"That"s true," said Briscoe, who had overheard her. "He"ll go pretty far. A man that people know is steady and strong and level-headed can get whatever he wants, because a public man can get anything, if people know he"s safe and honest and they can rely on him for _sense_. It sounds like a simple matter; but only three or four public men in the country have convinced us that they are like that. Hurry along, young people."
Crossing the street, they met Miss Tibbs; she was wiping her streaming eyes with the back of her left hand and still mechanically waving her handkerchief with her right. "Isn"t it beautiful?" she said, not ceasing to flutter, unconsciously, the little square of cambric. "There was such a throng that I grew faint and had to come away. I don"t mind your seeing me crying. Pretty near everybody cried when he walked up to the steps and we saw that he was lame."
Standing on the outskirts of the crowd, they could hear the mellow ring of Harkless"s voice, but only fragments of the speech, for it was rather halting, and was not altogether clear in either rhetoric or delivery; and Mr. Bence could have been a good deal longer in saying what he had to say, and a thousand times more oratorical. Nevertheless, there was not a man or woman present who did not declare that it was the greatest speech ever heard in Plattville; and they really thought so--to such lengths are loyalty and friendship sometimes carried in Carlow and Amo and Gaines.
He looked down upon the attentive, earnest faces and into the kindly eyes of the Hoosier country people, and, as he spoke, the thought kept recurring to him that this was the place he had dreaded to come back to; that these were the people he had wished to leave--these, who gave him everything they had to give--and this made it difficult to keep his tones steady and his throat clear.
Helen stood so far from the steps (nor could she be induced to penetrate further, though they would have made way for her) that only fragments reached her, but what she heard she remembered:
"I have come home... Ordinarily a man needs to fall sick by the wayside or to be set upon by thieves, in order to realize that nine-tenths of the world is Samaritan, and the other tenth only too busy or too ignorant to be. Down here he realizes it with no necessity of illness or wounds to bring it out; and if he does get hurt, you send him to Congress.... There will be no other in Washington so proud of what he stands for as I shall be. To represent you is to stand for realities--fearlessness, honor, kindness.... We are people who take what comes to us, and it comes bountifully; we are rich--oh, we are all Americans here!... This is the place for a man who likes to live where people are kind to one another, and where they have the old-fashioned way of saying "Home." Other places, they don"t seem to get so much into it as we do. And to come home as I have to-day.... I have come home...."
Every one meant to shake hands with him, and, when the speech was over, those nearest swooped upon him, cheering and waving, and grasping at his hand. Then a line was formed, and they began to defile by him, as he stood on the steps, and one by one they came up, and gave him hearty greetings, and pa.s.sed on through the court-house and out at the south door. Tom Meredith and Minnie Briscoe came amongst the others, and Tom said only, "Good old boy," as he squeezed his friend"s hand; and then, as he went down the hall, wiping his gla.s.ses, he asked Minnie if she believed the young man on the steps had risen from a sick bed that morning.
It was five-o"clock when Harkless climbed the stairs to the "Herald"
office, and his right arm and hand were aching and limp. Below him, as he reached the landing, he could see boys selling extras containing his speech (taken by the new reporter), and long accounts of the convention, of the nominee"s career, and the celebration of his home-coming. The sales were rapid; for no one could resist the opportunity to read in print descriptions of what his eyes had beheld and his ears had heard that day.
Ross Schofield was the only person in the editorial room, and there was nothing in his appearance which should cause a man to start and fall back from the doorway; but that was what Harkless did.
"What"s the matter, Mr. Harkless?" cried Ross, hurrying forward, fearing that the other had been suddenly reseized by illness.
"What are those?" asked Harkless, with a gesture of his hand which seemed to include the entire room.
"Those!" repeated Ross, staring blankly.
"Those rosettes--these streamers--that stovepipe--all this blue ribbon."
Ross turned pale. "Ribbon?" he said, inquiringly. "Ribbon?" He seemed unable to perceive the decorations referred to.
"Yes," answered John; "these rosettes on the chairs, that band, and----"
"Oh!" Ross exclaimed. "That?" He fingered the band on the stovepipe as if he saw it for the first time. "Yes; I see."
"But what are they for?" asked Harkless, touching one of the streamers curiously.
"Why--it"s--it"s likely meant for decorations."
John picked up the ink-well, staring in complete amazement at the hard knot of ribbon with which it was garnished.
"They seem to have been here some time."
"They have; I reckon they"re almost due to be called in. They"ve be"n up ever sence--sence----"
"Who put them up, Ross?"
"We did."
"What for?"
Ross was visibly embarra.s.sed. "Why--fer--fer the other editor."
"For Mr. Fisbee?"
"Land, no! You don"t suppose we"d go to work and bother to brisken things up fer that old gentleman, do you?"
"I meant young Mr. Fisbee--he is the other editor, isn"t he?"
"Oh!" said Ross, coughing. "Young Mr. Fisbee? Yes; we put "em up fer him."
"You did! Did he appreciate them?"
"Well--he seemed to--kind of like "em."
"Where is he now? I came here to find him."
"He"s gone."
"Gone? Hasn"t he been here this afternoon?"
"Yes; some "the time. Come in and stayed durin" the leevy you was holdin", and saw the extra off all right."
"When will he be back?"
"Sence it"s be"n a daily he gits here by eight, after supper, but don"t stay very late; the new man and old Mr. Fisbee and Parker look after whatever comes in late, unless it"s something special. He"ll likely be here by half-past eight at the farthest off."
"I can"t wait till then." John took a quick turn about the room.
"I"ve been wanting to see him every minute since I got in," he said impatiently, "and he hasn"t been near me. n.o.body could even point him out to me. Where has he gone? I want to see him _now_."
"Want to discharge him again?" said a voice from the door, and turning, they saw that Mr. Martin stood there observing them.
"No," said Harkless; "I want to give him the "Herald." Do you know where he is?"
Mr. Martin stroked his beard deliberately. "The person you speak of hadn"t ort to be very hard to find--in Carlow. The committee was reckless enough to hire that carriage of yours by the day, and Keating and Warren Smith are setting in it up at the corner, with their feet on the cushions to show they"re used to ridin" around with four white horses every day in the week. It"s waitin" till you"re ready to go out to Briscoe"s. It"s an hour before supper time, and you can talk to young Fisbee all you want. He"s out there."
As they drove along the pike, Harkless"s three companions kept up a conversation sprightly beyond the mere exhilaration of the victorious; but John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveliness, the others eyed him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had been living on excitement through a physically exhausting day, and they were fearful lest his nerves react and bring him to a breakdown. But the healthy flush of his cheek was rea.s.suring; he looked steady and strong, and they were pleased to believe that the stirring-up was what he needed.
It had been a strange and beautiful day to him, begun in anger, but the sun was not to go down upon his wrath; for his choleric intention had almost vanished on his homeward way, and the first words Smith had spoken had lifted the veil of young Fisbee"s duplicity, had shown him with what fine intelligence and supreme delicacy and sympathy young Fisbee had worked for him, had understood him, and had _made_ him. If the open a.s.sault on McCune had been pressed, and the d.a.m.natory evidence published in Harkless"s own paper, while Harkless himself was a candidate and rival, John would have felt dishonored. The McCune papers could have been used for Halloway"s benefit, but not for his own; he would not ride to success on another man"s ruin; and young Fisbee had understood and had saved him. It was a point of honor that many would have held finicky and inconsistent, but one which young Fisbee had comprehended was vital to Harkless.
And this was the man he had discharged like a dishonest servant; the man who had thrown what was (in Carlow"s eyes) riches into his lap; the man who had made his paper, and who had made him, and saved him. Harkless wanted to see young Fisbee as he longed to see only one other person in the world. Two singular things had happened that day which made his craving to see Helen almost unbearable--just to rest his eyes upon her for a little while, he could ask no more. And as they pa.s.sed along that well-remembered road, every tree, every leaf by the wayside, it seemed, spoke to him and called upon the dear memory of his two walks with her--into town and out of town, on show-day. He wondered if his heart was to project a wraith of her before him whenever he was deeply moved, for the rest of his life. For twice to-day he had seen her whom he knew to be so far away. She had gone back to her friends in the north, Tom had said. Twice that afternoon he had been momentarily, but vividly, conscious of her as a living presence. As he descended from the car at the station, his eyes, wandering out over the tumultuous crowd, had caught and held a picture for a second--a graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes, it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near him; that she was looking at him; that he should see her when the carriage turned; and in the same instant, above the singing of a mult.i.tude, he heard her voice as if there had been no other and once more his dazzled eyes beheld her for a second; she was singing, and as she sang she leaned toward him from on high with the most ineffable look of tenderness and pride and affection he had ever seen on a woman"s face; such a look, he thought, as she would wear if she came to love some archangel (her love should be no less) with all of her heart and soul and strength. And so he knew he had seen a vision.
But it was a cruel one to visit a man who loved her. He had summoned his philosophy and his courage in his interview with himself on the way to Carlow, and they had answered; but nothing could answer if his eyes were to play him tricks and bring her visibly before him, and with such an expression as he had seen upon her face. It was too real. It made his eyes yearn for the sight of her with an ache that was physical. And even at that moment, he saw, far ahead of them on the road, two figures standing in front of the brick house. One was unmistakable at any distance. It was that of old Fisbee; and the other was a girl"s: a light, small figure without a hat, and the low, western sun dwelt on a head that shone with gold. Harkless put his hand over his eyes with a pain that was like the taste of hemlock in nectar.
"Sun in your eyes?" asked Keating, lifting his hat, so as to shield the other"s face.
"Yes."
When he looked again, both figures were gone. He made up his mind that he would think of the only other person who could absorb his attention, at least for a time; very soon he would stand face to face with the six feet of brawn and intelligence and manhood that was young Fisbee.
"You are sure he is there?" he asked Tom Martin.
"Yes," answered Martin, with no need to inquire whom the editor meant.