CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE INTERVIEW.
We left August on that summer day on the levee at Louisville withoutemployment. He was not exactly disheartened, but he was homesick. Thathe was forbidden to go back by threats of prosecution for hisburglarious manner of entering Samuel Anderson's house was reason enoughfor wanting to go; that his father's family were not yet free fromdanger was a stronger reason; but strongest of all, though he blushed toown it to himself, was the longing to be where he might perchancesometimes see the face he had seen that spring morning in the bottom ofa sun-bonnet. Right manfully did he fight against his discouragement andhis homesickness, and his longing to see Julia. It was better to staywhere he was. It was better not to go back beaten. If he surrendered soeasily, he would never put himself into a situation where he could claimJulia with self-respect. He would stay and make his way in the worldsomehow. But making his way in the world did not seem half so easy nowus it had on that other morning in March when he stood in the barntalking to Julia. Making your fortune always seems so easy until you'vetried it. It seems rather easy in a novel, and still easier in abiography. But no Samuel Smiles ever writes the history of those whofail; the vessels that never came back from their venturous voyages leftus no log-books. Many have written the History of Success. Whatmelancholy Plutarch shall arise to record, with a pen dipped inwormwood, the History of Failure?
No! he would not go back defeated. August said this over bravely, but alittle too often, and with a less resolute tone at each repetition. Hecontemned himself for his weakness, and tried, but tried in vain, toform other plans. Had he known how much one's physical state has to dowith one's force of character, he might have guessed that he did notdeserve the blame he meted out to himself. He might have remembered whatShakespeare's Portia says to Brutus, that "humour hath his hour withevery man." But with a dull and unaccountable aching in his head andback he compromised with himself. He would go to the castle and pass aday or two. Then he would return and fight it out.
So he got on the packet Isaac Shelby, and was soon shaking with a chillthat showed how thoroughly malaria had pervaded his system. His verybones seemed frozen. But if you ever shook with such a chill, or ratherif you were ever shaken by such a chill, taking hold of you like ademoniacal possession; if you ever felt your brain congealing, your icybones breaking, your frosty heart becoming paralyzed, with a cold nofire could reach, you know what it is; and if you have not felt it, nowords of mine can make you understand the sensations. After the chillcame the period when August felt himself between two parts of Milton'shell, between a sea of ice and a sea of fire; sometimes the hot wavescorched him, then it retired again before the icy one. At last it wasall hot, and the boiling blood scalded his palms and steamed to hisbrain, bewildering his thoughts and almost blinding his eyes. He haddetermined when he started to get off at a wood-yard three miles belowAndrew's castle, to avoid observation and the chance of arrest; and nowin his delirium the purpose as he had planned it remained fixed. He gotup at two o'clock, crazed with fever, dressed himself, and went out intothe rainy night. He went ashore in the mud and bushes, and, guided moreby instinct than by any conscious thought, he started up the wagon-trackalong the river bank. His furious fever drove him on, talking tohimself, and splashing recklessly into the pools of rain-water standingin the road. He never remembered his debarkation. He must have fallenonce or twice, for he was covered with mud when he rang the alarm at thecastle. In answer to Andrew's "Who's there?" he answered, "You'll haveto send a harder rain than that if you want to put this fire out!"
And so, what with the original disease, the mental discouragement, andthe exposure to the rain, the fever had well-nigh consumed the life, andnow that the waves of the hot sea after days of fire and nights ofdelirium had gone back, there was hardly any life left in the body, andthe doctors said there was no hope. One consuming desire remained. Hewanted to see Julia once before he went away; and that one desire itseemed impossible to gratify. When he learned of the failure of Jonas toget any message to Julia through Cynthy, he had felt the keenestdisappointment, and had evidently been sinking since the hope that kepthim up had been taken away.
The mother sat by his bed, Gottlieb sat stupefied at the foot, withJonas by his side, and Wilhelmina was crying in a still fashion in onecorner of the room. August lay breathing feebly, and with his lifeevidently ebbing.
"August!" said Andrew, as he stood over his bed, having come to announcethe arrival of Julia. "August!" Andrew tried to speak quietly, but therewas a something of hope in the inflection, a tremor of eagerness in theutterance, that made the mother look up quickly and inquiringly.
August opened his eyes slowly and looked into the face of thePhilosopher. Then he slowly closed his eyes again, and a something, nota smile--he was too weak for that--but a look of infinite content,spread over his wan face.
"I know," he whisperd.
"Know what?" asked Andrew, leaning down to catch his words.
"Julia." And a single tear crept out from under the closed lid. Thetender mother wiped it away.
After resting a moment, August looked up at Andrew's face inquiringly.
"She is coming," said the Philosopher.
August smiled very faintly, but Andrew was sure he smiled, and againleaned down his ear.
"She is here," whispered August; "I heard Charon bark, andI--saw--your--face."
Andrew now stepped to the closet-door and opened it, and Julia came out.
"Blamed ef he a'n't a witch!" whispered Jonas. "Cunjures a angel out ofhis cupboard!"
Julia did not see anybody or anything but the white and wasted face uponthe pillow. The eyes were now closed again, and she quickly crossed thefloor, and--not without a faint maidenly blush--stooped and kissed theparched lips, from which the life seemed already to have fled.
And August with difficulty disengaged his wasted hand from the cover,and laid his nerveless fingers--alas! like a skeleton's now--In the warmhand of Julia, and said--she leaned down to listen, an he whisperedfeebly through his dry lips out of a full heart--"Thank God!"
And the Philosopher, catching the words, said audibly, "Amen!"
And the mother only wept.