The Old Homestead Part 16

"No, I will not resign. Not to save my life would I give this cowardly recognition of your act. If I am sent from the police, you, sir, must take the responsibility!"

Chester took up his hat and walking-stick.

"I will wait still longer. You may think better of this?" said the Mayor, rising also.

Chester turned back, leaning for support upon his walking stick.

"I have given my answer, I am ready to meet my fate!" and without another word the unhappy man walked forth trembling in every limb, and girded as it were by a band of iron across the chest.

The Mayor watched him depart with an uneasy glance. He had failed in his usual game of securing a resignation when the responsibility threatened to become heavy. In this case the presence of the Chief of Police at Chester's trial--the character of the man, and above all his own knowledge of the means by which his ruin had been procured, rendered the worthy magistrate peculiarly anxious. It was one of those cases that the public might question, especially when it became known that the princ.i.p.al witness was to receive the place made vacant by Chester's ruin. He found most men willing to redeem some fragment of a lost character by resignation, and thus had craftily frightened many an honest man from his place whom he would not have ventured to condemn openly. The Mayor had summoned Chester to his presence with this hope. But the high and courageous nature of the policeman, the simplicity, the energy and deep true feeling inherent in him formed a character entirely above the level of his honor's comprehension. His craft and subtle policy were completely thrown away here. Following the n.o.ble young man, with hatred in his eye, the Mayor arose muttering--

"Though it cost me my seat, he shall go!" and he followed the policeman, calling him by name.

"It needs no longer time for a decision," he said, touching his hat as he pa.s.sed out of the City Hall, "to-morrow you can bring your star and your book to the Chief's office; they will be wanted for another!"

"To-night--I will bring them at once!" said Chester, with a start, for he was very weak, and the Mayor's voice struck his ear suddenly.

"Then," he murmured to himself, "G.o.d help me, to-morrow I may not have the strength."

When Chester went out in the morning, his wife had complained of illness, and this added to his depression as he returned home. "Oh, what news do I bring to make her better," he thought. "What but sorrow and pain shall I ever have to offer her on this side the grave? Feeble as a child--disgraced. Oh, Jane, my wife, how will she live through all that must too surely come upon her!"

Saddened by these thoughts, Chester mounted the stairs. He entered the chamber formerly the scene of so much innocent happiness, and found Isabel sitting by the fire alone and crying. Chester loved his beautiful child, and her tears sent a fresh pang through his heart.

The idea crossed his mind that she might be hungry and crying for food. He had often thought of late, that this want must come upon them all at last, but now that it seemed close at hand, it made him faint as death. He sat down and attempted to lift the little girl to his knee, but he had not strength to raise her from the floor, and, abandoning the attempt with a mournful look, he drew her close to his bosom; his forehead fell upon her shoulder, and he wept like a child.

Isabel wiped away his tears, and put her arm softly around his neck.

"Oh, papa, don't take on so, I wish I had not cried."

"And what are you grieving about?" said Chester, struggling with himself, "were--were you hungry, darling?"

"No, it was not that, but mamma, you know, had such a headache, and we wanted to do something for her, but Mary find I could find no camphor nor cologne nor anything in the house, and poor mamma kept growing worse, so we made it up between us, Mary and I, to sell the Canary bird. There was not a bit of seed, nothing but husks in the cage, and the poor thing begun to hang its head; so don't blame us, we had no money for seed, and now that you and mamma are both sick, Mary thought we had better sell the bird."

Chester groaned, and his face fell once more upon the child's shoulder.

"Papa, are you angry," said Isabel, while the tears came afresh to her beautiful eyes.

"No, my child, no. It was right, it was best. But your mother, is she so very ill?"

"She is asleep now! That was the reason I only cried very softly when Mary Fuller went away with the bird--Mary made me promise not to cry out loud, for fear of waking her."

Chester arose and moved softly toward the bedroom. It had a desolate and poverty-stricken look--that little room--but still was neatly arranged and tidy in every part. The bureau was gone, and the straw-bed, though made with care, looked comfortless in comparison with the couch in which we first saw Isabel.

Mrs. Chester was lying upon the bed sleeping heavily, her cheeks were crimson, and there was some difficulty in her breathing which seemed unnatural. Still there did not seem to be cause for apprehension.

Since her troubles came on, the poor wife had often been a sufferer from nervous headaches, and this seemed but a more violent attack than usual.

Chester put the hair away from her forehead, and kissing it, softly went out, thankful that she was not awake to hear his evil news.

He sat down by the window, for it was now early spring, and Isabel crept to his side. The little creature found in his presence consolation for the loss of her bird. They had been sitting together perhaps half an hour, when Mary Fuller came in; her face bore a look of keen disappointment, and her eyes were full of tears.

"You have told him?" she said, addressing Isabel, "you have told him about it?"

"Yes, my good little girl, she told me. You were very right to sell the bird," said Chester, reaching forth his hand.

The child came close to him and looked earnestly in his face.

"You look very bad--you are in pain?" she said, "something is the matter with you, Mr. Chester."

"I have a little pain here," said Chester, with a sad smile, pressing one hand upon his breast. "It seems, Mary, as if an iron girdle were about me, straining tighter and tighter. Sometimes it troubles me to breathe at all?"

Mary touched his hand, it seemed as if a glowing coal were buried in the palm. Her eyes filled with strange terror, and without a word she sat down at Chester's feet, burying her troubled face in her garments.

"Did--did you sell the bird?" asked Isabel, touching Mary's shoulder.

"Yes," replied Mary, in a smothered voice, "I sold it, but they would only give me half a dollar. They saw that we wanted money--but I would not let it go for ever--sometime they will let us buy it back again."

"Oh, that is so much better! When papa gets his place again, we can have birdy back," said Isabel, relieved from her most pressing grief; but the hope so innocently expressed struck upon the poor father's heart like a knife. When he got his place back! That time would never, never come! He was disgraced--a branded, ruined man. The full conviction had been cruelly brought home to him by the words of that hopeful little girl. A smothered groan broke from him. Little Mary lifted her head, regarding him sadly, as he paced up and down the floor.

"Mr. Chester," she said, following him, and speaking in a troubled under-tone, "don't look so sorrowful. I wish you could only cry a little--just a little, it will do you good; come in and see _her_, perhaps that will bring the tears."

"It is here, my girl, it is here!" said Chester, laying one hand upon his chest. "I cannot breathe."

"Perhaps--oh, I am almost sure it is only the tears that cannot get to your eyes lying heavy there. That does give dreadful pain--I know."

"It is something worse than that," said Chester, and the tears gushed into his eyes. "I feel--I feel that it is"--

"Is what, sir? oh you may tell me!"

"No, it is nothing, G.o.d may yet spare me!"

Mary gazed at him a moment, and then turned away. She entered the little closet where her bed was, and closing the door, knelt down.

She did not weep as other children of her age might have done, but clasping her hands, and lifting her meek forehead to Heaven, prayed in her heart; a little time and the words came gus.h.i.+ng to her lips, earnest, eloquent, and full of deep, simple pathos. Her eyelids quivered; her mouth grew bright with the soul that troubled it. Her diminutive frame seemed to dilate and straighten with the energy of her prayer.

"Oh, G.o.d, oh, my Father, who art in Heaven, Thou who hast made these, Thy children, so good and so beautiful, look down upon me--bend for one moment from the bright home where Thou hast taken my own father, and listen to me, his only child--I am feeble, helpless, and all alone. Oh, G.o.d, no one need grieve or shed a tear upon the earth if I am laid in my little grave before morning. Look upon me, oh, Lord, see if I am not a useless and unsightly thing, whom Thy creatures may look upon with pity, but no love save that which bringeth tears.

Take me, oh, Father, take me from the earth, and leave the good man with his wife and with his child. I am ready, I am willing, this night, to lie down in the deepest grave, so this, my kind friend, live for those who love him so much. Father--oh, my own father, who art nearer unto G.o.d than I am, plead for me, plead for him; plead that thy little unseemly child, may be taken up to the home where her father is--and that he who saved, and fed, and sheltered thy child, may be left to feed and shelter his own."

It seemed as if the holy spirit of self-sacrifice that possessed this child, had sublimated both her language and her countenance. Her face, so thin, so pallid, beamed with the spirit of an angel--the subdued pathos of her voice, was like the fall of water-drops upon pure marble. Long after her lips ceased to move her face and hands were uplifted to Heaven.

Chester heard the murmur of her voice, and his heart was soothed by it. He went into his wife's bed-room, and bent gently over her as she slept. The fever was still hot upon her cheek, and she murmured in her unrest as Chester took her hand softly in his and pressed his pale brow upon it. Long and mournfully did the heart-stricken man gaze upon those loved features. He smoothed the pillow, he spread the cool linen softly over her arms, he bathed her forehead with cold water, and afterward with his tears, as he bent down to kiss it before he went out.

Then he went into the outer room, and took from a drawer his star, and his official book. These he folded up carefully and placed in his pocket. Still he lingered in the room, moving from window to window, and looking sadly upon his child.

"Isabel, I am going out, come and kiss me."

The child came up, cheerful and smiling, with her arms extended.

Chester sat down, and taking her upon his knee, and gathering her little hands in his, gazed mournfully into her eyes.

"Isabel!" he said, with a degree of solemnity that filled the child with awe.

She looked up wonderingly; he said no more, but sat gazing upon her.

His bosom heaved with a sort of gasping struggle, sob after sob broke from his lips, and he removed her gently from his knee. He was turning to go out when Mary Fuller came from her little bedroom. Chester turned, laid both hands upon her head, and, as she lifted her gentle eyes to his, he bent down and kissed her--the first time in his life, and the last.