University of Virginia Library

37. XXXVII.
THE NIGHT VISIT.

IT is even so: fretting, scheming, overreaching,
it has come to this.

Stark and still he lies there, unconcerned;
assaulted, and he will not prosecute; indifferent alike to his
clients' interests and his own; what was so absorbing an hour
ago — fees, stratagems, riches, revenge — of no importance
now; the grand new house he was building, henceforth of no
use to him; as well off on the ground there as anywhere, —
six feet of blank earth quite sufficient; deaf to the thunder,
blind to the lightning; not at all in danger of catching cold;
done with umbrellas forever; what is called DEAD. How does
it seem to you, Elphaz? Do you sneer at honesty now, or
chuckle at your start in the world?

Dead: his horse tears the buggy to splinters in the woods, —
the damage and expense will certainly be considerable, — and
he cares nothing! Dead: his most powerful dread enemy
stands over him, and he fears nothing. Dead: as it is the destiny
of each to be, if not at one time, then at another time; if

not in one fashion, then in some other fashion. And what
is the great difference? A few years more or less of dreaming
selfish dreams, and of grasping emptiness, — are they of
such wonderful importance? Dead: and is this the end?
What do you think of it, Elphaz?

Some such thoughts whirl chaotic in Ben Arlyn's breast.
Not a reflecting man, but a man of passion and instinct rather,
with a heart much huger than his brain, — still, on this
occasion, he is shocked into moralizing, and grapples, in a
rude, blind way, with the giant phantoms, — the vast shadowy
questions of life and death and the hereafter. And what
is it to hate a man? and to have him dead — where is the
satisfaction? His emotions roll through him like the thunder;
and the gleams of light he has on these vague subjects
are like the sharp-edged lightnings that divide momentarily
the darkness, and let it close again.

“God! God! God!” he calls, flinging up his clinched
hands, and wringing them helplessly, hopelessly, overwhelmed
with his wrongs, his griefs, his baffled rage against this very
man, and his awful doubts. Then he laughs a ghastly laugh,
as the thought suggests itself, — the jeering thought, —
“What so curious as a dead lawyer?” There should be
something sacred and venerable about a dead saint; for he
has lived a life in this sphere which will flow on serenely and
blissfully in the spheres beyond. But a crafty lawyer! — ha,
ha, ha! The laugh sounds fearfully in the stormy forest.

It is evident that the poor man's sufferings and shocks have
been too much for him, and that his reason is unsettling.

The evening wears on; and all this time one sits watching.
The dead man there, the frantic father here, the hands yonder
eagerly clasping the gold, the deed that has been done, — all
these come near her own heart and life: but she sits in the
chamber, unconscious, scarce aware of the thunder, or the
hissing rain, or the tempest tearing the trees; her whole soul
in her eyes, and her eyes watching her babe.

It lies softly pillowed on the lounge. It is asleep. Slowly
and faintly it breathes. Its little face is very sad and
pale. It is ill; and maybe it will die, the mother thinks.
Therefore with anguish such as only those can know who have
loved a babe, and felt it was their all, and that even this one
precious lamb might soon be taken from them, — her eyes
dry, but her heart full of hot tears, — Lucy gazes on that
darling face.

And now the footsteps seldom heard of late ascend the
stairs quickly; and drenched and breathless, from the wild
warfare of the elements, Guy enters the room. There is a
gleam of excitement in his face as he shakes the water from
his cap; but it yields place to an expression of pain and anxiety
when his eyes rest upon the mother and the babe. She
does not look up at him, her heart is so full.

“Lucy! what is the matter?” He bent over the pale,
sad little face, — oh, so sad! — for, indeed, what is there so
touchingly pitiful as infancy — tender, innocent infancy —

stricken with silent suffering? “Sick?” and he knelt down
by its side; affection and pity mastering his strong nature;
and all his wrongs, real or fancied, towards the mother and
the child, burning and stinging him. If it should die now,
would it not be through his neglect? He shook with a silent
convulsion; and tears, which she could not shed, rushed
to his eyes.

“O Guy!” she burst forth desolately, “what have I
done? Haven't I suffered enough? I cannot, I will not, let
this darling go!” — clasping it wildly. “Is there no kind
Father? is there only a cruel Fate?” And in her look was
what he had never seen there before, — rebellion against
Providence. Be not shocked: such is the human heart.
The Thracians, in old times, drew up in battle array against
the thunderbolts of heaven, shooting their arrows into the
clouds. Why smile at their idle resistance to the gods?
Have you never, Christian man or woman, arrayed your
will against impending afflictions?

“We know there is a Father,” said Guy. “We will not
madly question: we will hope.”

“It is easy for you to say that! — you, who are all absorbed
in other things!” — and Lucy selfishly held the babe from
him.

“Has the doctor seen it?” he asked.

“No: I have nobody to send. Mrs. Hedge works so
hard, — she has to support us all now: Jehiel gets no money.
O Guy! why do you drag them into your ruin, if you will
persist in ruining yourself?”

The young reformer held his face in his hands. What
could he answer her? He felt that all her predictions
concerning his associates and their schemes had thus far
come true; and he had nothing to oppose to her bitter complaint.

“I told Jehiel he should be paid. I would have perilled
my soul to keep my promise; and I have kept it.”

“Have you paid him?”

“No; but I have come to pay him;” and Guy produced
a heavy little bag. Either his dark words, or the unexpected
sight, alarmed Lucy.

“What is that?”

“Gold, — the price of my farm. O gold, gold!” he
said, crushing the words in his teeth, “bait of hell! ruin of
souls! I hate you! Where is Jehiel?”

“He hasn't come,” said Lucy, staring at him with dismay.

“Then keep this accursed stuff for me till morning. I
will come early, and pay him.” He dropped it into a drawer
of the bureau. “It is better out of my hands: would I
could wash off its stain forever to-night!” Impulsively he
bathed his hands at Lucy's pitcher. He turned, and saw her
eyes still fixed upon him. “Lucy! you follow me with
hard, questioning looks. You think ill of me, I know; and
the time may be near when you will think worse. And what
have I to say for myself? Nothing!” And he looked at his
hands sorrowfully.

The tempest and rain lashed the windows; the house trembled,
and seemed full of hissing sounds. Lucy held her babe
closer.

“These are the nights that make one's hair turn gray!”
said Guy, standing still in the room, with a countenance surcharged
with troubled thought. “Lucy, you think I have
not loved this child of our love. God knows! And your
father — what shall you say to him of me?”

Her heart was full of forebodings about her father's coming;
and the question wrung from her a cry of pain.

“How can I see him, — show him my fatherless babe? and
yet I must. And I will tell him all, that he may not kill
you!”

“Kill me?” Guy smiled. “If that would right all
wrongs, how willingly would I lay down my poor life! For
I grow weary, Lucy. Yet tell him, not for my sake, but
for his, for yours, for the sake of our little Agnes here, — God
keep her! — tell him, that, villain as I seem, you are blameless.
I will tell him that, and bare my breast to him. But
who knows the future? The morrow will come, and what
will it bring? Hear the old elm roar and creak! Will it
wave serenely in the breezy morning? or will it lie conquered
and despoiled, its mighty roots uptorn? We will fear nothing,
but cheerfully take what comes. And now good-by!
Good-by, my pale, still Agnes!”

“Will you go?” asked Lucy, “in this storm?”

“I will go and send the doctor to this poor little lamb.

What are the wind and rain to me? I am drenched already.
As for that stuff, keep it hid, and say nothing of it. It was
meant that I should not have it; but I have it! I will send
Mrs. Hedge up to sit with you: she will be better company
than I can be to-night.”

He kissed the babe; he kissed the mother also, with
quivering lips. Still he lingered; for his heart was full, and
the shadow of the morrow was heavy upon him.

“The good Heaven bless you both!” he said, and hurried
away, with a burning in his breast which made it a relief for
him to get out once more into the cold dash and turbulent
uproar of the storm.

The thunder has passed on, and now the tempest is king.
His sceptre smites the forest, and crashes among the crags.

The house-sides are beaten and buffeted and lashed by clashing
boughs, and the floods of heaven pour against them incessant
whistling volleys. And now two women watch and
whisper with awe-hushed lips beside the sick babe, waiting for
the absent Jehiel, and for the physician who does not come.

“Oh, they will let my baby die!” moans the agonized
mother.

“Where can my husband be this awful night?” says the
anxious wife: so selfish does love make us all.

Well might she ask; for Jehiel was having a somewhat terrific

adventure at this time. Having waited long at Biddikin's
for the rain to cease, he grew impatient, knowing how
troubled Hannah would be about him; and set out, lame as
he was, wild and wet as the night was, to walk home, — alone
through the woods, where lay the murdered man.

In the mean time, the horse had run home to the tavern,
snorting and foaming with terror, harness torn and flying, minus
the vehicle; and the alarmed landlord had started with an
umbrella, a lantern, and a little boy, to look for the missing
traveller, — through the tempestuous woods, on foot; for it
was a one-horse tavern he kept.

And in the woods, coming from opposite directions, Jehiel
and the landlord met, and found the lost lawyer stretched
across the road, with a gory, ill-washed wound in his neck, —
in the dark and rainy woods.

And the lad went before with the lantern and the shut umbrella,
winking at the gale; and Jehiel and the landlord followed,
bearing the dead Elphaz, — horrible burden! For thus
the “whirligig of Time,” which sometimes whirls very fast,
brings in his revenges. Scarce two hours ago, Pelt refused
the lame laborer a ride in his buggy; and now, lo! the latter
helps to give him a ride in a very different fashion.

So they got the ghastly horror as far as Jehiel's gate,
where they met the doctor in his chaise coming to see Lucy's
babe. Well, maybe a dead lawyer is of more value than a
living infant; at all events, these men seem to decide it so:
and the thing that was Elphaz is got into the chaise, and back

the doctor drives; and the men go with it to the village, — to
the tavern, — to Pelt's room, where he sleeps this night as he
never slept before, not to be disturbed in the morning by the
birds singing.

For the morning shall come as usual; and the birds shall
sing; and the world shall wake cool and green and glistening
after the storm; and sunshine and sweet smells
and a new joyous life shall delight the sense and soul of
glad men and women, and strike the hearts of others with a
dull mockery; and, happier than many, one shall not awake.