Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

Christina Carlson, I will,'-and here I drew close tohim and put my finger on his breast,--'I will kill you like a dog.'

  "With this parting shot I left the happy pair."

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  MAX'S STORY CONTINUED--THE BLACKSMITH SHOP

  "I need not describe the joy there was in the Jansen family when Ibrought home Mrs. Brederhagan's deed of gift and the money. Christinadid not yet know that her voice was destroyed, and hence was disposedto refuse what she called 'the good lady's great generosity.' But wereminded her that the widow was rich, and that her son had inflictedgreat and painful wounds upon her, which had caused her weeks ofweary sickness, to say nothing of the doctor's bills and the otherexpenses they had been subjected to; and so, at last, she consentedand agreed that, for the present at least, she would receive thewidow's money, but only until she could resume her place on theboards of the theater. But the deed of gift drove the broodingshadows out of the heart and eyes of poor Mrs. Jansen.

  "I need not tell you all the details of Christina's recovery. Day byday she grew stronger. She began to speak in whispers, and graduallyshe recovered her power of speech, although the voice at firstsounded husky. She was soon able to move about the house, for youthand youthful spirits are great medicines. One day she placed her handon mine and thanked me for all my great kindness to her; and said, inher arch way, that I was a good, kindhearted friend, and it was apity I had any weaknesses; and that I must not forget my promise toher about the next New Year's day. But she feared that I hadneglected my business to look after her.

  "At length she learned from the doctor that she could never singagain; that her throat was paralyzed. It was a bitter grief to her,and she wept quietly for some hours. And then she comforted herselfwith the reflection that the provision made for her by Mrs.Brederhagan had placed herself and her family beyond the reach ofpoverty. But for this I think she would have broken her heart.

  "I had been cogitating for some days upon a new idea. It seemed to methat these plain, good people would be much happier in the countrythan in the city; and, besides, their income would go farther. Theyhad country blood in their veins, and it takes several generations toget the scent of the flowers out of the instincts of a family; theyhave subtle promptings in them to walk in the grass and behold thegrazing kine. And a city, after all, is only fit for temporarypurposes--to see the play and the shops and the mob--and wear one'slife out in nothingnesses. As one of the poets says:

  "'Thus is it in the world-hive; most where men Lie deep in cities as in drifts--death drifts-- Nosing each other like a flock of sheep; Not knowing and not caring whence nor whither They come or go, so that they fool together."

  "And then I thought, too, that Mr. Jansen was unhappy in idleness. Hewas a great, strong man, and accustomed all his life to hard work,and his muscles cried out for exercise.

  "So I started out and made little excursions in all directions. Atlast I found the very place I had been looking for. It was abouttwelve miles beyond the built-up portions of the suburbs, in a highand airy neighborhood, and contained about ten acres of land. Therewas a little grove, a field, a garden, and an old-fashioned, roomyhouse. The house needed some repairs, it is true; but beyond thegrove two roads crossed each other, and at the angle would be anadmirable place for a blacksmith shop. I purchased the whole thingvery cheaply. Then I set carpenters to work to repair the house andbuild a blacksmith shop. The former I equipped with furniture, andthe latter with anvil, bellows and other tools, and a supply of coaland iron.

  "When everything was ready I told Christina another of my white lies.I said to her that Mrs. Brederhagan, learning that her voice wasruined forever by her son's dagger, had felt impelled, by herconscience and sense of right, to make her a present of a littleplace in the country, and had deputed me to look after the matter forher, and that I had bought the very place that I thought would suitthem.

  "And so we all started out to view the premises. It would be hard tosay who was most delighted, Christina or her mother or her father;but I am inclined to think the latter took more pure happiness in hiswell-equipped little shop, with the big sign, 'CARL JANSEN,BLACKSMITH,' and the picture of a man shoeing a horse, than Christinadid in the flowerbed, or her mother in the comfortable householdarrangements.

  "Soon after the whole family moved out. I was right. A race that haslived for several generations in the country is an exotic in a city."

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  MAX'S STORY CONCLUDED--THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

  "I used to run out every other day, and I was as welcome as if I hadbeen really a member of the family. The day before yesterday I foundthe whole household in a state of joyous excitement. Christina hadbeen enjoined to put the baby to sleep; and while rocking it in itscradle she had, all unconsciously, begun to sing a little nurserysong. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and, running to her mother,cried out:

  "'Oh, mother! I can sing! Listen.'

  "She found, however, that the voice was still quite weak, and that ifshe tried to touch any of the higher notes there was a pain in herthroat.

  "I advised her to forbear singing for some time, and permit theorgans of the voice to resume their natural condition. It might bethat the doctor was wrong in his prognosis of her case; or it mightbe that the injured nerve, as he had said was possible, had resumedits function, through the curative power of nature. But it was agreat delight to us all, and especially to the poor girl herself, tothink that her grand voice might yet be restored to her.

  "To-day I went out again.

  "I thought that Mr. Jansen met me with a constrained manner; and whenMrs. Jansen saw me, instead of welcoming me with a cordial smile, aswas usual with her, she retreated into the house. And when I wentinto the parlor, Christina's manner was still more embarrassing. Sheblushed as she extended her hand to me, and seemed very muchconfused; and yet her manner was not unkind or unfriendly. I couldnot understand it.

  "'What is the matter, Christina?' I asked.

  "The little woman was incapable of double-dealing, and so she said:

  "'You know it came into my head lately, very often, that Mrs.Brederhagan had been exceedingly, I might say extraordinarily, kindto me. It is true her son had done me a great injury, and might havekilled me; and I refused to testify against him. But she had not onlygiven me that deed of gift you brought me, but she had also presentedpapa with this charming home. And so I said to myself that she mustthink me very rude and ungrateful, since I had never called upon herto thank her in person. And so, knowing that Nathan had been sent toEurope, I made up my mind, yesterday, that I would go into town, andcall upon Mrs. Brederhagan, and thank her for all her kindness.

  "'I took a hack to her house from the station, and sent up my card.She received me quite kindly. After a few inquiries and commonplacesI thanked her as I had intended doing. She smiled and made light ofit; then I spoke of the house and the garden, and the blacksmithshop, and how grateful we all were to her.

  "'"Why," said she, "what on earth are you talking about? I never gaveyou a house, or a garden, or a blacksmith shop."

  "'You may imagine my surprise.

  "'"Why," said I, "did you not give Mr. Frank Montgomery the money topurchase it, and tell him to have the deed made out to my father?"

  "'"My dear," said she, "you bewilder me; I never in all my life heardof such a person as Mr. Frank Montgomery; and I certainly never gavehim any money to buy a house for anybody."

  "'"Why," said I, "do you pretend you do not know Mr. FrankMontgomery, who brought me your deed of gift?"

  "That," she said, "was not Mr. Frank Montgomery, but Mr. ArthurPhillips."

  "'"No, no," I said, "you are mistaken; it was Frank Montgomery, aprinter by trade, who owns the house we used to live in, at 1252Seward Street. I am well acquainted with him."

  "'"Well," said she, "this is certainly astonishing! Mr. ArthurPhillips, whom I have known for years, a young gentleman
of largefortune, a lawyer by profession, comes to me and tells me, the veryday you said my son was not the man who assaulted you, that unless Isettled fifty dollars a week on you for life, by a deed of gift, hewould have Nathan rearrested for an attempt to murder you, and wouldprove his guilt by your mother; and now you come and try to make mebelieve that Arthur Phillips, the lawyer, is Frank Montgomery, theprinter; that he lives in a little house on Seward Street, and that Ihave been giving him money to buy you houses and gardens andblacksmith shops in the country! I hope, my dear, that the shock youreceived, on that dreadful night, has not affected your mind. But Iwould advise you to go home to your parents."

  "'And therewithal she politely bowed me out.'

  "'I was very much astonished and bewildered. I stood for some time onthe doorstep, not knowing what to do next. Then it occurred to methat I would go to your house and ask you what it all meant; for Ihad no doubt Mrs. Brederhagan was wrong, and that you were, indeed,Frank Montgomery, the printer. I found the house locked up and empty.A bill on the door showed that it was to rent, and referred inquiriesto the corner grocery. They remembered me very well there. I askedthem where you were. They did not know. Then I asked whether theywere not agents for you to rent the house. Oh, no; you did not ownthe house. But had you not lived in it for years? No; you rented itthe very morning of the same day we moved in. I was astounded, andmore perplexed than ever. What did it all mean? If you did not ownthe house and had not been born in it, or lived there all your life,as you said, then the rest of your story was probably false also, andthe name you bore was assumed. And for what purpose? And why did youmove into that house the same day we rented it from you? It lookedlike a scheme to entrap us; and yet you had always been so kind andgood that I could not think evil of you. Then it occurred to me thatI would go and see Peter Bingham, the proprietor of the theater. Idesired, anyhow, to tell him that I thought I would recover my voice,and that I might want another engagement with him after awhile. WhenI met him I fancied there was a shade of insolence in his manner.When I spoke of singing again he laughed, and said he guessed I wouldnever want to go on the boards again. Why? I asked. Then he laughedagain, and said "Mr. Phillips would not let me;" and then he began toabuse you, and said you "had forced him to give me fifty dollars aweek for my singing when it wasn't worth ten dollars; but heunderstood then what it all meant, and that now every one understoodit;--that you had lived in the same house with me for months, and nowyou had purchased a cage for your bird in the country." At first Icould not understand what he meant; and when at last I comprehendedhis meaning and burst into tears, he began to apologize; but I wouldnot listen to him, and hurried home and told everything to papa andmamma.

  "'Now,' she continued, looking me steadily in the face with herfrank, clear eyes, 'we have talked it all over for hours, and we havecome to several conclusions. First, you are not Francis Montgomery,but Arthur Phillips; second, you are not a poor printer, but a richyoung gentleman; third, you have done me a great many kindnesses andattributed them to others. You secured me a large salary fromBingham; you made Mrs. Brederhagan settle an income upon me; younursed me through all my sickness, with the tenderness of a brother,and you have bought this beautiful place and presented it to papa.You have done us all nothing but good; and you claimed no credit forit; and we shall all be grateful to you and honor you and pray foryou to the end of our lives. But,' and here she took my hand as asister might, 'but we cannot keep this place. You will yourself seethat we cannot. You a poor printer, we met on terms of equality. Froma rich young gentleman this noble gift would be universallyconsidered as the price of my honor and self-respect. It is soconsidered already. The deed of gift from Mrs. Brederhagan I shallavail myself of until I am able to resume my place on the stage; buthere is a deed, signed by my father and mother, for this place, andtomorrow we must leave it. We may not meet again'- and here the largeeyes began to swim in tears--'but--but--I shall never forget yourgoodness to me.'

  "'Christina,' I said, 'suppose I had really been Frank Montgomery,the printer, would you have driven me away from you thus?'

  "'Oh! no! no!' she cried; 'you are our dearest and best friend. And Ido not drive you away. I must leave you. The world can have only oneinterpretation of the relation of two people so differentlysituated--a very wealthy young gentleman and a poor little singer,the daughter of a poor, foreign-born workman.'

  "'Well, then,' said I, taking her in my arms, 'let the blabbing,babbling old world know that that poor little singer sits higher inmy heart, yes, in my brain and judgment, than all the queens andprincesses of the world. I have found in her the one inestimablejewel of the earth--a truly good and noble woman. If I deceived youit was because I loved you; loved you with my whole heart and souland all the depths of my being. I wanted to dwell in the same housewith you; to study you; to see you always near me. I was happier whenI was nursing you through your sickness than I have ever been beforeor since. I was sorry, to tell the truth, when you got well, and wereno longer dependent on me. And now, Christina, if you will say yes,we will fix the day for the wedding.'

  "I knew as soon as I began to speak that I had won my case. There wasno struggle to escape from my arms; and, as I went on, she relaxedeven her rigidity, and reposed on my breast with trusting confidence.

  "'Frank,' she said, not looking up, and speaking in a low tone--'Ishall always call you Frank--I loved the poor printer from the veryfirst; and if the rich man can be content with the affection I gavethe poor one, my heart and life are yours. But stop,' she added,looking up with an arch smile, 'you must not forget the promise youmade me about New Year's day!'

  "'Ah, my dear,' I replied, 'that was part of poor Frank's character,and I suppose that is what you loved him for; but if you will marry arich man you must be content to forego all those attractions of thepoor, foolish printer. I shall not stand up next New Year's day andmake a vow to drink no more; but I make a vow now to kiss thesweetest woman in the world every day in the year.'

  "And, lest I should forget so sacred an obligation, I began to put myvow into execution right then and there.

  "Afterward the old folks were called in, and I told them my wholestory. And I said to them, moreover, that there was storm and dangerahead; that the great convulsion might come any day; and so it isagreed that we are to be married, at Christina's home, the day afterto-morrow. And to-morrow I want my dear mother, and you, my dearfriends, to go with me to visit the truest and noblest little womanthat ever promised to make a man happy."

  When Max had finished his long story, his mother kissed and criedover him; and Estella and I shook hands with him; and we were a veryhappy party; and no one would have thought, from our jests andlaughter, that the bloodhounds of the aristocracy were hunting forthree of us, and that we were sitting under the dark presaging shadowof a storm that was ready to vomit fire and blood at any moment.

  Before we retired that night Estella and I had a private conference,and I fear that at the end of it I made the same astonishing vowwhich Max had made to Christina. And I came to another surprisingconclusion--that is, that no woman is worth worshiping unless she isworth wooing. But what I said to Estella, and what she said to me,will never be revealed to any one in this world;--the results,however, will appear hereafter, in this veracious chronicle.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  ELYSIUM

  It was a bright and sunny autumn day. We were a very happy party.Estella was disguised with gold spectacles, a black wig and a veil,and she looked like some middle-aged school-teacher out for aholiday. We took the electric motor to a station one mile and a halffrom Mr. Jansen's, and walked the rest of the way. The air was pureand sweet and light; it seemed to be breathed right out of heaven.The breezes touched us and dallied with us and delighted us, likeministering angels. The whole panoply of nature was magnificent; thesoft-hued, grassy fields; the embowered trees; the feeding cattle;the children playing around the houses;--

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sp; "Clowns cracking jokes, and lasses with sly eyes, And the smile settling on their sun-flecked cheeks Like noon upon the mellow apricot."

  My soul rose upon wings and swam in the ether like a swallow; and Ithanked God that he had given us this majestic, this beautiful, thissurpassing world, and had placed within us the delicate sensibilityand capability to enjoy it. In the presence of such thingsdeath--annihilation--seemed to me impossible, and I exclaimed aloud:

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  "Hast thou not heard That thine existence, here on earth, is but The dark and narrow section of a life Which was with God, long ere the sun was lit, And shall be yet, when all the bold, bright stars Are dark as death-dust?"

  And oh, what a contrast was all this to the clouded world we had leftbehind us, in yonder close-packed city, with its poverty, its misery,its sin, its injustice, its scramble for gold, its dark hates andterrible plots. But, I said to myself, while God permits man to wreckhimself, he denies him the power to destroy the world. The grasscovers the graves; the flowers grow in the furrows of the cannonballs; the graceful foliage festoons with blossoms the ruins of theprison and the torture-chamber; and the corn springs alike under thefoot of the helot or the yeoman. And I said to myself that, eventhough civilization should commit suicide, the earth would stillremain--and with it some remnant of mankind; and out of theuniformity