It Is Never Too Late to Mend — Chapter VI, part 1
CHAPTER VI.
JOHN MEADOWS had always been an active man, but now he was indefatigable.
He was up at five every morning, and seemed ubiquitous;
added a gray gelding to his black mare, and rode them both nearly off their legs.
He surveyed land in half a dozen counties--he speculated in grain in half a dozen markets, and did business in shares.
His plan in dealing with this ticklish speculation was simple.
He listened to nothing anybody said, examined the venture himself, and, if it had a sound basis, bought when the herd was selling, and sold wherever the herd was buying.
Hence, he bought cheap and sold dear.
He also lent money, and contrived to solve the usurers' problem--perfect security and huge interest.
He arrived at this by his own sagacity and the stupidity of mankind.
Mankind are not wanting in intelligence; but, as a body, they have one intellectual defect--they are muddle-heads.
Now these muddle-heads have agreed to say that land is in all cases five times a surer security for money lent than movables are.
Whereas the fact is that sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.
Owing to the above delusion the proprietor of land can always borrow money at four per cent, and other proprietors are often driven to give ten--twenty--thirty.
So John Meadows lent mighty little upon land, but much upon oat-ricks, wagons, advantageous leases and such things, solid as land and more easily convertible into cash.
Thus without risk he got his twenty per cent.
Not that he appeared in these transactions--he had too many good irons in the fire to let himself be called a usurer.
He worked this business as three thousand respectable men are working it in this nation.
He had a human money-bag, whose strings he went behind a screen and pulled.
The human money-bag of Meadows was Peter Crawley.
This Peter Crawley, some years before our tale, lay crushed beneath a barrowful of debts--many of them to publicans.
In him others saw a cunning fool and a sot--Meadows an unscrupulous tool.
Meadows wanted a tool, and knew the cheapest way to get the thing was to buy it, so he bought up all Crawley's debts, sued him, got judgments out against him, and raising the ax of the law over Peter's head with his right hand, offered him the left hand of fellowship with his left.
Down on his knees went Crawley and resigned his existence to this great man.
Human creatures, whose mission it is to do whatever a man secretly bids them, are not entitled to long and interesting descriptions.
Crawley was fifty, wore a brown wig, the only thing about him that did not attempt disguise, and slouched in a brown coat and a shirt peppered with snuff.
In this life he was an infinitesimal attorney.
Previously, unless Pythagoras was a goose, he had been a pole-cat.
Meadows was ambidexter.
The two hands he gathered coin with were Meadows and Crawley.
The first his honest, hard-working hand; the second his three-fingered Jack, his prestidigital hand; with both he now worked harder than ever.
He hurried from business to business--could not wait to chat, or drink a glass of ale after it; it was all work!
work!
work!
--money!
money!
money!
with John Meadows, and everything he touched turned to gold in his hands; yet for all this burning activity the man's heart had never been so little in business.
His activity was the struggle of a sensible, strong mind to fight against its one weakness.
“Cedit amor rebus; res age tutus eris,” is a very wise saying, and Meadows, by his own observation and instinct, sought the best antidote for love.
But the Latins had another true saying, that “nobody is wise at all hours.
” After his day of toil and success he used to be guilty of a sad inconsistency.
He shut himself up at home for two hours, and smoked his pipe, and ran his eye over the newspaper, but his mind over Susan Merton.
Worse than this, in his frequent rides he used to go a mile or two out of his way to pass Grassmere farmhouse; and however fast he rode the rest of his journey he always let his nag walk by the farmhouse, and his eye brightened with hope as he approached it, and his heart sank as he passed it without seeing Susan.
He now bitterly regretted the vow he had made, never to visit the Mertons again unless they sent for him.
“They have forgotten me altogether,” said he bitterly.
“Well, the best thing I can do is to forget them.
” Now, Susan had forgotten him; she was absorbed in her own grief; but Merton was laboring under a fit of rheumatism, and this was the reason why Meadows and he did not meet.
In fact, farmer Merton often said to his daughter, “John Meadows has not been to see us a long while.
” “Hasn't he, father?
” was Susan's languid and careless reply.
One Sunday, Meadows, weakened by his inner struggle, could not help going to Grassmere church.
At least he would see her face.
He had seated himself where he could see her.
She took her old place by the pillar;
nobody was near her.
The light from a side window streamed full upon her.
She was pale, and the languor of sorrow was upon every part of her face, but she was lovely as ever.
Meadows watched her, and noticed that more than once without any visible reason her eyes filled with tears, but she shed none.
He saw how hard she tried to give her whole soul to the services of the church and to the word of the preacher; he saw her succeed for a few minutes at a time, and then with a lover's keen eye he saw her heart fly away in a moment from prayer and praise and consolation, and follow and overtake the ship that was carrying her George farther and farther away from her across the sea; and then her lips quivered with earthly sorrow even as she repeated words that came from Heaven, and tried to bind to her heavy heart the prayers for succor in every mortal ill, the promises of help in every mortal woe, with which holy Church and holier Writ comfort her and all the pure of heart in every age.
Then Meadows, who up to this moment had been pitying himself, had a better thought and pitied Susan.
He even went so far as to feel that he ought to pity George, but he did not do it; he could not, he envied him too much; but he pitied Susan, and he longed to say something kind and friendly to her, even though there should not be a word or a look of love in it.
Susan went out by one of the church doors, Meadows by another, intending to meet her casually upon the road home.
Susan saw his intention and took another path, so that he could not come up with her without following her.
Meadows turned upon his heel and went home with his heart full of bitterness.
“She hates the sight of me,” was his interpretation.
Poor Susan, she hated nobody, she only hated to have to speak to a stranger, and to listen to a stranger; and in her present grief all were strangers to her except him she had lost and her father.
She avoided Meadows not because he was Meadows, but because she wanted to be alone.
Meadows rode home despondently, then he fell to abusing his folly, and vowed he would think of her no more.
The next day, finding himself, at six o'clock in the evening, seated by the fire in a reverie, he suddenly started fiercely up, saddled his horse, and rode into Newborough, and, putting up his horse, strolled about the streets and tried to amuse himself looking at the shops before they closed.
Now it so happened that, stopping before a bookseller's shop, he saw advertised a work upon “The Australian Colonies.
” “Confound Australia!
” said Meadows to himself, and turned on his heel, but the next moment, with a sudden change of mind, he returned and bought the book.
He did more, he gave the tradesman an order for every approved work on Australia that was to be had.
The bookseller, as it happened, was going up to London next day, so that in the evening Meadows had some dozen volumes in his house, and a tolerably correct map of certain Australian districts.
“Let me see,” said Meadows, “what chance that chap has of making a thousand pounds out there.
” This was no doubt the beginning of it, but it did not end there.
The intelligent Meadows had not read a hundred pages before he found out what a wonderful country this Australia is, how worthy a money-getter's attention or any thoughtful man's. It seemed as if his rival drew Meadows after him wherever he went, so fascinated was he with this subject.
And now all the evening he sucked the books like a leech.
Men observed, about this time, an irritable manner in Mr. Meadows which he had never shown before, and an eternal restlessness; they little divined the cause, or dreamed what a vow he had made, and what it cost him every day to keep it.
So strong was the struggle within him, that there were moments when he feared he should go mad; and then it was that he learned the value of his mother's presence in the house.
There was no explanation between them, there could be no sympathy; had he opened his heart to her he knew she would have denounced his love for Susan Merton as a damnable crime.
Once she invited his confidence.
“What ails you, John?
” said the old woman.
“You had better tell me; you would feel easier, I'm thinking.
” But he turned it off a little fretfully, and she never returned to the charge.
But though there could be no direct sympathy, yet there was a soothing influence in this quaint old woman's presence.
She moved quietly about, protecting his habits, not disturbing them; she seemed very thoughtful, too, and cast many a secret glance of inquiry and interest at him when he was not looking at her.
This had gone on some weeks when, one afternoon, Meadows, who had been silent as death for a full half hour, started from his chair and said with sudden resolution: “Mother, I must leave this part of the country for a while.
” “That is news, John.
” “Yes.
I shall go into the mining district for six months or a year, perhaps.
” “Well!
go, John!
you want a change.
I think you can't do better than go.
” “I will, and no later than to-morrow.
” “That is sudden.
” “If I was to give myself time to think, I should never go at all.
” He went out briskly with the energy of this determination.
The same evening, about seven o'clock, as he sat reading by the fire, an unexpected visitor was announced--Mr. Merton.
He came cordially in and scolded Meadows for never having been to see him.
“I know you are a busy man,” said the old farmer, “but you might have given us a look in coming home from market; it is only a mile out of the way, and you are pretty well mounted in a general way.
” Then the old man, a gossip, took up one of Meadows' books.
“Australia!
ah!
” grunted Merton, and dropped it like a hot potato; he tried another, “Why, this is Australia, too; why, they are all Australia, as I am a living sinner.
” And he looked with a rueful curiosity into Meadows' face.
Meadows colored, but soon recovered his external composure.
“I have friends there,” said he hastily, “who tell me there are capital investments in that country, and they say no more than the truth.
” “Do you think he will do any good out there?
” asked the old man, lowering his voice.
“I can't say,” answered Meadows dryly.
“Tell us something about that country, John,” said Merton; “and if you was to ask me to take a glass of your home-brewed ale I don't think I should gainsay you.
” The ale was sent for, and over it Meadows, whose powers of acquisition extended to facts as well as money, and who was full of this new subject, poured the agricultural contents of a dozen volumes into Mr. Merton.
The old farmer sat open-mouthed, transfixed with interest, listening to his friend's clear, intelligent and masterly descriptions of this wonderful land.
At last the clock struck nine; he started up in astonishment.
“I shall get a scolding if I stay later,” said he, and off he went to Grassmere.
“Have you nothing else to say to me?
” asked Meadows, as the farmer put his foot in the stirrup.
“Not that I know of,” replied the other, and cantered away.
“Confound him!
” muttered Meadows; “he comes and stops here three hours, drinks my ale, gets my knowledge without the trouble of digging for't, and goes away, and not a word from Susan, or even a word about her--one word would have paid me for all this loss of time--but no, I was not to have it.
I will be in Devonshire this time to-morrow--no, to-morrow is market day--but the day after I will go.
I cannot live here and not see her, nor speak to her--'twill drive me mad.
” The next morning, as Meadows mounted his horse to ride to market, a carter's boy came up to him, and taking off his hat and pulling his head down by the front lock by way of salute, put a note into his hand.
Meadows took it and opened it carelessly; it was a handwriting he did not know.
But his eye had no sooner glanced at the signature than his eyes gleamed and his whole frame trembled with emotion he could hardly hide.
This was the letter: “DEAR MR. MEADOWS--We have not seen you here a long time, and if you could take a cup of tea with us on your way home from market, my father would be glad to see you, if it is not troubling you too much.
“I believe he has some calves he wishes to show you.
“I am, yours respectfully, “SUSAN MERTON.
“P. S.
--Father has been confined by rheumatism, and I have not been well this last month.
” Meadows turned away from the messenger, and said quietly, “Tell Miss Merton I will come, if possible.
” He then galloped off, and as soon as there was no one in sight gave vent to his face and his exulting soul.
Now he congratulated himself on his goodness in making a certain vow and his firmness in keeping it.
“I kept out of their way, and they have invited me; my conscience is clear.
” He then asked himself why Susan had invited him; and he could not but augur the most favorable results from this act on her part.
True, his manner to her had never gone beyond friendship, but women, he argued, are quick to discern their admirers under every disguise.
She was dull and out of spirits, and wrote for him to come to her; this was a great point, a good beginning.
“The sea is between her and George, and I am here, with time and opportunity on my side,” said Meadows; and as these thoughts coursed through his heart, his gray nag, spurred by an unconscious heel, broke into a hand-gallop, and after an hour and a half hard riding they clattered into the town of Newborough.
The habit of driving hard bargains is a good thing for teaching a man to suppress his feelings and feign indifference, yet the civil nonchalance with which Meadows, on his return from Newborough, walked into the Merton's parlor cost him no ordinary struggle.
The farmer received him cordially--Susan civilly, and with a somewhat feeble smile.
The former soon engaged him in agricultural talk.
Susan, meanwhile, made the tea in silence, and Meadows began to think she was capricious, and had no sooner got what she asked for than she did not care for it.
After a while, however, she put in a word here and there, but with a discouraging languor.
Presently Farmer Merton brought her his tea-cup to be replenished, and upon this opportunity Susan said a word to her father in an undertone.
“Oh, ay!
” replied the farmer very loud indeed; and Susan colored.
“What was you saying to me about that country--that Christmas-day is the hottest day in the year?
” began Mr. Merton.
Meadows assented, and Merton proceeded to put other questions, in order, it appeared, to draw once more from Meadows the interesting information of last night.
Meadows answered shortly and with repugnance.
Then Susan put in: “And is it true, sir, that the flowers are beautiful to the eye, but have no smell, and that the birds have all gay feathers, but no song?
” Then Susan, scarcely giving him time to answer, proceeded to put several questions, and her manner was no longer languid, but bright and animated.
She wound up her interrogatories with this climax: “And _do_ you think, sir, it is a country where George will be able to do any good.
And will he have his health in that land, so far from every one to take care of him?
” And this doubt raised, the bright eyes were dimmed with tears in a moment.
Meadows gasped out, “Why not?
why not?
” but soon after, muttering some excuse about his horse, he went out with a promise to return immediately.
He was no sooner alone than he gave way to a burst of rage and bitterness.
“So, she only sent for me here to make me tell her about that infernal country where her George is.
I'll ride home this instant--this very instant--without bidding them good-by.
” Cooler thoughts came.
He mused deeply a few minutes, and then, clinching his teeth, returned slowly to the little parlor: he sat down and took his line with a brisk and cheerful air.
“You were asking me some questions about Australia.
I can tell you all about that country, for I have a relation there who writes to me.
And I have read all the books about it, too, as it happens.
” Susan brightened up.
Meadows, by a great histrionic effort, brightened up, too, and poured out a flood of really interesting facts and anecdotes about this marvelous land.
Then, in the middle of a narrative, which enchained both his hearers, he suddenly looked at his watch, and putting on a fictitious look of dismay and annoyance, started up with many excuses and went home--not, however, till Susan had made him promise to come again next market-day.
As he rode home in the moonlight Susan's face seemed still before him.
The bright look of interest she had given him, the grateful smiles with which she had thanked him for his narration--all this had been so sweet at the moment, so bitter upon the least reflection.
His mind was in a whirl.
At last he grasped at one idea, and held it as with a vise.
“I shall be always welcome to her if I can bring myself to talk about that detestable country.
Well, I will grind my tongue down to it.
She shall not be able to do without my chat; that shall be the beginning;
the middle shall be different; the end shall be just the opposite.
The sea is between him and her.
I am here with opportunity, resolution and money.
I _will_ have her!
” The next morning his mother said to him: “John, do you think to go to-day?
” “Where, mother?
” “The journey you spoke of.
” “What journey?
” “Among the mines.
” “Not I. ” “You have changed your mind, then?
” “What, didn't you see I was joking?
” “No!
” (very dryly.
) Soon after this little dialogue Dame Meadows proposed to end her visit and return home.
Her son yielded a cheerful assent.
She went gravely and quietly back to her little cottage.
Meadows had determined to make himself necessary to Susan Merton.
He brought a woman's cunning to bear against a woman's; for the artifice to which his strong will bent his supple talent is one that many women have had the tact and temporary self-denial to carry out, but not one man in a hundred.
Men try to beat an absent rival by sneering at him, etc. By which means the asses make their absent foe present to her mind and enlist the whole woman in his defense.
But Meadows was no ordinary man.
Susan had given his quick intelligence a glimpse of a way to please her.
He looked at the end, and crushed his will down to the thorny means.
Twice a week he called on the Mertons, and much of his talk was Australia.
Susan was grateful.
To hear of the place where George would soon be was the nearest approach she could make to hearing of George.
As for Meadows, he gained a great point, but he went through tortures on the way.
He could not hide from himself why he was so welcome; and many a time as he rode home from the Mertons he resolved never to return there, but he took no more oaths; it had cost him so much to keep the last; and that befell which might have been expected, after a while, the pleasure of being near the woman he loved, of being distinguished by her and greeted with pleasure however slight, grew into a habit and a need.
Achilles was a man of steel, but he had a vulnerable part; and iron natures like John Meadows have often one spot in their souls where they are far tenderer than the universal dove-eyed, and weaker than the omnipotent.
He never spoke a word of love to Susan, he knew it would spoil all; and she, occupied with another's image, and looking upon herself as confessedly belonging to another, never suspected the deep passion that filled this man's heart.
But if an observer of nature had accompanied John Meadows on market-day he might have seen--diagnostics.
All the morning his eye was cold and quick; his mouth, when silent, close, firm, and unreadable; his voice clear, decided, and occasionally loud.
But when he got to old Merton's fireside he mellowed and softened like the sun toward evening.
There his forehead unknit itself; his voice, pitched in quite a different key from his key of business, turned also low and gentle, and soothed and secretly won the hearer by its deep, rich and pleasant modulation and variety; and his eye turned deeper in color, and, losing its keenness and restlessness, dwelt calmly and pensively for minutes at a time upon some little household object close to Susan; seldom, unless quite unobserved, upon Susan herself.
But the surrounding rustics suspected nothing, so calm and deep ran Meadows.
“Dear heart,” said Susan to her father, “who would have thought Mr. Meadows would come a mile out of his way twice a week to talk to me about Geo--about the country where my heart is--and the folk say he thinks of nothing but money and won't move a step without making it.
” “The folk are envious of him, girl--that is all.
John Meadows is too clever for fools, and too industrious for the lazy ones; he is a good friend of mine, Susan; if I wanted to borrow a thousand pounds I have only to draw on Meadows; he has told me so half a dozen times.
” “We don't want his money, father,” replied Susan, “nor anybody's; but I think a great deal of his kindness, and George shall thank him when he comes home--if ever he comes home to Susan again.
” These last words brought many tears with them, which the old farmer pretended not to notice, for he was getting tired of his daughter's tears.
They were always flowing now at the least word, “and she used to be so good-humored and cheerful-like.
” Poor Susan!
she was very unhappy.
If any one had said to her, “to-morrow you die,” she would have smiled on her own account, and only sighed at the pain the news would cause poor George.
Her George was gone, her mother had been dead this two years.
Her life, which had been full of innocent pleasures, was now utterly tasteless, except in its hours of bitterness when sorrow overcame her like a flood.
She had a pretty flower-garden in which she used to work.
When George was at home what pleasure it had been to plant them with her lover's help, to watch them expand, to water them in the summer evening, to smell their gratitude for the artificial shower after a sultry day, and then to have George in, and set him admiring them with such threadbare enthusiasm, simply because they were hers, not in the least because they were Nature's.
