Chapter 8

"Follow him next week. Report again."

They followed, and reported still again. They consulted, and accepted the astounding truth. The murderer, the convict, the miserable, the mystery, Zerviah Hope,--volunteer nurse, poor, friendless, discharged from Sing Sing, was proved to have surrendered to the public charities of Calhoun, every dollar which he had earned in the service of her sick and dying.

The Committee on the Water Supply, and the Sub-Vigilance Committee stood, much depressed, before their superior officer. He, being a just man, flushed red with a noble rage.

"Where is he? Where is Zerviah Hope? The man should be sent for. He should receive the thanks of the committee. He should receive the acknowledgments of the city. And we've set on him like detectives! hunted him down! Zounds! The city is disgraced. Find him for me!"

"We have already done our best," replied the sub-committee, sadly. "We have searched for the man. He cannot be found."

"Where is the woman-doctor?" persisted the excited chief. "She recommended the fellow. She'd be apt to know. Can't some of you find her?"

At this moment, young Dr. Frank looked haggardly into the Relief Office.

"I am taking her cases," he said. "She is down with the fever."

* * * * *

It was the morning after his last pay-day--Sunday morning, the first in October; a dry, deadly, glittering day. Zerviah had been to his attic to rest and bathe; he had been there some hours since sunrise, in the old place by the window, and watched the red sun kindle, and watched the dead-carts slink away into the color, and kneeled and prayed for frost. Now, being strengthened in mind and spirit, he was descending to his Sabbath's work, when a message met him at the door. The messenger was a negro boy, who thrust a slip of paper into his hand, and, seeming to be seized with superstitious fright, ran rapidly up the street and disappeared.

The message was a triumphal result of the education of the freedmen's evening school, and succinctly said:

"ive Gut IT. Nobuddy Wunt Nuss me. Norr no Docter nEther.

"P. S. Joopiter the Durn hee sed he'd kerry This i dont Serpose youd kum. SCIP."

The sun went down that night as red as it had risen. There were no clouds. There was no wind. There was no frost. The hot dust curdled in the shadow that coiled beneath the stark palmetto. That palmetto always looked like a corpse, though there was life in it yet. Zerviah came to the door of Scip's hovel for air, and looked at the thing. It seemed like something that ought to be buried. There were no other trees. The everglades were miles away. The sand and the scant, starved grass stretched all around. Scip's hut stood quite by itself. No one passed by. Often no one passed for a week, or even more. Zerviah looked from the door of the hut to the little city. The red light lay between him and it, like a great pool. He felt less lonely to see the town, and the smoke now and then from chimneys. He thought how many people loved and cared for one another in the suffering place. He thought how much love and care suffering gave birth to, in human hearts. He began to think a little of his own suffering; then Scip called him, sobbing wretchedly. Scip was very sick. Hope had sent for Dr. Dare. She had not come. Scip was too sick to be left. The nurse found his duty with the negro. Scip was growing worse.

By and by, when the patient could be left for a moment again, Zerviah came to the air once more. He drew in great breaths of the now cooler night. The red pool was gone. All the world was filled with the fatal beauty of the purple colors that he had learned to know so well. The swamps seemed to be asleep, and to exhale in the slow, regular pulsations of sleep. In the town, lamps were lighted. From a hundred windows, fair, fine sparks shone like stars as the nurse looked over. There, a hundred watchers tended their sick or dead, or their healing, dearly loved, and guarded ones. Dying eyes looked their last at eyes that would have died to save them; strengthening hands clasped hands that had girded them with the iron of love's tenderness, through the valley of the shadow, and up the heights of life and light. Over there, in some happy home, tremulous lips that the plague had parted met to-night in their first kiss of thanksgiving.

Zerviah thought of these things. He had never felt so lonely before. It seemed a hard place for a man to die in. Poor Scip!

Zerviah clasped his thin hands and looked up at the purple sky.

"Lord," he said, "it is my duty. I came South to do my duty. Because he told of me, had I ought to turn against him? It is a lonesome place; he's got it hard, but I'll stand by him.... Lord!"--his worn face became suddenly suffused, and flashed, transfigured, as he lifted it--"Lord God Almighty! You stood by me! _I_ couldn't have been a pleasant fellow to look after. You stood by _me_ in my scrape! I hadn't treated _You_ any too well.... You needn't be afraid I'll leave the creetur."

He went back into the hut. Scip called, and he hurried in. The nurse and the plague, like two living combatants, met in the miserable place and battled for the negro.

The white Southern stars blazed out. How clean they looked! Zerviah could see them through the window, where the wooden shutter had flapped back. They looked well and wholesome--holy, he thought. He remembered to have heard some one say, at a Sunday meeting he happened into once, years ago, that the word holiness meant health. He wondered what it would be like, to be holy. He wondered what kinds of people would be holy people, say, after a man was dead. Women, he thought,--good women, and honest men who had never done a deadly deed.

He occupied his thoughts in this way. He looked often from the cold stars to the warm lights throbbing in the town. They were both company to him. He began to feel less alone. There was a special service called somewhere in the city that night, to read the prayers for the sick and dying. The wind rose feebly, and bore the sound of the church-bells to the hut. There was a great deal of company, too, in the bells. He remembered that it was Sunday night.

* * * * *

It was Monday, but no one came. It was Tuesday, but the nurse and the plague still battled alone together over the negro. Zerviah's stock of remedies was as ample as his skill. He had thought he should save Scip. He worked without sleep, and the food was not clean. He lavished himself like a lover over this black boatman; he leaned like a mother over this man who had betrayed him.

But on Tuesday night, a little before midnight, Scip rose, struggling on his wretched bed, and held up his hands and cried out:

"Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope! I never done mean to harm ye!"

"You have not harmed me," said Zerviah, solemnly. "Nobody ever harmed me but myself. Don't mind me, Scip."

Scip put up his feeble hand; Zerviah took it; Scip spoke no more. The nurse held the negro's hand a long time; the lamp went out; they sat on in the dark. Through the flapping wooden shutter the stars looked in.

Suddenly, Zerviah perceived that Scip's hand was quite cold.

* * * * *

He carried him out by starlight, and buried him under the palmetto. It was hard work digging alone. He could not make a very deep grave, and he had no coffin. When the earth was stamped down, he felt extremely weary and weak. He fell down beside his shovel and pick to rest, and lay there in the night till he felt stronger. It was damp and dark. Shadows like clouds hung over the distant outline of the swamp.

The Sunday bells in the town had ceased. There were no sounds but the cries of a few lonely birds and wild creatures of the night, whose names he did not know. This little fact added to his sense of solitude.

He thought at first he would get up and walk back to the city in the dark. An intense and passionate longing seized him to be among living men. He took a few steps down the road. The unwholesome dust blew up through the dark against his face. He found himself so tired that he concluded to go back to the hut. He would sleep, and start in the morning with the break of the dawn. He should be glad to see the faces of his kind again, even though the stir of welcome and the light of trust were gone out of them for him. They lived, they breathed, they spoke. He was tired of death and solitude.

He groped back into the hut. The oil was low, and he could not relight the lamp. He threw himself in the dark upon his bed.

He slept until late in the morning, heavily. When he waked, the birds were shrill in the hot air, and the sun glared in.

"I will go now," he said, aloud. "I am glad I can go," and crept to his feet.

He took two steps--staggered--and fell back. He lay for some moments, stricken more with astonishment than alarm. His first words were:

"Lord God! After all--after all I've gone through--Lord God Almighty, if You'll believe it--I've _got it_!"

This was on Wednesday morning. Night fell, but no one came. Thursday--but outside the hut no step stirred the parched, white dust. Friday--Saturday--no voice but his own moaning broke upon the sick man's straining ear.

His professional experience gave him an excruciating foresight of his symptoms, and their result presented itself to him with horrible distinctness. As one by one he passed through the familiar conditions whose phases he had watched in other men a hundred times, he would have given his life for a temporary ignorance. His trained imagination had little mercy on him. He weighed his chances, and watched his fate with the sad exactness of knowledge.

As the days passed, and no one came to him, he was aware of not being able to reason with himself clearly about his solitude. Growing weak, he remembered the averted faces of the people for whom he had labored, and whom he had loved. In the stress of his pain their estranged eyes gazed at him. He felt that he was deserted because he was distrusted. Patient as he was, this seemed hard.

"They did not care enough for me to miss me," he said, aloud, gently. "I suppose I was not worth it. I had been in prison. I was a wicked man. I must not blame them."

And again:

"They would have come if they had known. They would not have let me _die_ alone. I don't think _she_ would have done that. I wonder where she is? Nobody has missed me--that is all. I must not mind."

Growing weaker, he thought less and prayed more. He prayed, at last, almost all his time. When he did not pray, he slept. When he could not sleep, he prayed. He addressed God with that sublime familiarity of his, which fell from his lips with no more irreverence than the kiss of a child falling upon its mother's hand or neck.

The murderer, the felon, the outcast, talked with the Almighty Holiness, as a man talketh with his friends. The deserted, distrusted, dying creature believed himself to be trusted by the Being who had bestowed on him the awful gift of life.

"Lord," he said, softly, "I guess I can bear it. I'd like to see somebody--but I'll make out to get along.... Lord! I'm pretty weak. I know all about these spasms. You get delirious next thing, you know. Then you either get better or you never do. It'll be decided by Sunday night. Lord! Dear Lord!" he added, with a tender pause, "don't _You_ forget me! I hope _You'll_ miss me enough to hunt me up."

It grew dark early on Saturday night. The sun sank under a thin, deceptive web of cloud. The shadow beneath the palmetto grew long over Scip's fresh grave. The stars were dim and few. The wind rose, and the lights in the city, where watchers wept over their sick, trembled on the frail breeze, and seemed to be multiplied, like objects seen through tears.

Through the wooden shutter, Zerviah could see the lights, and the lonely palmetto, and the grave. He could see those few cold stars.

He thought, while his thoughts remained his own, most tenderly and longingly of those for whom he had given his life. He remembered how many keen cares of their own they had to carry, how many ghastly deeds and sights to do and bear. It was not strange that he should not be missed. Who was he?--a disgraced, unfamiliar man, among their kin and neighborhood. Why should they think of him? he said.

Yet he was glad that he could remember them. He wished his living or his dying could help them any. Things that his patients had said to him, looks that healing eyes had turned on him, little signs of human love and leaning, came back to him as he lay there, and stood around his bed, like people, in the dark hut.

"_They loved me_," he said: "Lord, as true as I'm alive, they did! I'm glad I lived long enough to save life, _to save life_! I'm much obliged to You for that! I wish there was something else I could do for them.... Lord! I'd be willing to die if it would help them any. If I thought I could do anything that way, toward sending them a frost--

"No," he added, "that ain't reasonable. A frost and a human life ain't convertible coin. He don't do unreasonable things. May be I've lost my head already. But I'd be glad to. That's all. I suppose I can _ask_ You for a frost. _That's_ reason.

"Lord God of earth and heaven! that made the South and North, the pestilence and destruction, the sick and well, the living and the dead, have mercy on us miserable sinners! Have mercy on the folks that pray to You, and on the folks that don't! Remember the old graves, and the new ones, and the graves that are to be opened if this hellish heat goes on, and send us a blessed frost, O Lord, _as an act of humanity_! And if that ain't the way to speak to You, remember I haven't been a praying man long enough to learn the language very well,--and that I'm pretty sick,--but that I would be glad to die--to give them--a great, white, holy frost. Lord, a frost! Lord, a cool, white, clean frost, for these poor devils that have borne so much!"

At midnight of that Saturday he dozed and dreamed. He dreamed of what he had thought while Scip was sick: of what it was like, to be holy; and, sadly waking, thought of holy people--good women and honest men, who had never done a deadly deed.

"I cannot be holy," thought Zerviah Hope; "but I can pray for frost." So he tried to pray for frost. But by that time he had grown confused, and his will wandered pitifully, and he saw strange sights in the little hut. It was as if he were not alone. Yet no one had come in. _She_ could not come at midnight. Strange--how strange! Who was that who walked about the hut? Who stood and looked at him? Who leaned to him? Who brooded over him? Who put arms beneath him? Who looked at him, as those look who love the sick too much to shrink from them?

"I don't know You," said Zerviah, in a distinct voice. Presently he smiled. "Yes, I guess I do. I see now. I'm not used to You. I never saw You before. You are Him I've heered about--God's Son! God's Son, You've taken a great deal of trouble to come here after me. Nobody else came. You're the only one that has remembered me. You're very good to me.

"... Yes, I remember. They made a prisoner of _You_. Why, yes! They deserted _You_. They let _You_ die by Yourself. What did You do it for? I don't know much about theology. I am not an educated man. I never prayed till I come South.... I forget--_What did You do it for?_"

A profound and solemn silence replied.

"Well," said the sick man, breaking it in a satisfied tone, as if he had been answered, "I wasn't worth it ... but I'm glad You came. I wish they had a frost, poor things! _You_ won't go away? Well, I'm glad. Poor things! Poor things! I'll take Your hand, if You've no objections."

After a little time, he added, in a tone of unutterable tenderness and content:

"_Dear_ Lord!" and said no more.

It was a quiet night. The stars rode on as if there were no task but the tasks of stars in all the universe, and no sorrow keener than their sorrow, and no care other than their motion and their shining. The web of cloud floated like exhaling breath between them and the earth. It grew cooler before the dawn. The leaves of the palmetto over Scip's grave seemed to uncurl, and grow lax, and soften. The dust still flew heavily, but the wind rose.

The Sunday-bells rang peacefully. The sick heard them, and the convalescent and the well. The dying listened to them before they left. On the faces of the dead, too, there came the look of those who hear.

The bells tolled, too, that Sunday. They tolled almost all the afternoon. The young Northerner, Dr. Remane, was gone,--a reticent, brave young man,--and the heroic telegraph operator. Saturday night they buried her. Sunday, "Bobby" took her place at the wires, and spelled out, with shaking fingers, the cries of Calhoun to the wide, well world.

By sunset, all the bells had done ringing and done tolling. There was a clear sky, with cool colors. It seemed almost cold about Scip's hut. The palmetto lifted its faint head. The dust slept. It was not yet dark when a little party from the city rode up, searching for the dreary place. They had ridden fast. Dr. Frank was with them, and the lady, Marian Dare. She rode at their head. She hurried nervously on. She was pale, and still weak. The chairman of the Relief Committee was with her, and the sub-committee and others.

Dr. Dare pushed on through the swinging door of the hut. She entered alone. They saw the backward motion of her gray-sleeved wrist, and came no farther, but removed their hats and stood. She knelt beside the bed, and put her hand upon his eyes. God is good, after all. Let us hope that they knew her before they closed.

She came out, and tried to tell about it, but broke down, and sobbed before them all.

"It's a martyr's death," said the chief, and added solemnly, "Let us pray."

He knelt, and the others with him, between the buried negro and the unburied nurse, and thanked God for the knowledge and the recollection of the holy life which this man had lived among them in their hour of need.

* * * * *

They buried him, as they must, and hurried homeward to their living, comforting one another for his memory as they could.

As for him, he rested, after her hand had fallen on his eyes. He who had known so deeply the starvation of sleeplessness, slept well that night.

In the morning, when they all awoke, these of the sorrowing city here, and those of the happy city yonder; when they took up life again with its returning sunrise,--the sick and the well, the free and the fettered, the living and the dead,--the frost lay, cool, white, blessed, on his grave.

THE LIFE-MAGNET.

BY ALVEY A. ADEE.

_Putnam's Magazine, August, 1870._

There was something about the wholesome sleepiness of Freiberg, in Saxony, that fitted well with the lazy nature of Ronald Wyde. So, having run down there to spend a day or two among the students and the mines, and taking a liking to the quaint, unmodernized town, he bodily changed his plans of autumn-travel, gave up a cherished scheme of Russian vagabondage, had his baggage sent from Dresden, and made ready to settle down and drowse away three or four months in idleness and not over-arduous study. And this move of his led to the happening of a very strange and seemingly unreal event in his life.

Ronald Wyde was then about twenty-five or six years old, rather above the medium height, with thick blue-black hair that he had an artist-trick of allowing to ripple down to his neck, dark hazel eyes that were almost too deeply recessed in their bony orbits, and a troublesome growth of beard that, close-shaven as he always was, showed in strong blue outline through the thin and rather sallow skin. His address was singularly pleasing, and his wide experience of life, taught him by years of varied travel, made him a good deal of a cosmopolitan in his views and ways, which caused him to be looked upon as a not over-safe companion for young men of his own age or under.

Having made up his mind to winter in Freiberg, his first step was to quit the little hotel, with its mouldy stone-vaulted entrance and its columned dining-room, under whose full-centered arches close beery and smoky fumes lingered persistently, and seek quieter student-lodgings in the heart of the town. His choice was mainly influenced by a thin-railed balcony, twined through and through by the shoots of a vigorous Virginia creeper, that flamed and flickered in the breezy October sunsets in strong relief against the curtains that drifted whitely out and in through the open window. So, with the steady-going and hale old Frau Spritzkrapfen he took up his quarters, fully persuading himself that he did so for the sake of the stray home-breaths that seemed to stir the scarlet vine-leaves more gently for him, and ignoring pretty Lottchen's great, earnest Saxon eyes as best he could.

A sunny morning followed his removal to Frau Spritzkrapfen's tidy home. There had been a slight rain in the early night, and the footways were yet bright and moist in patches that the slanting morning rays were slowly coaxing away. Ronald Wyde, having set his favorite books handily on the dimity-draped table, which comprised for him the process of getting to rights, and having given more than one glance of amused wonderment at the naïve blue-and-white scriptural tiles that cased his cumbrous four-story earthenware stove, and smiled lazily at poor Adam's obvious and sudden indigestion, even while the uneaten half-apple remained in his guilty hand, he stepped out on his balcony, leaned his elbows among the crimson leaves, and took in the healthful morning air in great draughts. It was a Sunday; the bells of the gray minster hard by were iterating their clanging calls to the simple townsfolk to come and be droned to in sleepy German gutturals from the carved, pillar-hung pulpit inside. Looking down, he saw thick-ankled women cluttering past in loose wooden-soled shoes, and dumpy girls with tow-braids primly dangling to their hips, convoying sturdy Dutch-built luggers of younger brothers up the easy slope that led to the church and the bells. Presently Frau Spritzkrapfen and dainty Lottchen, rosy with soap and health, slipped through the doorway beneath him out into the little church-bound throng, and, as they disappeared, left the house and street somehow unaccountably alone. Feeling this, Ronald Wyde determined on a stroll.

Something in the Sabbath stillness around him led Ronald away from the swift clang and throbbing hum of the bells and in the direction of the old cemetery. Passing through the clumsy tower-gate that lifts its grimy bulk sullenly, like a huge head-stone over the grave of a dead time of feudalism, he reached the burial-ground and entered the quiet enclosure. The usual touching reverence of the Germans for their dead was strikingly manifest around him. The humbler mounds, walled up with rough stones a foot or two above the pathway level, carried on their crests little gardens of gay and inexpensive plants; while on the tall wooden crosses at their head hung yellow wreaths, half hiding the hopeful legend, "Wiedersehen." The more pretentious slabs bore vases filled with fresh flowers; while in the grate-barred vaults, that skirted the ground like the arches of a cloister, lay rusty heaps of long-since mouldered bloom, topped by newer wreaths tossed lovingly in to wilt and turn to dust in their turn, like those cast in before them in memory of that other dust asleep below.