University of Virginia Library

61. CHAPTER LXI.
GONE TO PROTEST.

There was an unnatural silence and order in the store of
Boniface Newt, Son, & Co. The long linen covers were left
upon the goods. The cases were closed. The boys sat listlessly
and wonderingly about. The porter lay upon a bale
reading a newspaper. There was a sombre regularity and repose,

like that of a house in which a corpse lies, upon the
morning of the funeral.

Boniface Newt sat in his office haggard and gray. His face,
like his daughter Fanny's, had grown sharp, and almost fierce.
The blinds were closed, and the room was darkened. His
port-folio lay before him upon the desk, open. The paper was
smooth and white, and the newly-mended pens lay carefully
by the inkstand. But the merchant did not write. He had
not written that day. His white, bony hand rested upon the
port-folio, and the long fingers drummed upon it at intervals,
while his eyes half-vacantly wandered out into the store and
saw the long shrouds drawn over the goods. Occasionally a
slight sigh of weariness escaped him. But he did not seem to
care to distract his mind from its gloomy intentness; for the
morning paper lay beside him unopened, although it was afternoon.

In the outer office the book-keeper was still at work. He
looked from book to book, holding the leaves and letting them
fall carefully—comparing, computing, writing in the huge volumes,
and filing various papers away. Sometimes, while he
yet held the leaves in his hands and the pen in his mouth,
with the appearance of the utmost abstraction in his task, his
eyes wandered in to the inner office, and dimly saw his employer
sitting silent and listless at his desk. For many years
he had been Boniface Newt's clerk; for many years he had
been a still, faithful, hard-worked servant. He had two holidays,
besides the Sundays—New Year's Day and the Fourth
of July. The rest of the year he was in the office by nine in
the morning, and did not leave before six at night. During
the time he had been quietly writing in those great red books
he had married a wife and seen the roses fade in her cheeks—
he had had children grow up around him—fill his evening
home and his Sunday hours with light—marry, one after another,
until his home had become as it was before a child was
born to him, and then gradually grow bright and musical
again with the eyes and voices of another generation. Glad

to earn his little salary, which was only enough for decency of
living, free from envy and ambition, he was bound by a kind
of feudal tenure to his employer.

As he looked at the merchant and observed his hopeless
listlessness, he thought of his age, his family, and of the frightful
secrets hidden in the huge books that were every night
locked carefully into the iron safe, as if they were written all
over with beautiful romances instead of terrible truths—and
the eyes of the patient plodder were so blurred that he could
not see, and turning his head that no one might observe him,
he winked until he could see again.

A young man entered the store hastily. The porter dropped
the paper and sprang up; the boys came expectantly forward.
Even the book-keeper stopped to watch the new-comer as he
came rapidly toward the office. Only the head of the house
sat unconcernedly at his desk—his long, pale, bony fingers
drumming on the port-folio—his hard eyes looking out at the
messenger.

“This way,” said the book-keeper, suddenly, as he saw that
he was going toward Mr. Newt's room.

“I want Mr. Newt.”

“Which one?”

“The young one, Mr. Abel Newt.”

“He is not here.”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know.”

Before the book-keeper was aware the young man had
opened the door that communicated with Mr. Newt's room.
The haggard face under the gray hair turned slowly toward
the messenger. There was something in the sitting figure
that made the youth lift his hand and remove his cap, and say,
in a low, respectful voice,

“Can you tell me, Sir, where to find Mr. Abel Newt?”

The long, pale, bony fingers still listlessly drummed. The
hard eyes rested upon the questioner for a few moments;
then, without any evidence of interest, the old man answered

simply, “No,” and looked away as if he had forgotten the
stranger's presence.

“Here's a note for him from General Belch.”

The gray head beckoned mechanically toward the other
room, as if all business were to be transacted there; and the
young man bowing again, with a vague sense of awe, went in
to the outer office and handed the note to the book-keeper.

It was very short and simple, as Abel found when he read it: