"Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering, and yours with years"--
"And have I had no suffering?" asked Mr. Carson, as if appealing for sympathy, even to the murderer of his child.
And the murderer of his child answered to the appeal, and groaned in spirit over the anguish he had caused.
"Have I had no inward suffering to blanch these hairs? Have not I toiled and struggled even to these years with hopes in my heart that all centred in my boy? I did not speak of them, but were they not there? I seemed hard and cold; and so I might be to others, but not to him!--who shall ever imagine the love I bore to him? Even he never dreamed how my heart leapt up at the sound of his footstep, and how precious he was to his poor old father. And he is gone-- killed--out of the hearing of all loving words--out of my sight for ever. He was my sunshine, and now it is night! Oh, my G.o.d! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.
The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears.
Rich and poor, masters and men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone by, that they seemed like another life!
The mourner before him was no longer the employer; a being of another race, eternally placed in antagonistic att.i.tude; going through the world glittering like gold, with a stony heart within, which knew no sorrow but through the accidents of Trade; no longer the enemy, the oppressor, but a very poor and desolate old man.
The sympathy for suffering, formerly so prevalent a feeling with him, again filled John Barton"s heart, and almost impelled him to speak (as best he could) some earnest, tender words to the stern man, shaking in his agony.
But who was he, that he should utter sympathy or consolation? The cause of all this woe.
Oh, blasting thought! Oh, miserable remembrance! He had forfeited all right to bind up his brother"s wounds.
Stunned by the thought, he sank upon the seat, almost crushed with the knowledge of the consequences of his own action; for he had no more imagined to himself the blighted home, and the miserable parents, than does the soldier, who discharges his musket, picture to himself the desolation of the wife, and the pitiful cries of the helpless little ones, who are in an instant to be made widowed and fatherless.
To intimidate a cla.s.s of men, known only to those below them as desirous to obtain the greatest quant.i.ty of work for the lowest wages--at most to remove an overbearing partner from an obnoxious firm, who stood in the way of those who struggled as well as they were able to obtain their rights--this was the light in which John Barton had viewed his deed; and even so viewing it, after the excitement had pa.s.sed away, the Avenger, the sure Avenger, had found him out.
But now he knew that he had killed a man, and a brother--now he knew that no good thing could come out of this evil, even to the sufferers whose cause he had so blindly espoused.
He lay across the table, broken-hearted. Every fresh quivering sob of Mr. Carson"s stabbed him to his soul.
He felt execrated by all; and as if he could never lay bare the perverted reasonings which had made the performance of undoubted sin appear a duty. The longing to plead some faint excuse grew stronger and stronger. He feebly raised his head, and looking at Job Legh, he whispered out--
"I did not know what I was doing, Job Legh; G.o.d knows I didn"t! O sir!" said he wildly, almost throwing himself at Mr. Carson"s feet, "say you forgive me the anguish I now see I have caused you. I care not for pain, or death, you know I don"t; but oh, man! forgive me the trespa.s.s I have done!"
"Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us," said Job, solemnly and low, as if in prayer: as if the words were suggested by those John Barton had used.
Mr. Carson took his hands away from his face. I would rather see death than the ghastly gloom which darkened that countenance.
"Let my trespa.s.ses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son"s murder."
There are blasphemous actions as well as blasphemous words: all unloving, cruel deeds, are acted blasphemy.
Mr. Carson left the house. And John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.
They lifted him up, and almost hoping that that deep trance might be to him the end of all earthly things, they bore him to his bed.
For a time they listened with divided attention to his faint breathings; for in each hasty hurried step that echoed in the street outside, they thought they heard the approach of the officers of justice.
When Mr. Carson left the house he was dizzy with agitation; the hot blood went careering through his frame. He could not see the deep blue of the night-heavens for the fierce pulses which throbbed in his head. And partly to steady and calm himself, he leaned against a railing, and looked up into those calm majestic depths with all their thousand stars.
And by-and-by his own voice returned upon him, as if the last words he had spoken were being uttered through all that infinite s.p.a.ce; but in their echoes there was a tone of unutterable sorrow.
"Let my trespa.s.ses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son"s murder."
He tried to shake off the spiritual impression made by this imagination. He was feverish and ill,--and no wonder.
So he turned to go homewards; not, as he had threatened, to the police-office. After all (he told himself), that would do in the morning. No fear of the man"s escaping, unless he escaped to the grave.
So he tried to banish the phantom voices and shapes which came unbidden to his brain, and to recall his balance of mind by walking calmly and slowly, and noticing everything which struck his senses.
It was a warm soft evening in spring, and there were many persons in the streets. Among others a nurse with a little girl in her charge, conveying her home from some children"s gaiety; a dance most likely, for the lovely little creature was daintily decked out in soft, snowy muslin; and her fairy feet tripped along by her nurse"s side as if to the measure of some tune she had lately kept time to.
Suddenly up behind her there came a rough, rude errand-boy, nine or ten years of age; a giant he looked by the fairy-child, as she fluttered along. I don"t know how it was, but in some awkward way he knocked the poor little girl down upon the hard pavement as he brushed rudely past, not much caring whom he hurt, so that he got along.
The child arose, sobbing with pain; and not without cause, for blood was dropping down from the face, but a minute before so fair and bright--dropping down on the pretty frock, making those scarlet marks so terrible to little children.
The nurse, a powerful woman, had seized the boy, just as Mr. Carson (who had seen the whole transaction) came up.
"You naughty little rascal! I"ll give you to a policeman, that I will! Do you see how you"ve hurt the little girl? Do you?"
accompanying every sentence with a violent jerk of pa.s.sionate anger.
The lad looked hard and defying; but withal terrified at the threat of the policeman, those ogres of our streets to all unlucky urchins.
The nurse saw it, and began to drag him along, with a view of making what she called "a wholesome impression."
His terror increased and with it his irritation; when the little sweet face, choking away its sobs, pulled down nurse"s head and said--
"Please, dear nurse, I"m not much hurt; it was very silly to cry, you know. He did not mean to do it. HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT HE WAS DOING, did you, little boy? Nurse won"t call a policeman, so don"t be frightened." And she put up her little mouth to be kissed by her injurer, just as she had been taught to do at home to "make peace."
"That lad will mind, and be more gentle for the time to come, I"ll be bound, thanks to that little lady," said a pa.s.ser-by, half to himself, and half to Mr. Carson, whom he had observed to notice the scene.
The latter took no apparent heed of the remark, but pa.s.sed on. But the child"s pleading reminded him of the low, broken voice he had so lately heard, penitently and humbly urging the same extenuation of his great guilt.
"I did not know what I was doing."
He had some a.s.sociation with those words; he had heard, or read of that plea somewhere before. Where was it?
"Could it be?"--
He would look when he got home. So when he entered his house he went straight and silently upstairs to his library, and took down the great, large, handsome Bible, all grand and golden, with its leaves adhering together from the bookbinder"s press, so little had it been used.
On the first page (which fell open to Mr. Carson"s view) were written the names of his children, and his own.
"Henry John, son of the above John and Elizabeth Carson.
Born Sept. 29th, 1815."
To make the entry complete, his death should now be added. But the page became hidden by the gathering mist of tears.
Thought upon thought, and recollection upon recollection came crowding in, from the remembrance of the proud day when he had purchased the costly book, in order to write down the birth of the little babe of a day old.
He laid his head down on the open page, and let the tears fall slowly on the spotless leaves.
His son"s murderer was discovered; had confessed his guilt, and yet (strange to say) he could not hate him with the vehemence of hatred he had felt, when he had imagined him a young man, full of l.u.s.ty life, defying all laws, human and divine. In spite of his desire to retain the revengeful feeling he considered as a duty to his dead son, something of pity would steal in for the poor, wasted skeleton of a man, the smitten creature, who had told him of his sin, and implored his pardon that night.