University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE WRONG PEW.

AUGUST'S own good sense told him that the
advice of Jonas was not good. But he had made
many mistakes of late, and was just now inclined
to take anybody's judgment in place of his own.
All that was proud and gentlemanly in him rebelled
at the thought of creeping into another man's house in the
night. Modesty is doubtless a virtue, but it is a virtue responsible
for many offenses. Had August not felt so distrustful
of his own wisdom, nothing could have persuaded him to make
his love for Julia Anderson seem criminal by an action so wanting
in dignity. But back of Jonas's judgment was that of
Andrew, whose weakness was Quixotism. He wanted to live
and to have others live on the concert-pitch of romantic action.
There was something of chivalry in the proposal of Jonas, a
spice of adventure that made him approve it on purely sentimental
grounds.

The more August thought of it, and the nearer he was to
its execution, the more did he dislike it. But I have often

noticed that people of a rather quiet temperament, such as
young Wehle's, show vis inertiœ in both ways—not very easily
moved, they are not easily checked when once in motion.
August's velocity was not usually great, his momentum was
tremendous, and now that he had committed himself to the
hands of Jonas Harrison and set out upon this enterprise, he
was determined, in his quiet way, to go through to the end.

Of course he understood the house, and having left the
family in meeting, he had nothing to do but to scale one of the
pillars of the front-porch. In those Arcadian days upper windows
were hardly ever fastened, except when the house was
deserted by all its inmates for days. Half-way up the post he
was seized with a violent trembling. His position brought to
him a confused memory of a text of Scripture: “He that entereth
not by the door... but climbeth up some other way, the
same is a thief and a robber.” Bred under Moravian influence,
he half-believed the text to be supernaturally suggested to him.
For a moment his purpose wavered, but the habit of going
through with an undertaking took the place of his will, and he
went on blindly, as Baker the Nile explorer did, “more like a
donkey than like a man.” Once on the upper porch he hesitated
again. To break into a man's house in this way was unlawful.
His conscience troubled him. In vain he reasoned that Mrs.
Anderson's despotism was morally wrong, and that this action
was right as an offset to it. He knew that it was not right.

I want to remark here that there are many situations in life
in which a conscience is dreadfully in the way. There are
people who go straight ahead to success—such as it is—with no
embarrassments, no fire in the rear from any scruples. Some of
these days I mean to write an essay on “The Inconvenience of

having a Conscience,” in which I shall proceed to show that it
costs more in the course of a year or two, than it would to keep
a stableful of fast horses. Many a man could afford to drive
Dexters and Flora Temples who would be ruined by a conscience.
But I must not write the essay here, for I am keeping
August out in the night air and his perplexity all this time.

August Wehle had the habit, I think I have said, of going
through with an enterprise. He had another habit, a very inconvenient
habit doubtless, but a very manly one, of listening
for the voice of his conscience. And I think that this habit
would have even yet turned him back, as he had his hand on
the window-sash, had it not been that while he stood there trying
to find out just what was the decision of his conscience, he heard
the voices of the returning family. There was no time to lose,
there was no shelter on the porch, in a minute more they
would be in sight. He must go ahead now, for retreat was cut
off. He lifted the window and climbed into the room, lowering
the sash gently behind him. As no one ever came into this
room but Jonas, he felt safe enough. Jonas would plan a meeting
after midnight in Cynthy Ann's room, and in Cynthy Ann's
presence.

In groping for a chair, August drew aside the curtain of the
gable-window, hoping to get some light. Had Jonas taken to
cultivating flowers in pots? Here was a “monthly” rose on the
window-seat! Surely this was the room. He had occupied it
during his stay in the house. But he did not know that Mrs.
Anderson had changed the arrangement between his leaving and
the coming of Jonas. He noticed that the curtains were not the
same. He trembled from head to foot. He felt for the bureau,
and recognized by various little articles, a pincushion, a tuckcomb,

and the sun-bonnet hanging against the window-frame,
that he was in Julia's room. His first emotion was not alarm. It
was awe, as pure and solemn as the high-priest may have felt in
the holy place. Everything pertaining to Julia had a curious
sacredness, and this room was a temple into which it was sacrilege
to intrude. But a more practical question took his attention
soon. The family had come in below, except Jonas and Cynthy
Ann—who had walked slowly, planning a meeting for August—
and Mr. Samuel Anderson, who stood at the front-gate with
a neighbor. August could hear his shrill voice discussing the
seventh trumpet and the thousand three hundred and thirty and
five days. It would not do to be discovered where he was.
Beside the fright he would give to Julia, he shuddered at the
thought of compromising her in such a way. To go back was
to insure his exposure, for Samuel Anderson had not yet half-settled
the question of the trumpets. Indeed it seemed to August
that the world might come to an end before that conversation
would. He heard Humphreys enter his room. He was now
persuaded that the room formerly occupied by Julia must be
Jonas's, and he determined to get to it if he could. He felt
like a villain already. He would have cheerfully gone to State's-prison
in preference to compromising Julia. At any rate, he
started out of Julia's room toward the one that was occupied by
Jonas. It was the only road open, and but for an unexpected
encounter he would have reached his hiding-place in safety, for
the door was but fifteen feet away.

In order to explain the events that follow, I must ask the
reader to go back to Julia, and to events that had occurred two
hours before. Hitherto she had walked to and from meeting
and “singing” with Humphreys, as a matter of courtesy. On

the evening in question she had absolutely refused to walk with
him. Her mother found that threats were as vain as coaxing.
Even her threat of dying with heart-disease, then and there,
killed by her daughter's disobedience, could not move Julia,
who would not even speak with the “spider.” Her mother
took her into the sitting-room alone, and talked with her.

“So this is the way you trifle with gentlemen, is it? Night
before last you engaged yourself to Mr. Humphreys now you
won't speak to him. To think that my daughter should prove
a heartless flirt!”

I am afraid that the unfilial thought came into Julia's mind
that nothing could have been more in the usual order of things
than that the daughter of a coquette should be a flirt.

“You'll kill me on the spot; you certainly will.” Julia felt
anxious, for her mother showed signs of going into hysteries.
But she put her foot out and shook her head in a way that said
that all her friends might die and all the world might go to
pieces before she would yield. Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn
hope. She determined to order that forward. Leaving Julia
alone, she went to her husband.

“Samuel, if you value my life go and speak to your daughter.
She's got your own stubbornness of will in her. She is just
like you; she will have her own way. I shall die.” And Mrs.
Abigail Anderson sank into a chair with unmistakable symptoms
of a hysterical attack.

I am aware that I have so far let the reader hear not one
word of Samuel Anderson's conversation. He has played a
rather insignificant part in the story. Nothing could be more
comme il faut. Insignificance was his characteristic. It was not
so much that he was small. It is not so bad a thing to be a

little man. But to be little and insignificant also is bad. There
is only one thing worse, which is to be big and insignificant. If
one is little and insignificant, one may be overlooked, insignificance
and all. But if one is big and insignificant, it is to be an
obtrusive cipher, a great lubber, not easily kept out of sight.

Appealed to by his wife, Samuel Anderson prepared to assert
his authority as the head of the family. He almost strutted into
Julia's presence. Julia had a real affection for her father, and
nothing mortified her more than to see him acting as a puppet,
moved by her mother, and yet vain enough to believe himself
independent and supreme. She would have yielded almost any
other point to have saved herself the mortification of seeing her
father act the fool; but now she had determined that she
would die and let everybody else die rather than walk with
a man whose nature seemed to her corrupt, and whose touch
was pollution. I do not mean that she was able to make a distinct
inventory of her reasons for disliking him, or to analyze
her feelings. She could not have told just why she had so
deep and utter a repugnance to walking a quarter of a mile to
the school-house in company with this man. She followed that
strong instinct of truth and purity which is the surest guide.

“Julia, my daughter,” said Samuel Anderson, “really you
must yield to me as head of the house, and treat this gentleman
politely. I thought you respected him, or loved him, and he told
me that you had given consent to marry him, and had told him
to ask my consent.”

In saying this, the “head of the house” was seesawing himself
backward and forward in his squeaky boots, speaking in
a pompous manner, and with an effort to swell an effeminate
voice to a bass key, resulting in something between a croak

[ILLUSTRATION]

JULIA SAT DOWN IN MORTIFICATION.

[Description: 555EAF. Page 121. Engraving of a seated woman and a standing man wearing plaid or checkered pants.]

and a squeal. Julia sat down and cried in mortification and
disgust. Mr. Anderson understood this to be acquiescence, and
turned and went into the next room.

“Mr. Humphreys, my daughter will be glad to ask your
pardon. She is over her little pet; lovers always have pets.

Even my wife and I have had our disagreements in our
time. Julia will be glad to see you in the sitting-room.”

Humphreys drew the draw-strings and set his face into
its broadest and most parallelogrammatic smile, bowed to Mr.
Anderson, and stepped into the hall. But when he reached the
sitting-room door he wished he had staid away. Julia had heard
his tread, and was standing again with her foot advanced. Her
eyes were very black, and were drawn to a sharp focus. She
had some of her mother's fire, though happily none of her
mother's meanness. It is hard to say whether she spoke or hissed.

“Go away, you spider! I hate you! I told you I hated
you, and you told people I loved you and was engaged to you.
Go away! You detestable spider, you! I'll die right here, but
I will not go with you.”

But the smirking Humphreys moved toward her, speaking
soothingly, and assuring her that there was some mistake. Julia
dashed past him into the parlor and laid hold of her father's arm.

“Father, protect me from that—that—spider! I hate him!”

Mr. Anderson stood irresolute a moment and looked appealingly
to his wife for a signal. She solved the difficulty herself.
On the whole she had concluded not to die of heart-disease
until she saw Julia married to suit her taste, and having found
a hill she could not go through, she went round. Seizing Julia's
arm with more of energy than affection, she walked off with her,
or rather walked her off, in a sulky silence, while Mr. Anderson
kept Humphreys company.

I thought best to keep August standing in the door of Julia's
room all this time while I explained these things to you, so
that you might understand what follows. In reality August did
not stop at all, but walked out into the hall and into difficulty.