David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 30

The gale has subsided. The sun s.h.i.+nes. Blackbirds are singing. The yawl is dancing on the waves near the sh.o.r.e.

David Lockwin sits up. How warm and pleasant to be alive!

Alive! Oh, yes! Chicago! The Africa! Is it not better?

Has he any face left? His nose seems flat. He must be desperately wounded. His eyes grow dim. He must be dying again.

He sleeps and is once more gently awakened by the sea--so fond now, so terrible last night.

He sits upright in the yawl, wet, sore, and yet whole in limb. He gathers his scattered faculties. He finds a handkerchief and ties up his face. He muses.

"I am the sole survivor! I, Robert Chalmers, of New York City, am the sole survivor, and n.o.body shall know even that. Corkey--let me see--Corkey and a boy--they must be at the bottom of Georgian Bay!"

He muses again. His face hurts him once more. He sees a cabin at a distance. He finds he has money in plenty. To heal his wounds will be easy. He must be greatly changed if his feelings may be credited. Two of his teeth are broken, and hara.s.s his curious tongue.

What plotter, cunning in exploits, could so well plan an honorable discharge from the bitterness of life in Chicago?

"Sing on, you birds! Fly off to Cuba! I am as free!"

The man is startled by his own voice. It sounds as if some one else were talking. Yet this surprise only increases his joy.

"Free! Free! Free!" The word has a complete charm. It is like the s.h.i.+mmer of the waters. All this expanse of hammered silver is free!

"I am as free!" exclaims Robert Chalmers, of New York City.

And again starting at the sound of his own voice, he seeks the cabin of a hospitable trapper, where his wounds healing without surgical attention, may disguise him all the better.

CHAPTER II

A COMPLETE DISGUISE

David Lockwin has undertaken that Robert Chalmers shall have no trouble. It was David Lockwin, in theory, who suffered all the ills of life. In this theory David Lockwin has seriously erred. Robert Chalmers must bear burdens.

The first burden is a broken nose and a facial appearance strangely inferior to the look of David Lockwin, the orator. Robert Chalmers need not disguise himself. He will never be identified. That broken nose is a distortion that no detective could fathom. Those scarlet fimbrications under the skin proclaim the toper. Those missing teeth complete a picture which men do not admire.

David Lockwin was courted. Robert Chalmers is shunned. It wounds a personal vanity that in David Lockwin's philosophy had not existed. It is the ideal of disguises, but it does not make Robert Chambers happy.

Why, too, should Robert Chalmers desire so many appurtenances of life that were in David Lockwin's quarters? If we find Chalmers housed in comfortable apartments at Gramercy Square, is it not inconsistent that he should gradually supply himself with cough medicine, turpentine, alcohol, ammonia, niter, mentholine, camphor spirits, cholagogue, cholera mixture, whisky, oil, acid, salves and all the aids to health and cleanliness by which David Lockwin flourished? How slight an annoyance is the lack of that old-time prescription of Dr. Tarpion, which alone will relieve the melancholia!

For Robert Chalmers finds that the weather still gives him a turn. If the lost prescription will alone lift the oppression, is not the annoyance considerable, providing Dr. Tarpion cannot be seen?

Robert Chalmers had planned a life at Florence. But now he is a man without a body. It is enough. He will not also be a man without a country. He will stay in New York.

In fact, a fortune of $75,000 is not so much! It will be well to husband it. The books must be bought. Day after day the search must go forward for copies like those in Chicago. Josephus! What other copy will satisfy Robert Chalmers? Here is a handsome Josephus--as fine as the one in Chicago. But did Davy's head ever lie on it?

Well, bear up then, Robert Chalmers. You are free at least. You need not lie and cheat at elections. You need not live with a woman whose heart is as cold as ice and whose pride is like the pride of an Egyptian Pharaoh. You sunk that yawl well in the sands of Georgian Bay! You filled it with stones!

You thought you were the sole survivor, yet how admirably the rescue of Corkey and the boy abetted your escape, Robert Chalmers. They saw David Lockwin die. They took his dying wishes. Fortunate that he could not mention the deposit at New York!

But why is David Lockwin so dear? Why not forget him?

Did he play a part that credits him? Why stop at Was.h.i.+ngton and take the mail that awaited in that long-advertised list? Truly, Robert Chalmers was strong enough to lay those letters aside without reading.

That, at least, was prudent.

Let us read these newspaper accounts. There is intense excitement at Chicago. Lockwin is libeled. The election briberies are exposed.

David Lockwin had spent nearly $200,000 to go to Congress, it is stated.

"Infamous!" cries Robert Chalmers, and vows he is glad he is out of a world so base. He puts forth for books.

Search as he may, he cannot find the editions that have grown dear to David Lockwin. He cannot abstain from more purchases of Chicago papers. They are familiar--like the books in David Lockwin's library at Chicago.

This is a dreary life, without a friend. He dares not to seek acquaintances. Not a soul, not even a restaurant keeper, has ventured to be familiar. The man with a broken nose and missing teeth--the man with a grotesque voice--is scarcely desired as a customer at select places on the avenues and Broadway. Let him find better accommodations among the Frenchmen and Italians on Sixth avenue.

"Probably," they say, "he has fallen in a duel."

But there are fits of melancholia. Return, Robert Chalmers, to your handsome apartments. Draw down your folding-bed, turn on the heat, study those Chicago papers. Live once again! What is this? A reaction at Chicago. Why, here is a page of panegyric. Here is a large portrait of the late Hon. David Lockwin, lost in Georgian Bay!

The man whisks off his bed, and runs it up to the wall, whereupon he may confront a handsome mirror. He compares the two faces.

"A change. A change, indeed!" he exclaims sadly. It is not alone in the features. The new man is growing meager. He is an inconsequential person. He is a character to be kept waiting in an ante-room while strutting personages walk into the desired presence.

He pulls the bed down. He cannot lie on it now. He takes a chair and greedily reads the apotheosis of David Lockwin.

As he reads he is seized with a surprising feeling. In all this eulogium he sees the hand of Esther Lockwin. Without her aid this great biography could not have been collated.

The sweat stands on his brow. He studies the type, to learn those confessions that the publishers make, one to another, but not to the world.

"It is paid for," he groans. He is wounded and unhappy.

"It is her cursed pride," he says. "I'm glad I'm out of it all."

He sits, week after week, hands deep in pockets, his legs stretched out, one ankle over the other, his chin far down on his chest.

"Funny man in the east parlor!" says the chambermaid.

"Isn't he ugly!" says her fellow-chambermaid.

But after this long discontent, Robert Chalmers finds that Chicago mourns for him. He is flattered. "I earned it!" he cries, and goes in search of the books that once eased him--the identical copies.

The movement for a cenotaph makes him smile. On the whole, he is glad men are so sentimental about monuments. He is glad, however, that no monument will be erected.

It is undoubtedly embarra.s.sing.

He is thinking too much of Chicago. He must begin this second life on a new principle. He must forget David Lockwin. It grows apparent to the man that his brain will not bear the load which now rests upon it.

He must rather dwell upon the miseries that he has escaped He must canva.s.s the good fortune of a single and irresponsible citizen, Robert Chalmers, who has no less than $74,500 in bank. He must put his mind on business.