The Redemption of David Corson Part 36

Placing his hat upon his storm-beaten head, he folded the camp-chair under his arm, took the leading string in his hand and followed the little dog, who began picking his way with fine care through the surging crowd.

Behind him at a little distance walked the two gamblers, pursuing him like a double shadow. A bloodhound could not have been more eager than David was. He trembled if an omnibus cut off his view for a single instant, and shuddered if the beggar turned a corner.

Unconscious of all this, the dog and his master wended their way homeward. They crawled slowly and quietly across a street over which thundered an endless procession of vehicles; they moved like snails through the surf of the ocean of life. Arriving at length at the door of a wretched tenement house, the blind man and his dog entered.

As he noted the squalor of the place, David murmured to himself, "Poor old man! How low he has fallen!"

Several minutes pa.s.sed in silence, while he stood reflecting on the doctor's misery, his own new happiness and the opportunities and duties which the adventure had opened and imposed. At last he said to his friend, "Do you know where we are? I was so absorbed that I didn't notice our route at all."

"Yes," Mantel answered. "I have marked every turn of the way."

"Could you find the place again?"

"Without the slightest difficulty."

"Be sure, for if you wish to help me, as I think you do, you will have to come often. I have made my plans in the few moments in which I have been standing here, and am determined to devote my life, if need be, to this poor creature whom I have so wronged. I must get him out of this filthy hole into some cheerful place. I will atone for the past if I can! Atone! What a word that is! With what stunning force its meaning dawns upon me! How many times I have heard and uttered it without comprehension. But somehow I now see in it a revelation of the sweetest possibility of life. Oh! I am a changed man; I will make atonement!

Come, let us go. I am anxious to begin. But no, I must proceed with caution. How do I know that this is his permanent home? He may be only lodging for the night, and when you come to-morrow, he may be gone! Go in, Mantel, and make sure that we shall find him here to-morrow. Go, and while you find out all you can about him, I will begin to search for such a place as I want to put him in. We will part for the present; but when we meet to-night we shall have much to talk about. I will tell you the whole of this long and bitter story. I am so happy, Mantel. You can't understand! I have something to live for now. I will work, oh, you do not know how I will work to make this atonement. What a word it is!

It is music to my ears. Atonement!"

And so in the lexicon of human experience he had at last discovered the meaning of one of the great words of our language. After all, experience is the only exhaustive dictionary, and the definitions it contains are the only ones which really burn themselves into the mind or fully interpret the significances of life.

To every man language is a kind of fossil poetry, until experience makes those dry bones live! Words are mere faded metaphors, pressed like dried flowers in old and musty volumes, until a blow upon our heads, a pang in our hearts, a strain on our nerves, the whisper of a maid, the voice of a little child, turns them into living blossoms of odorous beauty.

CHAPTER XXVII.

IF THINE ENEMY HUNGER

"Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many."

--Bulwer-Lytton.

The blow struck by David had stunned the doctor, but had not killed him.

He lay in the road until a slave, pa.s.sing that way, picked him up and carried him to a neighboring plantation, where he fell into the hands of people who in the truest sense of the word were good Samaritans. Their hospitality was tested to the utmost, for he lay for weeks in a stupor, and when he recovered consciousness his reason had undergone a strange eclipse. For a long time he could not recall a single event in his history and when at last some of the most prominent began to re-present themselves to his view it was vaguely and slowly, as mountain-peaks and hill-tops break through a morning mist. This was not the only result of the blow which his rival had struck him; it had left him totally blind.

Nothing could have been more pitiful than the sight of this once strong man, more helpless than an infant, sitting in the sun where kind hands had placed him. Months elapsed before he regained anything that could be called a clear conception of the past. It did at length return, however.

Slowly, but with terrible distinctness he recalled the events which preceded and brought about this tragedy. And as he reflected upon them, jealousy, hatred and revenge boiled in his soul and finally crystallized into the single desperate purpose to find and crush the man who had wrecked his life.

He kept his story to himself; but made furtive inquiries of his new-found friends and of the slaves and neighbors, none of which enabled him to discover the slightest clue to the fugitives. So far as he could learn, the earth might have opened and swallowed them, and so when he had exhausted the sources of information in the region where the accident occurred, he determined to go elsewhere.

Refusing the kind offers of a permanent refuge in the home of these hospitable Kentuckians, he made his way back to Cincinnati, where he hoped not only to find traces of the fugitives, but to recover the jewels which Pepeeta had left behind her on the table, and which in his frantic haste he had forgotten to take with him.

He learned the history of the jewels in a few short hours. Not long after his own sudden disappearance and that of David and Pepeeta, the judge had called at the hotel with an order for his property. The unsuspecting landlord had honored it, and the judge not long afterward left for parts unknown.

This discovery not only turned his rage to frenzy, but increased his difficulties a hundred fold. Without friends and without money, he set himself to attain revenge. Before a purpose so resolute, many obstacles at once gave way, and although he could find no traces of David and Pepeeta, he discovered that the judge had fled to New York City, and thither he determined to go.

Procuring a little terrier, through the charity of strangers, he trained him to be his guide, and started on his pilgrimage. Many weeks were consumed in the journey and many more in hopeless efforts to discover the thief. Through the aid of an old Cincinnati friend whom he accidentally encountered he located the fugitive at last; but in a cemetery! Ill-gotten wealth had precipitated the final disaster, for having turned the diamonds into money the fugitive entered upon a debauch which terminated in a horrible death. At the side of a grave in the potter's field, the s.e.xton one day saw a blind man leaning on a cane. After a long silence, he stooped down, felt carefully over the low ground as if to a.s.sure himself of something, then rose, lifted his cane to heaven, waved it wildly, muttered what sounded like imprecations, and soon after followed a little terrier to the gate of the cemetery and disappeared.

It was the doctor. One of his enemies had escaped him forever, and the trail of the others seemed hopelessly lost in the darkness which had settled down upon him. There was nothing left for him but to beg his living and impotently nourish his hate.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A MAN CROSSED WITH ADVERSITY

"One sole desire, one pa.s.sion now remains To keep life's fever still within his veins, Vengeance! dire vengeance on the wretch who cast O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast."

--Lalla Rookh.

It was late in the evening when David returned to his apartments, excited, triumphant, eager.

"Well," he cried, rus.h.i.+ng impetuously up to Mantel, who stood waiting for him. "Is he still there? Is that place really his home?"

"Yes," his friend answered; "he has lived there for more than a year, in solitude and poverty. His health is very poor and he is growing steadily weaker. He has declined so much recently that now he does not venture out until the afternoon."

"Feeble, is he? Poor old man!" exclaimed David. "But at least he is not dead, and while there is life there is hope! I am not a murderer, and there is a possibility of my making atonement! How I cling to that idea, Mantel! In a single hour I have enjoyed more happiness than I thought a whole lifetime could contain. But even in this indescribable happiness there is a strange element of unrest, for it seems too good to last. Is all great gladness haunted by this apprehension of evanescence? But at any rate, I am happy now!"

"And I am almost happy in your happiness," responded his friend, his face lighted up by an altogether new and beautiful smile.

"Sit down, then," said David, giving him a chair and standing opposite to him, "and I will tell you my story."

Words cannot describe the emotion, nay the pa.s.sion, with which he poured that tragic narrative into the ears of his eager and sympathetic listener.

Never was a story told to a more attentive and appreciative auditor.

There must have been some buried sorrow in that heart which had rendered it sensitive to the griefs of others. Hours were consumed by this narrative and by the questions which had to be asked and answered, and it was long after midnight when David found time to say, "And now shall I tell you my plans for the future?"

"Yes, if you will," said Mantel.

"Well, I have rented a sunny room in a lodging house in a quiet street, and to-morrow, if you are willing, you shall go and lead him to it. I must lean upon you, Mantel; I dare not make myself known to him. He would never accept my aid if he knew by whom it was bestowed, for he is proud and revengeful and would give himself no rest night or day until he had my life, if he knew I was within reach. I do not fear him; but what good could come of his wreaking vengeance on me, richly as I deserve it? It would only make his destiny more dark and dreadful, and defeat the one chance I have of making an atonement. You do not think I ought to make myself known, do you?"

"I do not. I think with you that an atonement is the most perfect satisfaction of justice."

"Thank you, thank you, my dear friend. You do not know how glad I am to have you think I am doing right. You will go to him to-morrow, then, and you will tell him that some one who has seen him on the streets has taken compa.s.sion on him. You will do this, will you not?"

"Nothing could give me greater pleasure. I half feel as if I had partic.i.p.ated with you in the wrong done to the old man, and that I shall be blessed with you in trying to make it right."

"That is good in you, Mantel. How much n.o.bility lies buried in every human heart! It may be that even such men as you and I are capable of some sort of rescue and redemption. I am going to spend my best strength in working for this poor old blind beggar whom I have wronged. I mean to toil for him like a galley slave, and mark me, Mantel, it is going to be honest toil!"

"Honest, did you say?" asked Mantel, lifting his eyebrows incredulously.

"Yes," David answered, "honest. This hope that has come to me has wrought a great change in my heart. It has revived old feelings which I thought long dead. If there is a G.o.d in heaven who has decided to give me one more chance to set myself right, I am going to take it! And listen; if this great hope can come to me, why not to you?"

Mantel leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then answered with a sigh, "Perhaps--but," and paused.