 | CHAPTER XXIII.
A YOUNG REPROBATE. Antony Brade |  |
23. CHAPTER XXIII.
A YOUNG REPROBATE.
The Rector-editor followed, for some distance, the
same road with the buggy, which soon went out of
sight. Before long, unmindful of Mrs. Weatherbee
and of Mr. Parmenter, he crossed the bars by a leap, as
before, into a pasture where a dozen or more of fine
cows were feeding.
As he walked, with a quick, steady step, across the
field, turning his head from side to side to look it all
over, a figure of a boy rose from behind one of the
cows, a good way in front of him, and, turning away,
walked, as steadily as he, down toward the wood, in
the hollow. Mr. Manson did not quicken his pace;
but he called after the boy by Christian and surname.
“Philip! Philip! Rainor!” he shouted, not with
much effort, but still loudly enough to be heard by any
intelligent ears. The call was altogether unheeded:
the boy neither quickened nor slackened his steps, but
walked straight on. The gentleman, smiling, with a
shake of the head, walked steadily after him.
At the rate at which the two were going, the distance
between would never have been shortened; but the boy
scarcely entered the wood, and, passing behind two or
coming back, — not exactly over the same ground as
in going down, but aslant; and now it might be seen
that he was carrying a book, which he seemed to be
closely reading, in such a way that his voice was heard,
now and then, through the still air of the afternoon,
as also was seen the emphatic accompaniment of his
hand as he read.
The clergyman smiled at this exhibition, and said
aloud, so that he might have been heard a good way
off, “Um!” then turned a little from his own course,
so as to bring the two paths together. As they drew
near, the boy, at the sound of footsteps, looked up from
his book, and, like one that had been taught manners,
bowed his head, and said, “A good evening, sir!”
Our readers will remember this boy's encounter with
Brade and Remsen, on one bright memorable morning.
He was a shabby lad, with ragged clothes and shoes,
and a sun-burnt cap hanging at the back of his head,
with the visor half-ripped off. His face was pale, surrounded
by straight, light-colored hair, and opened by
watery, bluish eyes, and a watering wide mouth, partly
open, showing large teeth.
This was the boy whom the reader has already met,
in the matter of the traps.
Mr. Manson returned a kindly greeting, and, as he
spoke, held out, in such a way as to be readily seen by
the other, a squared, even, and apparently unbroken
package of paper “currency,” from which an outside
paper-wrapper was turned back.
A change flitted over the boy's flabby face, and, by a
sort of instinctive motion, he put his free hand to his
trousers' pocket, while he fastened his eyes upon the
pretty full one.
“I want to have a little talk with you, Philip,” said
the clergyman.
“I've got to drive Mr. Bancroft's cows home,” answered
the boy, but standing still, with his eyes upon
the package, and with a very wakeful look.
“Would you rather meet me by-and-by, or stop
now?” asked Mr. Manson.
“Well,” said the lad, “I dono's I care about doin' ary
one of 'em.”
The healthy-looking man who was talking with him
seemed in no way surprised or disconcerted by his ungracious
tone, and answered gravely and decidedly, —
“But I must have a talk with you; and, as it wants
some time of sunset, perhaps I may as well do it now.”
The boy answered in a surly way, “I dono's the's
any `must' about it;” but he stood still, nevertheless,
and, with stealthy glances at the parcel of currency,
proceeded, deliberately, to put a grass-stalk into his
open book. Then reading aloud, “Page forty-eight:
`and that was the last of him,'” he shut the book, and
put it away into a jacket-pocket. Another grass-stalk
he put into his mouth, and chewed diligently.
“You and I may differ very much in our ways of
looking at things,” said the clergyman, with a large and
confident kindliness, which seemed to take for granted
that he could interest the boy; “but I'll tell you what
I go upon: I'm sent out with a message to anybody
that's going wrong, to try to bring him right.”
“You can preach that in church, can't ye?” asked
the boy, looking away: “I don't belong to your church,
nor yet no other church.”
“That's just one part of it,” said Mr. Manson; “but
I've got just as much to say in a sitting-room, or in this
field. You needn't hear, if you don't choose to; but
that doesn't make any difference to me about my duty.”
“Don't it make some odds if I don't choose to hear
ye?” asked Phil Rainor, but yet without moving to
go away.
“I'll try it,” said the other, still holding the package
before him: “I want to help you to be a good boy.”
“S'pose I want to be such a kind of a boy's I please,
hain't I got a right?” asked the young good-for-nothing,
pulling and chewing a second grass-stalk or
two, with much seeming indifference.
“If you mean whether I can tie you up, and” —
The boy interrupted: —
“I guess you'd hev' to ketch me fust, f' one thing,”
said he, shying to one side, to show how he would
escape, if an attempt were made.
“Yes, yes; that I shan't try to do: all I want is a
very few words,” said Mr. Manson, waiting and giving
him time; and, after hearing him, going on, quietly and
patiently, “There's a right and a wrong.”
“Who says so?” asked Rainor, who seemed likely
to permit no common ground to be established between
them, even upon truisms which had been accepted ever
since the world began.
The moralist allowed time for this interruption,
though he took no notice of the question, but repeated:
—
“There's a right and a wrong,” making a good pause.
“A man that does right goes on well.”
“Yes, Jim Fiske, that made so much of other folks'
money,” said the boy.
“He was murdered by another man as bad as himself,”
answered the clergyman.
“Wall, Stokes, then, that murdered him,” said the
young vagabond, readily, but not looking at the respectable
and kindly person, who was listening with
all patience, and who now answered, —
“So far he hasn't gained, and he hasn't got through
yet. Well, now it's you that I want.”
“You shall hev' me if ye can get me,” said the boy.
“So I suppose; and that's just what I expect to do.
Now, Rainor, did you ever feel ashamed or sorry for
any thing that you'd done?” asked the moralist, beginning
from a new position a direct assault upon this
thoroughly entrenched young outlaw.
“I dono but what I have. Pooty sure I must
have, when it didn't turn out the way I wanted it
to,” Rainor answered, promptly, from his (imaginary)
fortress. “I've felt 'shamed 'nough 'f other folks, sometimes.”
“Why, I know better of you than that,” said the
beleaguering moralist, heartily. “I've heard of your
having been a leading scholar in Sunday school.”
The boy answered both bitterly and contemptuously,
chewing faster, and pulling and thrusting into his mouth
new grass-stems: —
“Plaguy sight o' good goin' to Sabbath school done
me. To hev' a teacher come along, 'th kid gloves,
right afore the class, when ye'd got your lesson all
perfict, an' was the best scholar 'n the class, 'n' look
fierce, 'n' say, `ye'd ought t' look better'n that, to
come to Sabbath school;' 'n' I'd been half 'n hour
fixun up, a-purpose, 's happy 's could be.”
The kindly man who was listening attentively threw
just about to speak, for the boy's lips quivered, and
tears actually showed themselves on his lids; and there
he was — this hopeless-seeming young rascal — showing
good feeling, and proper pride, and worthy ambition,
and a very serviceable regard for the opinion of
others; but there was more yet: —
“I never went to Sabbath school agin, an' in two-three
months they sent me round a one-legged doll,
or something, f' my Noo-Year's present; 'n' a tract
roun' it, — `Let not the sun go down 'pon your
wrath!' — I made a hole 'n it, and stuck it on our
old sow's tail; an' she thrashed round, an' lay down on
it, an' mashed it, an' trampled it all into muck, in no
time.”
The listener, being a parish-priest, may have known
from experience that there are a great many Sunday-school
teachers (one-third, two-thirds, occasionally
three-thirds of them, in a given school) who have no
training, or calling, or liking for their work: at any rate,
he did not, in any way, undertake the defence of that
Sunday-school teacher, or of the race of such teachers.
The little confidence which had been just brought
about by the sharing of this painful experience in the
boy's life promised much easier work in the establishing
of a common understanding between them than
had at first seemed likely. As moisture, whether
spread through miles of earth or air, or rounded into a
drop, is a good conductor of heat and electricity, so is
it of feeling; so it was with these tears of Phil Rainor.
But if the package of “currency” was the subject to
be come at, they seemed to be no nearer, and getting
no nearer, as yet.
“But then, I suppose, somebody called, to say that
there'd been a mistake, and to make it right, and to see
after you?”
“Oh, yes! ever so much! 'N about three weeks,
teacher come to the door, 'n' stood a-talking 'th mother
on her bed, inside there, 'n' I was a-doin' chores, in the
yard, close by, 'n' said, `Th' object was to teach the
children self-respect, 'n' respect for teachers'” — (“But
respect for God, first,” suggested the listener.) “That
wa'n't it, fust n' last, nary one; the' wa'n't no r'spect
for Him about it; 'twas all 'bout the teachers and
scholars, an' that `the' was a good many nice-dressed
children there, an' a fullah hadn't ought to be shabby
'n' dirty' (I wa'n't dirty, 'f I was shabby”), — here was
a little spasm of feeling and stoppage of speech, —
“`an' the' hoped I'd show a proper sperit 'n' be p'lite
'n' 'umble;' 'n' about a peck 'f apples come round to
mother 'n' a bottle o' rawsb'ry vinegar.”
“There's where you `felt ashamed for' your teacher,
I suppose?”
“I guess I did,” answered the boy, with a peculiar
“rising inflection,” as elocutionists call it, at the
end.
“I don't wonder, and I can't say that I blame you:
you weren't well dealt with. Well, now I know where
you felt ashamed of yourself, — when you left your
mother, and the neighbors came in and saved her.”
A dark turn came over the boy's face at this; and,
glancing at the sinking sun, he repeated what he had
said at the beginning, that “he must be looking after
Mr. Bancroft's cows;” and he was turning off, accordingly.
“Stay!” said Mr. Manson; and then, adopting the
— that isn't all of it. Do you remember how faithful
you were, when you came back, and how she said `there
wasn't such another son in Eastham'?”
“That wa'n't nothin',” said the boy, not yet fairly
turning away, and even looking almost, if not quite,
bashful, under the effect of this commendation. In a
moment, he even came nearer than this to the fellowship
of good morals and good feelings within which
stood the respectable person who was now dealing with
him, and toward which the respectable person was trying
to draw him. Of himself he offered an explanation
of the dark-looking place in his history, which had
been just brought up.
“Why I left mother that time was 'cause she took
part against me, and pretended to scold me for not
bein' careful 'nough 'bout m' clo'es. I went off an' got
a place to work, for next to nothin', 't fust, an 'hev' my
clo'es an' board. I was goin' to giv' 'most all I earned
to mother, an' do her chores; an' the' wa'n't no danger
'f her dyin' nor nawth'n like it, no time; the' wus al'ays
plenty o' neighbors comin' in, an' hangin' roun'.”
Whatever was in Mr. Manson's mind, he made no
attempt to interrupt or divert the boy from his story:
it seemed to suit his purpose very well. He helped
him on in it by asking, briefly, —
“Did you stay in that place?”
“No!” said the boy, with a strong emphasis; and
there followed something which seemed like a choking
in his scrawny throat, and something which seemed like
a heaving of his chest; and these, with his turning-round
and kicking at a tuft of grass, showed a deeper
up-stir in his bosom than any thing yet.
This unwilling show of feeling was not meddled
with, and there was a dead silence.
“B'cause I had a little sore,” Rainor began again,
after a while (and over-dainty and even delicate readers
must put up with the mention of the not-nice
ailments of their poor fellows, if they wish to come
near them and do any thing for them). Then there
was another pause and a dead silence.
“I couldn't help it; an' I done the best I could
about it.” (This came out piecemeal.) “I kep' it
washed out clean, an' put in a plug o' cotton-wool, —
an' done the best I could,” said the poor fellow, repeating
himself, while he handled his unsavory subject with
as much delicacy, perhaps, as he knew how to use.
“The' said `I wasn' nice to hev' roun';' said `the'
was sorry' (teacher'd ben givin' 'em a little moral
'dvice about me).” Here, with a last definite kick at
the tuft of grass, the much-broken explanation ended.
The thing had touched him deeply, and the hurt was
rankling still.
“That was all!” said his sympathizing hearer cheerily.
“Well, you'll do yet, Philip, never fear.” The
voice brought Rainor round again; and he looked up
also before he was aware.
“Now, look here!” said Mr. Manson, holding out
the package of scrip, upon which the boy fixed his
eyes, as he was asked to do, but with a very unintelligent
look at first, so much was he still occupied with
the painful thing just laid open. His look was, for
a while, as unrecognizing as if he had never seen any
thing of the kind before, or did not know enough of it
even to desire it.
This expression, however, did not last very long, and
and then by a smile, which seemed as separate from the
rest as one of the little side-scenes on the stage is
separate from every other, however often made to combine
in order to some desired effect. There the smile
was; but the face was not made up into any definite
expression, and so the smile was unemployed.
“You dropped this, and I picked it up. Now don't
let's lose the good understanding we've gained. Let
us keep on understanding each other” (for he might
not be sure that the boy was not sinking back again
into the saucy doggedness from which he had, with a
little timely and skilful help, just scrambled out).
“If you say I dropped it, I s'pose ye're goin' to give
it to me,” Rainor said.
“No, I'm not, at all,” said the clergyman. “I suppose
you know that one of these bits of paper would
send a man to the state's prison? Now, don't say a
word yet; for I'm going to keep on the right side of
you. I'm a friend; and I'm perfectly willing to have
you know it. — Now any one of a hundred of these
bits of paper would send a man to state's prison, by the
law of every country on earth.”
“Some of 'em haven't got no state's prisons, nor yet
no money, neither,” said the boy, proposing a correction,
with a smile.
“Stay!” said Mr. Manson, shaking his head. “No
mocking, now, my boy! I'm going to keep you on
your best side. Remember that we understand each
other: I know your discouragements and mortifications.
You remember your geography, from school? Do you
remember the name of any of those countries?”
“Over'n Afriky, I s'pose, somew'e's, — f' one place.”
“Savage? or civilized? (I'm glad you recollect.)”
“Oh! savage, I s'pose: I shouldn't say they was very
civilized.”
“Yes: all civilized nations make a great crime of
passing counterfeit money; in some, the punishment is
death.” (The boy began to grow paler, even, than was
natural to him.)
“I hain't put off 'n atom 'f it. But what's the
odds?” he exclaimed: “it's jest exactly 's good 's any
the' is goin'. 'Tain't none of it real money: they called
it merchandise.” (This reference to third parties he
seemed to make unwittingly.) “It's wuth jest 'xactly 's
much as folks 'll take it for. What's two-three inches
o' paper wuth, any how?”
“Now, stop! — that'll do,” said Mr. Manson, very
quietly. “Let's try to speak truth to each other. Have
you passed any counterfeits?”
“No, I hain't; but I know 'bout it.”
“Well, don't talk to me as if you thought I hadn't
common sense, or didn't know how much you knew.
That's nonsense. You know, very well, that this is
wicked stuff, and the men you got it of wouldn't dare
to acknowledge it. It's only in the dark, and under
lies and cheats, that a man can pass them off.” (All
this time Rainor looked agitated.) “Now, you've got
yourself into a very bad position, and it's hard to get
you out of it. If you were a man, you'd deserve to go
to state's prison for having those on you.”
“Who says I've got any on me?” asked the boy, looking
half-up, askant.
“This parcel's enough,” answered Mr. Manson.
Instantly, as suddenly as if he had been preparing
for it, Rainor sprang toward the hand that held the
was, however, he did not find this good-natured gentleman
off his guard. Not only did the spring and
snatch accomplish nothing; but the man, quicker than
he was, putting one hand in front and one behind, laid
the boy on the ground almost before he had made his
spring.
“It wouldn't be hard to search you, you see,” said the
conqueror, putting his hand quietly at his throat, with
just effort enough to keep him down.
“No, ye don't pick none of my pockets!” answered
the young prisoner, trying to speak and act like a
desperate fellow, and drawing a pistol from inside his
jacket, where he had kept one hand.
“Pooh! pooh!” said Mr. Manson, with a laugh:
“you don't think you can frighten me, do you? That
thing isn't loaded, and, if it were, you wouldn't use it.”
The boy said nothing, and certainly made no formidable
demonstration with the weapon, which was, apparently,
an old, six-inch smooth-bore of the cheapest sort.
The unwilling captive, however, began to squirm
upon the ground; and, as he writhed about, another
package, like the first, found its way out of his trousers-pocket.
“Come, come!” said Mr. Manson, taking possession
of this booty: “I'm not going to hold you or hurt
you. Get up, and put away that silly thing.”
The late would-be ruffian, looking rather sheepishly,
obeyed; but, as he got up to his feet, he said, glancing
at the hand which now held two packages, —
“You hain't got any right to pick my pockets.”
“Now, Philip,” said the clergyman, in a patient,
kind voice, “this wicked stuff is no more property than
friend: I'm not a constable, and I want to help you
out of trouble. You're worse than I thought, — some
people would say you were too bad to do any thing
with, — but I see you're not very far in yet.”
“Pooty much 's they say, I guess: I s'pose they
wouldn't give me a trial,” said the boy, answering one
part of the sentence.
“No, I think there's plenty in you to go upon: we
must make something of you.”
“Not much, I guess,” said the boy, not yet facing the
eyes that were looking steadfastly and thoughtfully at
him.
“You wouldn't have gained any thing, by getting
these,” said Mr. Manson.
“You wouldn't have had no proof,” interrupted
Rainor.
“You're mistaking fearfully. But we won't argue;
and time's going. You'll have to drive your cows
shortly.” (Philip looked, as if mechanically, toward the
sun.) “I want to get you out of this ugly business, —
out of the men, and out of the thing.”
“I haven't said nothing about no men,” said the boy.
“I mean the men that sold you this vile stuff, and
called it `merchandise.' Don't talk. Let's consult as
friends. I want to get you out of this first, and then
make an honest boy of you. You're pretty deep in
this,” he said, gravely and thoughtfully; “but there must
be a way of getting you out, and then I know you're not
lazy, though, I hear, you've been a thief and a liar, and
I don't know what else.”
“I hain't lied to you,” said poor Philip, “'n' I guess
the most stealin' ever I done was I took a St. Bart's
they wouldn't hear to no reason.” Then, with a look
of satisfaction, — “Got into a squabble, though, 'mong
'emselves, t'other day; but 'twan't the right ones,
'xac'ly.”
“Was that something between you and the St.
Bart's boys, lately?”
“About the trap, was quite a spell ago; but I played
a trick on 'em, jest to show 'twan't so easy, all'a's, to
find out. I meant it for Remsen, there, 'n' Towne;
but two-three others got into a tussle about it. I
wouldn't 'a' done it 'f they'd ben any ways reas'nable
'bout the trap; nor I didn't want to set 'em fightin'
nuther.”
“What was it that you did?” Mr. Manson asked.
“Changed a white rabbit over from Remsen's snare
into the other fullah's trap,” said the boy. “I wanted
Towne 'n' Remsen t' have a jaw over it, an' try an' find
out; 'n' then not be so quick to think they knoo all
about it, an' another fullah didn't know nothin' an' was
all lies, to boot.”
Ridiculous as the thrusting-in of bungling machinery
like this into the workings of the moral universe might
appear, Phil Rainor's story had the appearance of
truth.
“We'll have a better way than that, next time,”
said the clergyman, smiling. “Do the boys know yet?”
“I told Tarleton, — one that fought about it.”
“Well, I'll see that all made right. Now, we must
keep you out of state's prison.”
“There's a plaguy sight o' smart fellahs, by all the
talk, gets” —
Mr. Manson caught him up: —
“A set of thieving, lying, gambling, swearing, fighting,
house-breaking, murdering, defiling villains! You
must have done with all that sort of thinking, or the
One that I act for won't help you.”
“'Taint Tom Parmenter?” the boy asked, making
free with the name, as country people are apt to do,
about any one who has grown rich among them. “My
gran'ther picked his'n” —
Mr. Manson, with little curiosity to know what might
have happened between these ancestors, — whether one,
more lucky, had picked the other's metaphorical pinfeathers
for him, or had picked him up where he had
fallen, or whether for an honest wage that one had
picked the other's peas or appeals for him, — cut short
the story: —
“No, it isn't Mr. Parmenter,” he said: “it's God. —
Your father was respectable. — Come, I'll walk with
you, while you gather your cows.”
“My father worked himself into a hactic, an' went
off, 'fore I ever knoo him.”
“Well, we must try to get you up to something respectable;
but we've got to go on with it, — no thieving,
no cheating, no lying, — we're to stop short off, and
start from where we are.”
“If I say I will, I will,” said the boy. “I'll keep to
it, 'f I die for't.”
“I'll trust you,” said his friend.
He paused as if to give Rainor a chance to meet him
half way; but the boy was silent. Suddenly he broke
out: —
“Sh'll hev' to do it m'self, — 'n' I tried once and
failed. 'Tain't 's if I had any friends, or en'thin' to go
'pon. Who's a-goin' to git me a place?”
“You'll have to take your chance for that,” said the
adviser, quietly; “but to be somebody, and not a villain
or a scoundrel, is worth all risks. You'll have to stick
fast. You're looking at it in the right way: only, if
you do go at it yourself, there's One to help you that
you don't believe in yet.”
They walked on silently for a few steps, down the
field.
“You'd better give me that currency,” said Mr. Manson,
decidedly. “Of course I shall see that not one
bit of it ever passes.”
“I give cash for that scrip,” said Phil Rainor; “but
I s'pose I must lose it.”
“Yes, that's a loss I can't help: you'll have to bear
it. If you waked up, you know, with walls of fire
all round you, you'd jump through, though you might
lose some of your clothing, and get scorched, too.”
Here was a pretty strong obstacle to meet, at the
outset, with a subject to work upon whose habit of well-doing
was so fresh and unstiffened as that of this lad;
but his befriender left it just as it was.
Rainor, without another word, began emptying his
pocket. The vile stuff Mr. Manson received with an
expression of disgust. Then, having longer and larger
experience of human nature, and of how things go in
it, he said (and pretty much in the boy's own vernacular):
—
“Perhaps you won't feel better right off;” then, as
he handled the wretched stuff, — “Enough to make an
honest fellow sick, to look at it!” and he read, from the
wrapper of one of the packets, “`Patent Exemption
Matches: open the other End;' and a counterfeit
Revenue Stamp!”
All this, except the first few words, might as well
have been an aside, as far as Rainor was concerned.
He seemed to have heard only those.
“Yes, I do, though,” answered the poor scapegrace,
who had really made a very heroic move for a boy like
him, and might have been excused, if he had felt, as
yet, pretty much like one who has had a loathsome
tooth wrenched out, and has not got himself back quite,
and therefore does not quite know how he feels. “I feel
better, an' plaguëd glad I be I didn' git any further
into it, though one thing you can tell 'em, — I never had
a mite 'f it 'fore this; an' I hain't put off an atom o'
this.”
“Remember we're on the way upward: we've made
a start,” said his adviser.
As he spoke he took a penknife from his pocket, and
then, laying the packets, of which there were five, on
their edges, in one body on the ground, he slashed
deeply into and across them, in several places, and then
said, as he lifted himself up: —
“Now, what we want is a match, to get rid of these
things on the spot, and put them out of the way of
doing harm.”
Upon the word, Rainor, as such boys always can,
produced a match from his pocket, and Mr. Manson,
thus supplied, broke every package, and stirred the
whole pretty thoroughly up into a loose heap, inside
the newspaper in which they had been wrapped; and
then laid the parcel upon the bare top of an imbedded
stone, repeating, as he did so, a line which, though of
course lost upon Rainor, doubtless brought some satisfaction
to himself: —
“`Lustramurque Deo, votisque incendimus aras.'”[1]
Then, setting fire to the easily kindled mass, he formally
took off his hat, and said to the boy (what he
could understand): —
“Now, Philip, may God accept this as a little sacrifice!”
and he fanned the flames with the hat, till a
bright, strong blaze had got possession.
The boy must have both understood and sympathized
pretty well; for he, too, took off, a little sheepishly, his
hard-worn cap, and applied himself to pushing together
the fast-burning pieces of paper to make sure that
nothing should be left of any of them.
The very last bit of paper was, before long, burned
into black and brittle uselessness, and was ground under
Mr. Manson's heel, and then scattered with his foot to
the air and the earth.
“There, Philip,” said he, “you've done the first thing
well. There'll be plenty more of it for you, like the
rest of us, if you live long enough. Doing right, after
wrong, will be hard, sometimes, and cost something;
but it's the only thing. You'll hear from these scoundrels
and their `merchandise,' very likely, and you'll
have to be strong. Mind you, Philip, no giving-in, a
hair's breadth! Let me tell you. Tell them, at once,
that you've burned their vile stuff, and that I know all
about it. Will you? Promise me!” (holding out his
hand). “On your honor!” (as Rainor promised).
“That'll do. God bless you!” and he left the boy to
his cows.
| CHAPTER XXIII.
A YOUNG REPROBATE. Antony Brade | |