A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 24

MR. GROWTHER BECOMES GIGANTIC

Haldane was so surprised at Mr. Growther's unexpected course that the odd old man was out of the gate before the situation was fully realized.

His first impulse was to follow, and say that he would not be left alone in circ.u.mstances that might compromise him; but a second thought a.s.sured him that he was past being compromised. So he concluded to fall in with his host's queer humor, and try to prove himself worthy of trust. He cleared away his dinner with as much deftness as could be expected of one engaging in an unusual task, and put everything in its place, or what should be its place. He next found a broom, and commenced sweeping the room, which unwonted proceeding aroused the slumbering cat and dog, and they sat up and stared at the stranger with unfeigned astonishment.

The cat looked on quietly and philosophically, acting on the generally received principle of the world, of not worrying until her own interests seemed threatened. But the dog evidently thought of the welfare of his absent master, and had a vague troubled sense that something was wrong.

He waddled up to the intruder, and gravely smelled of him. By some canine casuistry he arrived at the same conclusion which society had reached--that Haldane was a suspicious character, and should be kept at arm's-length. Indeed, the sagacious beast seemed to feel toward the unfortunate youth precisely the same impulse which had actuated all the prudent citizens in town--a desire to be rid of him, and to have nothing to do with him. If Haldane would only take himself off to parts unknown, to die in a gutter, or to commit a burglary, that he might, as it were, break into jail again, and so find a refuge and an abiding-place, the faithful dog, believing his master's interests no longer endangered, would have resumed his nap with the same complacence and sense of relief which scores of good people had felt as they saw Mr. Arnot's dishonored clerk disappearing from their premises, after their curt refusal of his services. The community's thoughts and wary eyes followed him only sufficiently long to be sure that he committed no further depredations, and then he was forgotten, or remembered only as a danger, or an annoyance, happily escaped. What was to become of this drifting human atom appeared to cause no more solicitude in town than Mr. Growther's dog would feel should he succeed in growling the intruder out of the house; for, being somewhat mystified, and not exactly sure as to his master's disposition toward the stranger, he concluded to limit his protest to a union of his voice with what might be termed society's surly and monotonous command, "Move on."

Haldane tried to propitiate this mild and miniature Cerberus with a dainty piece of ham, but was rewarded only by a disdainful sniff and angrier snarl. The politic cat, however, with wary glances at the dog and the stranger, stole noiselessly to the meat, seized it, and retreated quickly to her recognized corner of the hearth; but when the youth, hoping that the morsel might lead to a friendly acquaintance, offered a caress, her back and tail went up instantly, and she became the embodiment of repellant conservatism. He looked at her a moment, and then said, with a bitter laugh:

"If you could be transformed into a woman, as the old fairy tale goes, you would make an excellent wife for Weitzel Shrumpf, while the snarling dog represents the respectable portion of the community, that will have nothing to do with me whatever. When my pen, however, has brought name and fame, the churlish world will be ready to fawn, and forget that it tried to trample me into the mire of the street until I became a part of it. Curses on the world! I would give half my life for the genius of a Byron, that I migt heap scorn on society until it writhed under the intolerable burden. Oh that I had a wit as keen and quick as the lightning, so that I might transfix and shrivel up the well-dressed monsters that now shun me as if I had a contagion!"

From a heart overflowing with bitterness and impotent protest against the condition to which his own act had reduced him, Haldane was learning to indulge in such bitter soliloquy with increasing frequency. It is ever the tendency of those who find themselves at odds with the world, and in conflict with the established order of things, to inveigh with communistic extravagance against the conservatism and wary prudence which they themselves would have maintained had all remained well with them. The Haldane who had meditated "gloomy grandeur" would not have looked at the poor, besmirched Haldane who had just accepted what the world would regard as charity. The only reason why the proud, aristocratic youth could tolerate and make excuse for the disreputable character who was glad to eat the dinner given by Jeremiah Growther, was that this same ill-conditioned fellow was himself. Thus every bitter thing which he said against society was virtually self-condemnation. And yet his course was most natural, for men almost invariably forget that their views change with their fortunes. Thousands will at once form a positive opinion of a subject from its aspect seen at their standpoint, where one will walk around and scan it on all sides.

Either to spite himself, or to show his confidence in one whom others regarded as utterly unworthy of trust, Mr. Growther remained away sufficiently long for Haldane to have made up a bundle of all the valuables in the house, and have escaped. The young man soon discovered that there were valuables, but anything like vulgar theft never entered his mind. That people should believe him capable of acting the part of a common thief was one of the strange things in his present experience which he could not understand.

Finally, to the immense relief of the honest and conservative dog, that had growled himself hoa.r.s.e, Haldane gave the room its finis.h.i.+ng touches, and betook himself to the woodpile again. The cat watched his departure with philosophic composure. Like many fair ladies, she had thought chiefly of herself during the interview with the stranger, from whom she had managed to secure a little agreeable attention without giving anything in return; and, now that it was over, she complacently purred herself to sleep, with nothing to regret.

"Hullo! you're here yet, eh!" said Mr. Growther, entering the gate.

"Can you name any good reason why I should not be here?" asked Haldane, somewhat nettled.

"No, but I could plenty of bad reasons."

"Keep them to yourself then," said the young man, sullenly resuming his work.

"You talk as if you was an honest man," growled the old gentleman, hobbling into the house.

Sitting down in his stout oak chair to rest himself, he stared in silence for a time at the changes that Haldane had wrought. At last he commenced:

"Now, Jeremiah Growther, I hope you can see that you are a perfect pig!

I hope you can see that dirt and confusion are your nateral elements; and you had to live like a pig till a boy just out of jail came to show you what it was to live like a decent human. But you've been showed before, and you'll get things mixed up to-morrow. A-a-h!

"Where's that young fellow goin' to sleep to-night? That's none o' your business. Yes, 'tis my business, too. I'm always mighty careful to know where I'm goin' to sleep, and if I don't sleep well my cat and dog hear from me the next day. You could be mighty comfortable tonight in your good bed with this young chap sittin' on a curb-stun in the rain; but I be hanged if you shall be. It's beginnin' to rain now--it's goin' to be a mean night--mean as yourself--a cold, oncomfortable drizzle; just such a night as makes these poor homeless devils feel that since they are half under water they might as well go down to the river and get under altogether. P'raps they do it sometimes in the hope of finding a warm, dry place somewhere. Dreadful suddint change for 'em, though! And it's we respectable, comfortable people that's to blame for these suddint changes half the time.

"You know that heady young chap out there will go to the bad if somebody don't pull him up. You know that it would be mean as dirt to let him go wanderin' off to-night with only fifty cents in his pocket, tryin' to find some place to put his head in out of the storm; and yet you want to git out of doin' anything more for him. You're thinkin' how much more comfortable it will be to sit dozin' in your chair, and not have any stranger botherin' round. But I'll head you off agin in spite of your cussed, mean, stingy, selfish, old, shrivelled-up soul, that would like to take its ease even though the hull world was a-groanin' outside the door. A-a-h!"

Having made it clear to the perverse Jeremiah Growther--against whom he seemed to hold such an inveterate spite--what he must do, he arose and called to Haldane:

"What are you doin' out there in the rain?"

"I'll be through in a few minutes."

"I don't want the rest done till mornin'."

"It will pay neither of us for me to come back here to do what's left."

"It may pay you, and as to its payin' me, that's my business."

"Not altogether--I wish to do my work on business principles; I haven't got down to charity yet."

"Well, have your own way, then; I s'pose other folks have a right to have it as well as myself, sometimes. Come in soon as you are through."

By the time Haldaue finished his task the clouds had settled heavily all around the horizon, hastening forward an early and gloomy twilight, and the rain was beginning to fall steadily. His mood comported with the aspect of sky and earth, and weariness, the fast ally of despondency, aided in giving a leaden hue to the future and a leaden weight, to his thoughts. The prospect of trudging a mile or more through the drenching rain to his previous squalid resting-place at No. 13, whose only attraction consisted in the fact that no questions were asked, was so depressing that he decided to ask Mr. Growther for permission to sleep in the corner of his woodshed.

"Come in," shouted Mr. Growther, in response to his knock at the door.

"I'm through," said Haldane laconically.

"Well, I ain't," replied Mr. Growther; "you wouldn't mind taking that cheer till I am, would you?"

Haldane found the cus.h.i.+oned armchair and the genial fire exceedingly to his taste, and he felt that in such comfortable quarters he could endure hearing the old man berate himself or any one else for an hour or more.

"Where are you goin' to sleep to-night?" asked his quaint-visaged host.

"That is a problem I had been considering myself," answered Haldane, dubiously. "I had about concluded that, rather than walk back through the rain to the wretched place at which I slept last night, I would ask for the privilege of sleeping in your wood-shed. It wouldn't be much worse than the other place, or any place in which I could find lodging if I were known. Since I did not steal your silver I suppose you can trust me with your wood."

"Yet they say your folks is rich."

"Yes, I can go to as elegant a house as there is in this city."

"Why in thunder don't you go there, then?"

"Because I would rather be in your wood-shed and other places like it for the present."

"I can't understand that."

"Perhaps not, but there are worse things than sleeping hard and cold.

There are people who suffer more through their minds than their bodies.

I am not going back among my former acquaintances till I can go as a gentleman."

The old man looked at him approvingly a moment, and then said sententiously:

"Well, you may be a bad cuss, but you ain't a mean one."

Haldane laughed outright. "Mr. Growther," said he, "you do me honor. I foresee you will trust me with your wood-pile to-night."

"No I won't nuther. You might not take my wood, but you would take cold, and then I'd have to nuss you and pay doctor's bills, and bother with you a week or more. I might even have your funeral on my hands. You needn't think you're goin' to get me into all this trouble, fur I'm one that hates trouble, unless it's fur myself; and, if I do say it, it's askin' a little too much of me, almost a stranger, to 'tend to your funeral. I don't like funerals--never did--and I won't have nothin' to do with yours. There's a room right upstairs here, over the kitchen, where you can sleep without wakin' up the hull neighborhood a coughin'

before mornin'. Now don't say nothin' more about it. I'm thinkin' of myself plaguy sight more'n I am of you. If I could let you go to the dogs without worryin' about it, I'd do it quick enough; but I've got a miserable, sneakin' old conscience that won't stand right up and make me do right, like a man; but when I want to do some thin' mean it begins a gnawin' and a gnawin' at me till I have to do what I oughter for the sate of a little peace and comfort. A-a-h!"

"Your uncomfortable conscience seems bent on making me very comfortable; and yet I pledge you my word that I will stay only on one condition, and that is, that you let me get supper and breakfast for you, and also read the paper aloud this evening. I can see that you are tired and lame from your walk. Will you agree?"

"Can't very well help myself. These easterly storms allers brings the rheumatiz into my legs. About all they are good fur now is to have the rheumatiz in 'em. So set plates for two, and fire ahead."

Haldane entered into his tasks with almost boyish zest. "I've camped out in the woods, and am considerable of a cook," said he. "You shall have some toast browned to a turn, to soak in your tea, and then you shall have some more with hot cream poured over it. I'll shave the smoked beef so thin that you can see to read through it."

"Umph! I can't see after dark any more than an old hen."