounced it "troof," by the way.) "_I_ know why we live here. It's because we're near the sea. My father's on the sea somewhere, looking for us; and grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell him where we are. One night he'll see it and bring his ship in and take us all off together."

"Who told you all this?"

"Nobody. People won't tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it out in my head."

At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never acknowledged this), he would stretch himself on the short turf of the headland and lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came near enough to surprise the look which then crept over the child's face. But Taffy, passing him at a distance, remembered another small boy, and shivered to remember and compare—

A boy's will is the wind's will And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

—but how, when the boy is a cripple?

One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring when the man at his elbow said:

"Hullo! edn' that young Joey Pezzack in difficulties up there? Blest if the cheeld won't break his neck wan of these days!"

Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across to land. "Don't move!" he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he picked up Joey's crutch, and ran at full speed up the path worn by the workmen. This led him round to the verge, ten feet above the ledge where the child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a running noose and lowered it.

"Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down? I'll come if you're hurt."

"I've twisted my foot. It's all right, now you're come," said the little man, bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most businesslike way.

"The grass was slipper—" he began, as soon as his feet touched firm earth; and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy's arms.

Taffy carried him—a featherweight—to the cottage where Lizzie stood by her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running out.

"It's all right. He slipped—out on the cliff. Nothing more than a scratch or two and perhaps a sprained ankle."

He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his stockings. He had never seen the child's foot naked. She turned suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the deformity.

"Have you heard?" she asked.

"What?"

"_She_ has a boy! Ah!" she laughed, harshly, "I thought that would hurt you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!"

"I don't think I understand."

"You don't think you understand!" she mimicked. "And you're not fond of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly—to let him take her, and never tell!"

"Tell?"

She faced him, hardening her gaze. "Yes, tell—" She nodded slowly; while Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes.

"Men don't fight like that." The words were out before it struck him that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, however, told him nothing. She could not know. "_You_ have never told," he added.

"Because—" she began, but could not tell him the whole truth. And yet what she said was true. "Because you would not let me," she muttered.

"In the churchyard, you mean—on her wedding-day?"

"Before that."

"But before that I never guessed."

"All the same, I knew what you were. You wouldn't have let me. It came to the same thing. And if I had told—Oh, you make it hard for me!" she wailed.

He stared at her, understanding this only—that somehow he could control her will.

"I will never let you tell," he said, gravely.

"I hate her!"

"You shall not tell."

"Listen"—she drew close and touched his arm. "He never cared for her; it's not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay—not as she might have cared for you—but she's his wife, and some women are like that. There's her pride, anyway. Suppose—suppose he came back to me?"

"If I caught him—" Taffy began; but the poor child, who for two minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a wail:

"Oh, mother! my foot—it hurts so!"

(To be continued.)

ROMANCE

Say that the days of the dark are dawning, Say that we come to the middle years, The workday week that hath no bright morning, The life that is dulled of its hopes and fears— But, the cooled blood still and the tired heart scorning, The soul is in eyes that are dry of tears.

Quiet thy heart, since others are loving; Still thy soul, for the sky is vast; Rest thy limbs from the stale earth roving, Plow in the furrow thy lot is cast: So, when the Spring all the earth is moving, A flower may fall to thy feet at last.

Charles the King at the block stood biding The blow that set him at peace with man, Weary of life, of the crowd deriding, Worn at his lips his smile so wan— Under the floor of the block lay hiding Athos and Porthos and d'Artagnan!

Perhaps;—and so, while the hand still turneth, As one's who serves, to his daily chore; While she who once walked beside, returneth To walk with her hand in thine no more— Under thy heart's work-wear there burneth The love that is hers for evermore.

SEARCH-LIGHT LETTERS

LETTER TO A POLITICAL OPTIMIST

By Robert Grant

I

I approve of you, for I am an optimist myself in regard to human affairs, and can conscientiously agree with many of the patriotic statements concerning the greatness of the American people contained in your letter. Your letter interested me because it differed so signally in its point of view from the others which I received at the same time—the time when I ran for Congress as a Democrat in a hopelessly Republican district and was defeated. The other letters were gloomy in tone. They deplored the degeneracy of our political institutions, and argued from the circumstance that the voters of my district preferred "a hack politician" and "blatant demagogue" to "an educated philosopher" (the epithets are not mine); that we were going to the dogs as a nation. The prophecy was flattering to me in my individual capacity, but it has not served to soil the limpid, sunny flow of my philosophy. I was gratified, but not convinced. I behold the flag of my country still with moistened eyes—the eyes of pride, and I continue to bow affably to my successful rival.

Your suggestion was much nearer the truth. You indicated with pardonable levity that I was not elected because the other man received more votes. I smiled at that as an apt statement. You went on to take me to task for having given the impression in my published account of the political canvass not merely that I ought to have been elected, but that the failure to elect me was the sign of a lack of moral and intellectual fibre in the American people. If I mistake not, you referred to me farther on in the style of airy persiflage as a "holier than thou," a journalistic, scriptural phrase in current use among so-called patriotic Americans. And then you began to argue: You requested me to give us time, and called attention to the fact that the English system of rotten boroughs in vogue fifty years ago was worse than anything we have to-day. "We are a young and impetuous people," you wrote, "but there is noble blood in our veins—the blood which inspired the greatness of Washington and Hamilton and Franklin and Jefferson and Webster and Abraham Lincoln. Water does not run up hill. Neither do the American people move backward. Its destiny is to progress and to grow mightier and mightier. And those who seek to retard our national march by cynical insinuations and sneers, by scholastic sophistries and philosophical wimwams, will find themselves inevitably under the wheels of Juggernaut, the car of republican institutions."

Philosophical wimwams! You sought to wound me in a tender spot. I forgive you for that, and I like your fervor. Those rotten boroughs have done yeoman service. They are on the tongue of every American citizen seeking for excuses for our national shortcomings. But for my dread of a mixed metaphor I would add that they are moth-eaten and threadbare.

Your letter becomes then a miscellaneous catalogue of our national prowess. You instance the cotton-gin, the telegraph, the sewing-machine, and the telephone, and ask me to bear witness that they are the inventions of free-born Americans. You refer to the heroism and vigor of the nation during the Civil War, and its mighty growth in prosperity and population since; to the colleges and academies of learning, to the hospitals and other monuments of intelligent philanthropy, to the huge railroad systems, public works, and private plants which have come into being with mushroom-like growth over the country. You recall the energy, independence, and conscientious desire for Christian progress among our citizens, young and old, and, as a new proof of their disinterested readiness to sacrifice comfort for the sake of principle, you cite the recent emancipation of Cuba. Your letter closes with a Fourth of July panegyric on the heroes on land and sea of the war with Spain, followed by an exclamation point which seems to say, "Mr. Philosopher, put that in your pipe and smoke it."

I have done so, and admit that there is a great deal to be proud of in the Olla Podrida of exploits and virtues which you have set before me. Far be it from me to question the greatness and capacity of your and my countrymen. But while my heart throbs agreeably from the thrill of sincere patriotism, I venture to remind you that cotton-gins, academies of learning, and first-class battle-ships have little to do with the matter in question. Your mode of procedure reminds me of the plea I have heard used to obtain partners for a homely girl—that she is good to her mother. I notice that you include our political sanctity by a few sonorous phrases in the dazzling compendium of national success, but I also notice that you do not condescend to details. That is what I intend to do, philosophically yet firmly.

To begin with, I am not willing to admit that I was piqued by my failure to be elected to Congress. I did not expect to succeed, and my tone was, it seems to me, blandly resigned and even rather grateful than otherwise that such a serious honor had been thrust upon me. Success would have postponed indefinitely the trip to Japan on which my wife, Josephine, had set her heart. In short, I supposed that I had concealed alike grief and jubilation, and taken the result in a purely philosophic spirit. It seems though that you were able to read between the lines—that is what you state—and to discern my condescending tone and lack of faith in the desire and intention of the plain people of these United States to select competent political representatives. I can assure you that I have arrived at no such dire state of mind, and I should be sorry to come to that conclusion; but, though a philosopher, and hence, politically speaking, a worm, I have a proper spirit of my own and beg to inform you that the desire and intention of our fellow-countrymen, whether plain or otherwise, so to do is, judging by their behavior, open to grave question. So you see I stand at bay almost where you supposed, and there is a definite issue between us. Judging by their behavior, remember. Judging by their words, butter would not melt in their mouths. I merely wish to call your attention to a few notorious facts in defence of my attitude of suspicion.

(_Note._—"Josephine," said I to my wife at this point, "please enumerate the prominent elective offices in the gift of the American people."

My wife rose and after a courtesy, which was mock deferential, proceeded to recite, with the glib fluency of a school-girl, the following list: "Please, sir,

President. Senators of the United States (elected by the State legislatures). Representatives of the United States. State Senators. State Assemblymen or Representatives. Aldermen. Members of the City Council. Members of the School Committee."

"Correct, Josephine. I pride myself that, thanks to my prodding, you are beginning to acquire some rudimentary knowledge concerning the institutions of your country. Thanks to me and Professor Bryce. Before Professor Bryce wrote 'The American Commonwealth,' American women seemed to care little to know anything about our political system. They studied more or less about the systems of other countries, but displayed a profound ignorance concerning our own form of government. But after an Englishman had published a book on the subject, and made manifest to them that our institutions were reasonably worthy of attention, considerable improvement has been noticeable. But I will say that few women are as well posted as you, Josephine."

She made another mock deferential courtesy. "Thank you, my lord and master; and lest you have not made it sufficiently clear that my superiority in this respect is due to your—your nagging, I mention again that you are chiefly responsible for it. It bores me, but I submit to it."

"Continue then your docility so far as to write the names which you have just recited on separate slips of paper and put them in a proper receptacle. Then I will draw one as a preliminary step in the political drama which I intend to present for the edification of our correspondent."

Josephine did as she was bid, and in the process, by way of showing that she was not such a martyr as she would have the world believe, remarked, "If you had really been elected, Fred, I think I might have made a valuable political ally. What I find tedious about politics is that they're not practical—that is for me. If you were in Congress now, I should make a point of having everything political at the tip of my tongue."

"Curiously enough, my dear, I am just going to give an object-lesson in practical politics, and you as well as our young friend may be able to learn wisdom from it. Now for a blind choice!" I added, putting my hand into the work-bag which she held out.

"Aldermen!" I announced after scrutinizing the slip, which I had drawn. Josephine's nose went up a trifle.

"A very fortunate and comprehensive selection," I asserted. "The Alderman and the influences which operate upon and around him lie at the root of American practical politics. And from a careful study of the root you will be able to decide how genuinely healthy and free from taint must be the tree—the tree which bears such ornamental flowers as Presidents and United States Senators, gorgeous blooms of apparent dignity and perfume.")

This being a drama, my young patriot, I wish to introduce you to the stage and the principal characters. The stage is any city in the United States of three hundred thousand or more inhabitants. It would be invidious for me to mention names where anyone would answer to the requirements. Some may be worse than others, but all are bad enough. A bold and pessimistic beginning, is it not, my optimistic friend?

And now for the company. This drama differs from most dramatic productions in that it makes demands upon a large number of actors. To produce it properly on the theatrical stage would bankrupt any manager unless he were subsidized heavily from the revenues of the twenty leading villains. The cast includes besides twenty leading villains, twelve low comedians, no hero, no heroine (except, incidentally, Josephine); eight newspaper editors; ten thousand easy-going second-class villains; ten thousand patriotic, conscientious, and enlightened citizens, including a sprinkling of ardent reformers; twenty-five thousand zealous, hide-bound partisans; fifty thousand respectable, well-intentioned, tolerably ignorant citizens who vote, but are too busy with their own affairs to pay attention to politics, and as a consequence generally vote the party ticket, or vote to please a "friend;" ten thousand superior, self-centred souls who neglect to vote and despise politics anyway, among them poets, artists, scientists, some men of leisure, and travellers; ten thousand enemies of social order such as gamblers, thieves, keepers of dives, drunkards, and toughs; and your philosopher.