Life in the Iron Mills. Rebecca Harding Davis

according to the fashion of women.

      “God forgi’ me, woman! Things go harder wi’ you nor me. It’s a worse share.”

      He got up and helped her to rise; and they went doggedly down the muddy street, side by side.

      “It’s all wrong,” he muttered, slowly,—“all wrong! I dunnot understan’. But it’ll end some day.”

      “Come home, Hugh!” she said, coaxingly; for he had stopped, looking around bewildered.

      “Home,—and back to the mill!” He went on saying this over to himself, as if he would mutter down every pain in this dull despair.

      She followed him through the fog, her blue lips chattering with cold. They reached the cellar at last. Old Wolfe had been drinking since she went out, and had crept nearer the door. The girl Janey slept heavily in the corner. He went up to her, touching softly the worn white arm with his fingers. Some bitterer thought stung him, as he stood there. He wiped the drops from his forehead, and went into the room beyond, livid, trembling. A hope, trifling, perhaps, but very dear, had died just then out of the poor puddler’s life, as he looked at the sleeping, innocent girl,—some plan for the future, in which she had borne a part. He gave it up that moment, then and forever. Only a trifle, perhaps, to us: his face grew a shade paler,—that was all. But, somehow, the man’s soul, as God and the angels looked down on it, never was the same afterwards.

      Deborah followed him into the inner room. She carried a candle, which she placed on the floor, closing the door after her. She had seen the look on his face, as he turned away: her own grew deadly. Yet, as she came up to him, her eyes glowed. He was seated on an old chest, quiet, holding his face in his hands.

      “Hugh!” she said, softly.

      He did not speak.

      “Hugh, did hur hear what the man said,—him with the clear voice? Did hur hear? Money, money,—that it wud do all?”

      He pushed her away,—gently, but he was worn out; her rasping tone fretted him.

      “Hugh!”

      The candle flared a pale yellow light over the cobwebbed brick walls, and the woman standing there. He looked at her. She was young, in deadly earnest; her faded eyes, and wet, ragged figure caught from their frantic eagerness a power akin to beauty.

      “Hugh, it is true! Money ull do it! Oh, Hugh, boy, listen till me! He said it true! It is money!”

      “I know. Go back! I do not want you here.”

      “Hugh, it is t’ last time. I’ll never worrit hur again.”

      There were tears in her voice now, but she choked them back:

      “Hear till me only to-night! If one of t’ witch people wud come, them we heard oft’ home, and gif hur all hur wants, what then? Say, Hugh!”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I mean money.”

      Her whisper shrilled through his brain.

      “If one oft’ witch dwarfs wud come from t’ lane moors to-night, and gif hur money, to go out,—OUT, I say,—out, lad, where t’ sun shines, and t’ heath grows, and t’ ladies walk in silken gownds, and God stays all t’ time,—where t’man lives that talked to us to-night, Hugh knows,—Hugh could walk there like a king!”

      He thought the woman mad, tried to check her, but she went on, fierce in her eager haste.

      “If I were t’ witch dwarf, if I had t’ money, wud hur thank me? Wud hur take me out o’ this place wid hur and Janey? I wud not come into the gran’ house hur wud build, to vex hur wid t’ hunch,—only at night, when t’ shadows were dark, stand far off to see hur.”

      Mad? Yes! Are many of us mad in this way?

      “Poor Deb! poor Deb!” he said, soothingly.

      “It is here,” she said, suddenly, jerking into his hand a small roll. “I took it! I did it! Me, me!—not hur! I shall be hanged, I shall be burnt in hell, if anybody knows I took it! Out of his pocket, as he leaned against t’ bricks. Hur knows?”

      She thrust it into his hand, and then, her errand done, began to gather chips together to make a fire, choking down hysteric sobs.

      “Has it come to this?”

      That was all he said. The Welsh Wolfe blood was honest. The roll was a small green pocket-book containing one or two gold pieces, and a check for an incredible amount, as it seemed to the poor puddler. He laid it down, hiding his face again in his hands.

      “Hugh, don’t be angry wud me! It’s only poor Deb,—hur knows?”

      He took the long skinny fingers kindly in his.

      “Angry? God help me, no! Let me sleep. I am tired.”

      He threw himself heavily down on the wooden bench, stunned with pain and weariness. She brought some old rags to cover him.

      It was late on Sunday evening before he awoke. I tell God’s truth, when I say he had then no thought of keeping this money. Deborah had hid it in his pocket. He found it there. She watched him eagerly, as he took it out.

      “I must gif it to him,” he said, reading her face.

      “Hur knows,” she said with a bitter sigh of disappointment. “But it is hur right to keep it.”

      His right! The word struck him. Doctor May had used the same. He washed himself, and went out to find this man Mitchell. His right! Why did this chance word cling to him so obstinately? Do you hear the fierce devils whisper in his ear, as he went slowly down the darkening street?

      The evening came on, slow and calm. He seated himself at the end of an alley leading into one of the larger streets. His brain was clear to-night, keen, intent, mastering. It would not start back, cowardly, from any hellish temptation, but meet it face to face. Therefore the great temptation of his life came to him veiled by no sophistry, but bold, defiant, owning its own vile name, trusting to one bold blow for victory.

      He did not deceive himself. Theft! That was it. At first the word sickened him; then he grappled with it. Sitting there on a broken cart-wheel, the fading day, the noisy groups, the church-bells’ tolling passed before him like a panorama, while the sharp struggle went on within. This money! He took it out, and looked at it. If he gave it back, what then? He was going to be cool about it.

      People going by to church saw only a sickly millboy watching them quietly at the alley’s mouth. They did not know that he was mad, or they would not have gone by so quietly: mad with hunger; stretching out his hands to the world, that had given so much to them, for leave to live the life God meant him to live. His soul within him was smothering to death; he wanted so much, thought so much, and knew—nothing. There was nothing of which he was certain, except the mill and things there. Of God and heaven he had heard so little, that they were to him what fairy-land is to a child: something real, but not here; very far off. His brain, greedy, dwarfed, full of thwarted energy and unused powers, questioned these men and women going by, coldly, bitterly, that night. Was it not his right to live as they,—a pure life, a good, true-hearted life, full of beauty and kind words? He only wanted to know how to use the strength within him. His heart warmed, as he thought of it. He suffered himself to think of it longer. If he took the money?

      Then he saw himself as he might be, strong, helpful, kindly. The night crept on, as this one image slowly evolved itself from the crowd of other thoughts and stood triumphant. He looked at it. As he might be! What wonder, if it blinded him to delirium,—the madness that underlies all revolution, all progress, and all fall?

      You laugh at the shallow temptation? You see the error underlying its argument so clearly,—that to him a true life was one of full development rather than self-restraint? that he was deaf to the higher tone in a cry of voluntary suffering for truth’s sake than in the fullest flow of spontaneous harmony? I do not plead his cause. I only want to show you the mote in my brother’s eye: