The Bunsby Papers (second series): Irish Echoes

CHAPTER V.
HOME

"What a dear, considerate, good-natured husband I have, to be sure! The proudest lady in the land can't be happier than I am in my humble house," said Polly, as she bustled about to prepare for Tom's coming home, having been informed by Bryan that she was to expect him. "Poor fellow! he may well be tired and weary. I must get his bit of supper ready. Hush! that's his footstep," she continued. But something smote her as she noticed the fact, that he was silent. There was no cheering song bursting from his throat – no glad word of greeting; but he entered the door, moody and noiseless. Another glance. Did not her eye deceive her? No! The fatal demon of Liquor had imprinted his awful mark upon his brow. She went up to him, and, in a voice of affection, asked what was the matter.

"Matter? What should be the matter?" he answered, peevishly.

"Don't speak so crossly, Thomas," said she, in a subdued voice; "you know I did not mean any harm."

"Bless your little soul! I know you didn't," he exclaimed, giving her a hearty embrace. "It's me that's the brute."

"Indeed, Thomas, you are nothing of the kind," she went on, the cheerful smile once more on her lip.

"I am, Polly; I insist upon being a brute. Ah! you don't know all."

"All what? you alarm me!"

"I wish I dared tell her," thought Bobolink; "I will! I've found a jolly lot of money to-day, Polly."

"How much, Thomas?"

"Shall I tell her? I've a great mind to astonish her weak nerves. How much do you think?" cried he, with a singular expression, which Polly attributed but to one terrible cause, and she turned sadly away. That angered him – for men in such moods are captious about trifles. "I won't tell her," said he; "she doesn't deserve it. Well, then, I've earned a dollar."

"Only a dollar?" replied Polly. "Well, never mind, dear Thomas, we must make it do; and better a dollar earnt, as you have earnt yours, by your own honest industry, than thousands got in any other way."

Somehow Tom fancied that everything she said was meant as so many digs at him, forgetting, in his insane drunkenness, that she must have been ignorant of what had passed. The consequence was, that he became crosser than ever.

"Why do you keep saying savage things, that you know must aggravate me?" he cried. "I can't eat. Have you any brandy in the house? I have a pain here!" and he clasped his hands upon his breast, where the pocket-book lay concealed. "I think the brandy would relieve me."

"My poor Thomas," replied his wife, affectionately; "something must have happened to annoy you! I never saw you thus before; but you are so seldom the worse for drink, that I will not upbraid you. The best of men are subject to temptation."

At that word Bobolink started from his seat, and gazing intently in her face, exclaimed —

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, even you, Thomas, have been tempted to forget yourself," she replied.

"How do you know?" he thundered, his face now sickly pale.

"I can see it in every feature, my poor husband!" said she, sorrowfully, as she quitted the room to get the brandy he required.

"I suppose you can," muttered Bobolink to himself, as he fell into the chair, utterly distracted and unhappy; "everybody can. I'm a marked, miserable man! and for what? I'll take it back; no, no! I can't now, for I've denied it!"

"Something has happened to vex you terribly, my dear husband!" cried Polly, as she returned with a small bottle of brandy.

"Well, suppose there has," replied he, in a loud and angry tone, "is a man accountable to his wife for every moment of his life? Go to bed! Where's the use in whimpering about it? You've had such a smooth road all your life, that the first rut breaks your axle. Come, don't mind me, Polly!" he went on, suddenly changing to a joyous laugh, and yet somewhat subdued by the tears that now flowed down his wife's pale cheeks; "I don't mean to worry you, but – but you see that I'm a little sprung. Leave me to myself, there's a good girl! Come, kiss me before you go. Ha! ha! I'll make a lady of you yet, Pol! see if I don't. Didn't you hear me tell you to go to bed?"

"Yes, Thomas, but" —

"But what?"

"Pray, drink no more."

"I'll drink just as much as I please; and, moreover, I won't be dictated to by you, when I can buy your whole stock out, root and branch. I've stood your nonsense long enough, so take my advice and start."

"Oh! Thomas – Thomas!" cried his weeping wife, as she hurried to her little bedroom; "never did I expect this, and you'll be sorry for it in the morning."

"Damn it! I am an unfeeling savage. Don't cry, Pol!" he shouted after her, as she quitted the room; "I didn't intend to hurt your feelings, and I won't drink any more, there. Say God bless you before you go in, won't you?"

"God bless you, dear husband!" said the loving wife.

"That's right, Pol!"

As soon as Tom found himself quite alone, he looked carefully at the fastenings of the doors and windows, and having cleared the little table of its contents, proceeded to examine the interior of the pocket-book. With a tremulous hand and a quick-beating heart, he drew it forth, starting at the slightest sound; tearing it open, he spread the thick bundle of notes before him; the sight seemed to dazzle his eye-sight; his breath became heavy and suffocating; there was more, vastly more, than he had ever dreamed of.

"What do I see?" he cried, while his eyes sparkled with the fire of suddenly-awakened avarice, "tens – fifties-hundreds – I do believe – thousands! I never saw such a sight before. What sound was that? I could have sworn I heard a small voice call out my name. For the first time in my life, I feel like a coward. I never yet feared to stand before a giant! now, a boy might cow me down. Pshaw! it's because I'm not used to handling money."

Again and again, he tried to count up how much the amount was, but grew confused, and had to give it up.

"Never mind how much there is," he cried, at last; "it's mine – all mine! nobody saw me; nobody knows it: nobody – but one – but one!" he continued, looking upward for an instant, and then, clasping his hands together, and leaning his head over the money, he wept bitter tears over his great Piece of Luck.

CHAPTER VI.
THE WILL

At a splendid escritoir Mr. Granite sat, in his own room, surrounded by the luxurious appliances which wait upon wealth, however acquired. The face of the sitter is deadly pale, for he is alone, and amongst his most private papers. He has missed one, upon which the permanence of his worldly happiness hung. Diligently has he been searching for that small scrap of paper, which contained the sentence of death to his repute. Oh! the agony of that suspense! It could not have been abstracted, for it was in a secret part of his writing-desk; although by the simplest accident in the world it had now got mislaid; yet was he destined not to recover it. In hastily taking out some papers, it had dropped through the opening of the desk, which was a large one, upon the carpet, where it remained, unperceived. In the midst of his anxious and agonized search, there was a knock at the door, and even paler and more heart-broken than the merchant himself, Sterling tottered into the room.

"Well, my good Sterling," said the merchant, with a great effort stifling his own apprehension, "I am to be troubled no more by that fellow's pitiful whinings. I was a fool to be over-persuaded; but benevolence is my failing – a commendable one, I own – but still a failing."

"I am glad to hear you say that, sir, for you now have a great opportunity to exercise it."

"Ask me for nothing more, for I have done" – interrupted Granite; fancying for an instant that he might have placed the missing document in a secret place, where he was sometimes in the habit of depositing matters of the first importance, he quitted the room hurriedly.

"Lost! lost, for ever! I have killed the son of my old benefactor!" cried Sterling. "He can't recover from the shock – nor I – nor I! my heart is breaking – to fall from such a height of joy into such a gulf of despair – I, who could have sold my very life to bring him happiness." At that moment his eye caught a paper which lay on the carpet, and with the instinct of a clerk's neatness solely, he picked it up and put it on the table before him. "The crime of self-destruction is great," he continued, "but I am sorely tempted. With chilling selfishness on one side, and dreadful misery on the other, life is but a weary burden." Carelessly glancing at the paper which he had taken from the floor, he read the name of Travers; he looked closely at it, and discovered that it was an abstract of a will. Curiosity prompted him to examine it, and his heart gave one tremendous throb, when he discovered it to bear date after the one by which Henry, in a fit of anger, was disinherited by his father.

The old man fell upon his knees, and if ever a fervent, heartfelt prayer issued from the lips of mortal, he then prayed that he might but live to see that great wrong righted.

He had but just time to conceal the paper within his breast, when Granite returned.

"You here yet?" he cried. "Have I not done enough to-day? What other beggarly brat do you come suing for?"

"For none, dear sir," said Sterling. "I would simply test that benevolence, of which you spoke but now – the money which you sent to Travers" —

"Well, what of it?"

"I have lost!"

"Pooh! old man," continued the other, contemptuously, "don't think to deceive me by such a stale device; that's a very old trick."

"You don't believe me?"

"No."

"After so many years!" cried the old man, with tear-choked utterance.

"The temptation was too much for you," bitterly replied the merchant. The old leaven exhibited itself once more. "You remember" —

"Silence, sir!" cried the old man, drawing up his aged form into sudden erectness, while the fire of indignation illumined his lustreless eye. "The majesty of my integrity emboldens me to say that, even to you – your cruel taunt has wiped out all of feeling that I had for you – fellow-sinner, hast thou not committed an error also?"

"Insolent! how dare you insinuate?"

"I don't insinuate; I speak out; nay, not an error, but a crime. I know you have, and can prove it."

"Away, fool! you are in your dotage."

"A dotage that shall wither you in your strength, and strip you of your ill-bought possessions," exclaimed the old man, with nearly the vigor of youth; "since Humanity will not prompt you to yield up a portion of your stolen wealth, Justice shall force you to deliver it all – aye, all!"

"Villain! what riddle is this?" cried Granite, with a vague presentiment that the missing paper was in some way connected with this contretemps.

"A riddle easily solved," answered Sterling. "Behold its solution, if your eyes dare look at it! A will, devising all the property you hold to Henry Travers! There are dozens who can swear to my old employer's signature. Stern, proper justice should prompt me to vindicate his son's cause; yet, I know that he would not purchase wealth at the cost of your degradation. Divide equally with him, and let the past be forgotten."

There was but one way that Granite could regain his vantage-ground, and he was not the man to shrink from it.

With a sudden bound, he threw himself upon the weak old clerk, and snatching the paper from him, exclaimed —

"You shallow-pated fool! think you that you have a child to deal with? The only evidence that could fling a shadow across my good name would be your fragment of miserable breath, which I could take, and would, as easily as brush away a noxious wasp, but that I despise you too entirely to feel your sting. Go, both of you, and babble forth your injuries to the world! go, and experience how poor a conflict starveling honesty in rags can wage against iniquity when clad in golden armor! I defy ye all! Behold how easily I can destroy all danger to myself, and hope to him at once." So saying, he held the paper to the lamp, and, notwithstanding the ineffectual efforts of Sterling to prevent it, continued so to hold it until a few transitory sparks were all that remained of Henry Travers's inheritance.

Sterling said not a syllable, but, with a glance at the other, which had in it somewhat of inspiration, pointed upward, and slowly staggered from the room.

CHAPTER VII.
MORNING THOUGHTS

The early grey of dawn peeped furtively through the shutters of Tom Bobolink's home, and as they strengthened and strengthened, fell upon a figure which could scarcely be recognized as the same joyous-hearted individual of the day before. On the floor lay Tom; the candle, which had completely burned out in its socket, close to his head; one hand grasped the empty bottle, and the other was tightly clutched within his breast.

And now another scarcely less sorrowful-looking figure is added. Polly gazes, with tearful eyes, upon the prostrate form. He is evidently in the maze of some terrible dream, for his head rolls fearfully about, his limbs are convulsed, and his breathing is thick and heavy.

Polly stooped down to awake him gently, when, at the slightest touch, he started at one bound to his feet, muttering incoherent words of terror and apprehension; his eyes rolled about wildly. He seized Polly, and held her at arms' length for an instant, until he fairly realized his actual situation, when he burst into a loud laugh, that chilled his poor wife's very blood.

"Ha! ha! Pol, is that you?" he cried, wildly. "I've been a bad boy, I know; but I'll make up for it gloriously, my girl. Ugh! what a dream I've had. Ah! the darkness is a terrible time to get over when one's conscience is filling the black night with fiery eyes." Then, turning to his wife, he said, loudly: "Polly, darling, I'm ashamed of myself; but it will be all right by and by. You were cut out for a rich woman, Pol."

"Dear Thomas, let me be rich in the happiness of our humble home; 'tis all I ask."

"Oh, nonsense! Suppose now you got a heap of money a prize in the lottery, wouldn't you like to elevate your little nose, and jostle against the big bugs in Broadway?"

"Not at the price of our comfort, Thomas," she answered, solemnly.

"You're a fool! Money can buy all sorts of comfort."

"What do you mean, Thomas, by those hints about money? has anything happened?"

"Oh! no – no!" he replied, quickly, turning his eyes away; "but there's no knowing when something might. Now I'll try her," thought he. "It's my dream, Pol. Shall I tell it to you?"

"Do, my dear Tom. Oh! I'm so glad to see you yourself once more."

"Well, dear," he continued, sitting close to her, and placing his arm around her waist, "I dreamed that as I was returning from a job, what should I see in the street, under my very nose, but a pocket-book, stuffed full of money. Presently the owner came along. He asked me if I had found it. I said no, and came home a rich man – oh! so rich!"

"I know your heart too well, Tom, to believe that such a thing could happen except in a dream," said his wife, to his great annoyance. He started up, and after one or two turns about the little, now untidy, room, exclaimed, angrily:

"Why not? I should like to know if fortune did – I mean – was, to fling luck in my way, do you think I'd be such a cursed fool as not to grab at it?"

"Thomas, you have been drinking too much," said she, sadly.

"No, no," he interrupted, "not enough; give me some more."

"Not a drop, husband," she replied, seriously, and with determination. "If you will poison yourself it shall not be through my hand."

"Don't be a fool," he cried, savagely, "or it may be the worse for you. I'm master of my own house, I think."

"Home! ah, Thomas, some evil spirit has stolen away our once happy home for ever," said Polly, as she slowly and sorrowfully returned again to weep in the silence of her own room.

"There has, there has," cried Tom, as she quitted him. "And this is it" – pulling out the pocket-book, which he had not left hold of for an instant, and frowning desperately at it – "Confound your skin, it's you that has stolen away our comfort. I'll take the cursed thing back; I wouldn't have Polly's eyes wet with sorrow to be made of money – I'll take it back this very blessed morning; and somehow that thought brings a ray of sunlight back to my heart." So saying, he thrust the pocket-book, as he thought, safely within his vest, but in his eagerness to take extra care of it, it slipped through, and dropped upon the floor; his mind being taken off for a moment by the entrance of Bryan, to tell him that the horse and truck were ready.

"Very well, I'm glad of it," cried Tom. "Now I'll see what the fine, bracing, morning air will do for this cracked head of mine; now then, to take this back," and he slapped his chest, under the full impression that the pocket-book was there. "Bryan, I don't want you for half an hour; just wait till I come back, will you?"

"That I will, sir, and welcome," said Bryan, and with a merry song once more at his lip, and a cheerful good-bye to Polly, to whose heart both brought comfort in her great sadness, Bobolink mounted his truck, and trotted off.

Meantime Bryan, now left alone in the room, dived into the recesses of his capacious coat-pocket, and producing from thence a piece of bread and cheese, moralized the while upon the pleasant change in his prospects.

"Long life to this tindher-hearted couple," said he. "Shure an' I'm on the high road to good luck at last; plenty of the best in the way of atin', and an elegant stable to sleep in, with a Christian-like quadruped for company; av I had only now a trifle o' money to get myself some clothes – these things doesn't look well in this part of the world," casting his eyes down in not over-delighted contemplation of his nether integuments. "A little bit o' money now would make me so happy an' industrious, I could take the buzz out of a hive o' bees. The saints between us and all mischief, what's that?" he continued, starting to his feet, as his glance fell upon the pocket-book which Tom had dropped. "It serves me right," he went on, his face suddenly becoming pale as paper, "to wish for any such thing. I don't want it – it was all a mistake," cried he, apologetically. "This is the devil's work; no sooner do I let a word out o' me mouth, that I didn't mane at all at all, but the evil blaggard sticks a swadge of temptation right before me. I won't have it – take it away."

At that instant Polly returned into the room. "Take care how you come – don't walk this way," said Bryan. "Look!"

"What is it?" cried Polly, in alarm.

"Timptation!" shouted Bryan. "I was foolish enough just now to wish for a trifle of money, and may I niver see glory if that lump of a pocket-book didn't sprout up before me very eyes."

"Pocket-book, eh?" cried Polly, seizing it in her hands, despite of the comic apprehension of Bryan, who insisted that it would burn her fingers. The whole truth flashed across her mind at once. Tom's dream was no dream, but a reality, and the struggle in his mind whether to keep or return it, had caused that sleepless and uncomfortable night. "Bryan," said she, quickly, "did you hear any one say that they had lost any money yesterday?"

"Let me see," replied the other. "Yes, to be sure, 44 came out of the hall-door, and axed me if I saw a pocket-book."

"It must be his. Thank God for this merciful dispensation," cried the agitated wife. "Quick, quick, my bonnet and shawl, and come you, Bryan, you know the place; this money must be that which was lost."

"I'm wid you, ma'am," answered Bryan. "Who knows but that may be the identical pocket-book; at any rate it'll do as well if there's as much money in it, and if there isn't, there'll be another crop before we come back."

CHAPTER VIII.
RETRIBUTION

Snugly ensconced in his own particular apartment, Mr. Granite had flung himself in post-prandial abandon into his easiest of easy-chairs. Leisurely, and with the smack of a true connoisseur, he dallied with a glass of exquisite Madeira. The consciousness of the enviable nature of his worldly position never imbued him so thoroughly as at such a moment. Business was flourishing, his health was excellent, and his son, on whom he concentrated all the affection of which his heart was capable, had recently distinguished himself at a college examination. Everything, in fact, seemed to him couleur de rose.

It can readily be imagined that to be disturbed at such a period of enjoyment was positive high treason against the home majesty of the mercantile monarch.

Fancy, therefore, what a rude shock it was to his quiet, when he was informed that Mr. Sterling wished to see him on a matter of the greatest importance. "I cannot, I will not see him, or anybody," said the enraged potentate; "you know, he knows, my invariable rule. It must not be infringed, for any one whatever, much less for such a person," and, closing his eyes in a spasm of self-sufficiency, he again subsided into calmness, slightly ruffled, however, by the outrageous attack upon his privacy.

He had just succeeded in restoring his disturbed equanimity, when he was once more startled into ill-humor by the sound of voices as if in altercation, and a sharp knock at the chamber-door.

The next instant, to his still greater surprise and anger, the old clerk, Sterling, who had been ignominiously dismissed since the last interview between him and Granite, stood before him. Every particle of his hitherto meekness and humility had apparently vanished, as for a few moments he regarded the merchant with a fixed and penetrating look.

"What villainous intrusion is this? Where are my servants? How dare they permit my home to be thus invaded?" cried Granite, with flashing eyes and lowering brow.

"I am here, not for myself," replied Sterling, calmly, "but for the victim of your rapacity – of your terrible guilt. I have intruded upon you at this unusual time to inform you of the extremity in which Travers is placed, and from my carelessness – my criminal carelessness. Will you not at least remedy that?"

"No!" thundered the exasperated merchant. "Your indiscreet zeal has ruined both you and those for whom you plead. I'll have nothing to do with any of ye – begone!"

"Not before I have cautioned you that my lips, hitherto sealed for fear of injury to him, shall henceforward be opened. Why should I hesitate to denounce one who is so devoid of common charity?"

"Because no one will believe you," responded the other, with a bitter sneer. "The denunciations of a discharged servant are seldom much heeded; empty sounds will be of no avail. Proof will be needed in confirmation, and where are you to find that?"

"Ah! where, indeed! you have taken care of that; but have you reflected that there is a power to whom your machinations, your schemes of aggrandizement, are as flimsy as the veriest gossamer web?" solemnly ejaculated Sterling.

"Canting sways me as little as your hurtless threats. What I have, I shall keep in spite of" —

"Heaven's justice?" interposed the old clerk.

"In spite of anything or everything," savagely replied the irritated merchant. "You have your final answer, nor is it in the power of angel or devil to alter it; and so, the sooner you relieve me from your presence the better I will like it, and the better it may be for your future prospects."

"Of my future, God knows, I take no care; but for the sake of those poor young things, so cruelly left to struggle with a hard, hard world, I feel that I have strength even to oppose the stern rock of your obstinacy, almost hopeless though the effort may be. I am going," he went on, seeing the feverish impatience working in Granite's face, "but, as a parting word, remember that my dependence is not in my own ability to unmask your speciousness, or contend against the harshness of your determination. No, I surrender my case and that of my clients into His hands who never suffers the guilty to triumph to the end. The avalanche falls sometimes on the fruitfullest vineyards, as well as on the most sterile waste."

"By Heaven! you exhaust my patience," roared the other, as he rung the servants' bell impetuously; "since you will not go of your own accord, I must indignantly thrust you forth into the street like a cur."

"There shall be no need of that," meekly replied the clerk, turning to leave the apartment, just as the servant entered, bringing a letter for Mr. Granite on a silver waiter.

The latter was about to address an angry sentence to the servant, when he perceived that the letter he carried was enclosed in an envelope deeply bordered with black.

His heart gave one mighty throb as he snatched it – tearing it open, and gasping with some terrible presentiment of evil, he but glanced at the contents, and with a fearful shriek fell prostrate.

Sterling rushed to his side, and with the aid of the servant, loosed his neckcloth, and placed him in a chair, using what immediate remedies he could command in the hope of restoring animation. It was some minutes before the stricken man, clutched from his pride of place in the winking of an eyelid, gave signs of returning vitality. During his unconsciousness, Sterling ascertained from the open letter lying at his feet, that the merchant's son, the sole hope of his existence, for whom he had slaved and toiled, set at naught all principle, and violated even the ties of kindred and of honesty, had died suddenly at college. No previous illness had given the slightest shadow of an apprehension. He had quietly retired to his bed at his usual hour on the previous night, and in the morning was found stark and cold. None knew the agony which might have preceded dissolution. No friendly tongue was nigh to speak of consolation; no hand to do the kindly offices of nature.

Slowly, slowly and painfully the wretched parent returned to consciousness, and with it, the terrible reality of his bereavement. Glaring around him fiercely: "Where am I? – what is this? – why do you hold me?" he cried, madly. At this instant his glance fell upon the fatal letter; "Oh, God! I know it all – all! my son! my son!" Turning upon Sterling, fiercely, he grasped him by the throat. "Old man," he cried, "you have murdered him! you, and that villain Travers!" Then he relaxed his gripe, and in an agony of tears, fell to supplication. "It cannot be – it shall not be – oh! take me to him – what am I to do? Sterling, my old friend, oh, forgive me – pity me – let us away." He tried to stand, but his limbs were paralyzed. "The judgment has fallen – I feared it – I expected it, but not so suddenly – it may be that there is still hope – hope, though ever so distant. Perhaps a quick atonement may avert the final blow. Quick, Sterling – give me paper, and pen." They were brought. "Now write," he continued, his voice growing fainter and fainter: "I give Travers all – all – if this late repentance may be heard, and my son should live. I know I can rely on his benevolence – quick, let me sign it, for my strength is failing fast."

With extreme difficulty, he appended his signature to the document Sterling had drawn up at his desire. When it was done, the pen dropped from his nerveless grasp, his lips moved for an instant as though in prayer – the next – he was – nothing!