University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE LAST OF A LOVE-CHASE.

“How easy it seems for noble souls to be noble!”
thought I, as I followed Padiham up the
neat staircase of his House of Charity. “What
a beautiful vengeance it is of this man upon
nature for blighting him! A meaner being
would be soured, and turn cynic, and perhaps
chuckle that others were equalized with him by
suffering. He simply, and as if it were a matter
of course, gives himself to baffling sorrow and
blight. It is Godlike.” And I looked with
renewed admiration at the strange figure climbing
the stairs before me.

He was all head and shoulders, and his motions
were like a clumsy child's. I went slowly
after him. Was it true that this long love-chase
over land and sea was at its ending? Joy is
always a giant surprise, — success a disappointment
among the appointed failures. Was this
grim dwarf to be a conjurer of happiness?

Padiham tapped at a door in the upper story.

A voice said, “Come in.”

Her voice! That sweet, sad voice! That unmurmuring,
unrebellious voice! That voice of
gentle defiance, speaking a soul impregnable!
How full of calm hopefulness! while yet I could
detect in it the power of bursting into all the horror
of that dread scream that had come through
the stillness to our camp at Fort Bridger.

The dwarf opened the door quietly.

The sunshine of that fresh June morning lay
bright upon the roses in the window. My glance
perceived the old blue-gray infantry surtout hanging
in a corner. Mr. Clitheroe was sitting up
in bed, lifting a tea-cup with his left hand. His
long white beard drifted over the cool bedclothes.
An appetizing breakfast, neatly served, was upon
a table beside him. And there in this safe
haven, hovering about him tenderly as ever in
the days of his errant voyaging in the hapless
time gone by, was his ministering angel, that
dear daughter, the sister of my choice.

She turned as we entered.

The old steady, faithful look in the gray eyes.
The same pale, saddened beauty. The unblenching
gaze of patient waiting.

She looked at me vaguely, while life paused
one pulse. Then, as I stepped forward, the eloquent
blood gushed into her face, — for she knew
that the friend could not long outrun the lover.
She sprang into my arms. Forgive me, John

Brent, if I did put my lips close to her burning
cheek. It was only to whisper, “He is in London,
searching for you. He has never rested
one moment since you were lost to us. In an
hour he will be here.”

“Dear father,” she said, drawing herself away,
and smiling all aglow, while tears proclaimed
a joy too deep for any surface smile to speak,
“this is our dear friend, my preserver, Mr.
Wade.”

Mr. Clitheroe studied me with a bewildered
look, as I have seen an old hulk of a mariner
peer anxiously into a driving sea-fog from the
shore, while he talked of shipmates shaken from
the yard, or of brave ships that sunk in unknown
seas. Then the mist slowly cleared away
from the old gentleman's dim eyes, and he saw
me in the scenery of my acting with him.

“Ah yes!” he said, in a mild, dreamy voice,
“I see it all. Sizzum's train, Fort Bridger, the
Ball, the man with a bloody blanket on his head,
you and your friend galloping off over the prairie,
— I see it all.”

He paused, and seemed to review all that wild
error of his into the wilderness.

“Yes, I see it all,” he continued. “My dear
Mr. Wade, I remember you with unspeakable
gratitude. You and your friend saved me this
dearest daughter. I have suffered wearing distress

since then, and you must pardon me for
forgetting you one instant. Excuse my left
hand! Dwarf George is a capital machinist,
but he says he cannot put new springs into my
right. That is nothing, my dear Mr. Wade,
that is nothing. God has given me peace of
mind at last, my dear daughter has forgiven
me all my old follies, and my stanch old mate
will never let me want a roof over my head, or
a crust of his bread and a sup of his can.”

There is a Hansom cab-horse, now or late of
London, who must remember me with asperity.

But then there is a cabman who is my friend
for life, if a giant fare can win a cabman's
heart.

By the side of the remembrance of my gallop
down Luggernel Alley, I have a picture in
my mind of myself, in a cab, cutting furiously
through the cañons of London in chase of a
lover. The wolves and cayotes of the by-streets —
there are no antelopes in London — did not attempt
to follow our headlong speed. We rattled
across Westminster Bridge, up Whitehall, and
so into May Fair to Lady Biddulph's door.

The footman — why did he grin when he saw
me? — recognized me as the family friend of yesterday,
and ushered me without ceremony into
the breakfast-room, where the family were all
assembled.

Why did the footman grin? I perceived, as
I entered. A mirror fronted me. My face was
like a Sioux's in his war-paint. There had been
flies in Padiham's shop, and I had brushed them
away from my face, alas! with hands blackened
over the lathe.

All looked up amazed at this truculent intruder.
It was, —

“Enter Orlando, with his sword drawn.”

“Forbear, and eat no more!”

An injunction not necessary for poor Brent,
who sat dreary and listless.

The rest forbore at my apparition. Egg-spoon
paused at egg's mouth. Sugar sank to the floor
of coffee-cup. Toast silenced its crackle.

Brent recognized me in the grimy pirate before
him.

He sprang to his feet. “You have found
her!” cried he.

“Yes.”

He looked at me eagerly.

“Well and happy,” I said; “in a safe haven
with a faithful friend. Lady Biddulph will pardon
me, bringing such tidings, for rushing in
in my war-paint, American fashion.”

“You are always welcome, Mr. Wade, in what
costume you please,” said she. “Doubly so
with this happy news. My dear Ellen! I must
see her at once, — as soon as closer friends have

had their hour. But, Mr. Brent, you are not
going without your breakfast!”

Everybody smiled.

“Come! Come!” cried Brent.

“Come!” and as we hurried away, there was
again the same light in his eye, — the same life
and ardor in his whole being, as when, in that
wild Love-Chase on the Plains, we galloped side
by side.