Bart Ridgeley by A. G. Riddle
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A. G. Riddle >> Bart Ridgeley
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22 BART RIDGELEY;
A STORY OF NORTHERN OHIO.
BY
A.G. RIDDLE
1873.
CONTENTS.
I. A FAILURE
II. THE BLUE CHAMBER
III. NEWBURY
IV. AT THE POST OFFICE
V. MRS. MARKHAM'S VIEWS
VI. WHAT HE THOUGHT OF THINGS
VII. LOGIC OF THE GODS
VIII. A RAMBLE IN THE WOODS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT
IX. A DARKENED SOUL
X. AFTER THE FLOOD
XI. UNCLE ALECK
XII. A CONSECRATION
XIII. BLACKSTONE
XIV. THE YOUNG IDEA SHOOTS
XV. SNOW'S PARTY
XVI. WALTZ
XVII. BART
XVIII. SUGAR MAKING
XIX. HENRY
XX. WHAT THE GIRLS SAID
XXI. A DEPARTURE
XXII. A SHATTERED COLUMN
XXIII. THE STORM
XXIV. A LAW SUIT (TO BE SKIPPED)
XXV. THE WARNING
XXVI. LOST
XXVII. THE BABES IN THE WOODS
XXVIII. AT JUDGE MARKHAM'S
XXIX. AFTER
XXX. JEFFERSON
XXXI. OLD BEN
XXXII. THE LETTERS
XXXIII. AT WILDER'S
XXXIV. ROUGH SKETCHES
XXXV. SARTLIFF
XXXVI. OLD GID
XXXVII. THE OLD STORY
XXXVIII. THE OLD STORY OVER AGAIN
XXXIX. ABOUT LAWYERS, AND DULL
XL. THE DISGUISE
XLI. THE INVITATION
XLII. ADMITTED
XLIII. JULIA
XLIV. FINDING THE WAY
XLV. SOME THINGS PUT AT REST
XLVI. PRINCE ARTHUR
XLVII. THE TRIAL
XLVIII. THE ADVOCATE
XLIX. WAITING
L. THE GOSPEL OF LOVE
LI. THE RETURN
LII. FINAL DREAM LAND
CHAPTER I.
A FAILURE.
He could see from the top of the hill, down which the road wound to
the river, that the bridge was gone, and he paused for a moment
with an involuntary feeling that it was useless to go forward; but
remembering that his way led across, at all events, he walked down to
the bank. There it ran, broad, rapid, and in places apparently deep.
He looked up and down in vain: no lodged drift-wood; no fallen trees;
no raft or wreck; a recent freshet had swept all clear to high-water
mark, and the stream rolled, and foamed, and boiled, and gurgled, and
murmured in the afternoon August sun as gleefully and mockingly as if
its very purpose was to baffle the wearied youth who looked into and
over its changing tide.
In coming from Cleveland that morning he had taken a wrong road, and
now, at mid-afternoon, he found his progress stayed with half his
day's journey still before him. It would have been but a moment's task
to remove his clothes and swim over, but the region was open and clear
on that side for a considerable distance, and notwithstanding his
solitude, he hesitated to make the transit in that manner. It was
apparent, from the little-travelled road, that the stream had been
forded by an indirect course, and one not easily determined from the
shore. It occurred to him that possibly some team from Cleveland might
pass along and take him over; and, wearied, he sat down by his light
valise to wait, and at least rest; and as he gazed into the rapid
current a half-remembered line of a forgotten poet ran and ran through
his mind thus:
"Which running runs, and will run forever on."
His reflections were not cheerful. Three months before he had gone
over to Hudson with a very young man's scheme of maintaining himself
at school, and finally in college; and finding it impracticable, had
strayed off to the lower part of the State with a vague idea of going
down the Mississippi, and, perhaps, to Texas. He spent some time with
relatives near Cincinnati, and under a sudden impulse--all his plans,
as he was pleased to call them, were impulses--he had returned,
adding, as he was conscious, another to a long-growing list of
failures, which, in the estimation of many acquaintances, also
included himself.
His meditations were interrupted by the sound of an approaching
carriage coming over the hill. He knew the horses. They were Judge
Markham's, and driven by the Judge himself, alone, in a light vehicle.
The young man sprang up at the sight. Here was the man whom of all men
he most respected, and feared as much as he could fear any man, whose
good opinion he most cared to have, and yet who he was conscious had a
dislike for him.
The Judge would certainly take him over the river, and so home, but
in his frank and ingenuous nature how could he face him on his
almost ignominious return? He stood still, a little away from the
carriage-track, half wishing he might not be seen. He was seen,
however, and a close observer might have discovered the half sneer on
the otherwise handsome and manly face of the Judge, who had taken in
the situation. The horses were held in a walk as they came down near
where the young man stood, with a half ashamed, yet eager, expression
of countenance, and turned partly away, as if he expected--in fact,
wished for nothing.
"What are you doing here?" called out the Judge.
It was not a wholly courteous inquiry, and scarcely necessary, though
not purposely offensive; but the tone and manner struck like an insult
on the young man's sensitive spirit, and his answer went back a little
sharply:
"I am waiting for the river to run by,"
"Ah! I see. Well, I am glad you have found something that suits you."
There was no mistaking the sarcasm of this remark, and perhaps its
sting was deeper than was meant. The Judge was not an unkind man,
though he did not relish the reply to his question; he held up his
horses on the margin of the water, and perhaps he wanted to be asked
by this pert youth for the favor of a passage over. Of course the
petition was not, and never would have been made. He lingered a
moment, and without another word entered the river, and, turning his
horses' heads up stream for a short distance, drove out on the other
side; as he turned into the regular track again, he caught a view of
the young man standing impassive on the same spot where he first saw
him.
It is possible that Judge Markham, the most wealthy and popular man
of his region, did not feel wholly at ease as, with his fine team and
empty carriage, he drove away, leaving the weary, travel-stained youth
standing on the other side of the river; and it is possible that
the form of the deserted one may be brought to his memory in the
hereafter.
"'Something that suits me'--'something that suits me!' All right,
Judge Markham!" and as the carriage was hidden in the woods, the
waters that rolled on between them were as nothing to the bitter,
swelling tide that, for a moment, swept through the young man's bosom.
He was undecided no longer.
Removing his boots and stockings, he entered the river at the point,
and, following the course taken by the Judge, he passed out, and
resumed his journey homeward.
As he walked rapidly onward, the momentary bitterness subsided. He was
not one to hate, or cherish animosities, but he was capable of deep
impressions, and of forming strong resolutions. There was a chord of
melancholy running through his nature, which, under excitement, often
vibrated the longest; and almost any strong emotion left behind a tone
of sadness that lingered for hours, and sometimes for days, although
his mind was normally buoyant and hopeful.
As he went on over the hills, in the rude pioneer country of Northern
Ohio, thirty-six or seven years ago, he thought sad-colored thoughts
of the past, or, rather, he recalled sombre memories of the, to him,
far-off time, when, with his mother and brothers, he formed one of
a sobbing group around a bed whereon a gasping, dying man was vainly
trying to say some last words; of afterwards awakening in the deep
nights, and listening to the unutterably sweet and mournful singing of
his mother, unable to sleep in her loneliness; of the putting away
of his baby brother, and the jubilee when he was brought back; of the
final breaking up of the family, and of his own first goings away; of
the unceasing homesickness and pining with which he always languished
for home in his young boy years; of the joy with which he always
hurried home, the means by which he would prolong his stay, and the
anguish with which he went away again. His mother was to him the chief
good. For him, like Providence, she always was, and he could imagine
no possible good, or even existence, without her--it would be the end
of the world when she ceased to be. And he remembered all the places
where he had lived, and the many times he had run away. And then came
the memory of Julia Markham, as she was years ago, when he lived in
her neighborhood, and her sweet and beautiful mother used to intrust
her to his care, in the walks to and from school, down on the State
road--Julia, with her great wonderful eyes, and world of wavy hair,
and red lips; and then, as she grew into beautiful and ever more
beautiful girlhood, he used to be more and more at Judge Markham's
house, and used to read to Julia's mother and herself. It was there
that he discovered Shakespeare, and learned to like him, and Milton,
whom he didn't like and wouldn't read, and the Sketch Book, and
Knickerbocker's History, and Cooper's novels, and Scott, and,
more than all, Byron, whom Mrs. Markham did not want him to read,
recommending, instead, Young's Night Thoughts, and Pollock's Course of
Time, and Southey--the dear good woman!
And then came a time when he was in the store of Markham & Co., and
finally was taken from the counter, because of his sharp words to
customers, and set at the books, and sent away from that post because
he illustrated them with caricatures on the margins, and smart
personal rhymes. Julia was sixteen, and as sweet a romping, hoydenish,
laughing, brave, strong girl as ever bewitched the heart of dreaming
youth; and he had taught her to ride on horseback; and then she was
sent off, away "down country," to the centre of the world, to Boston,
where were uncles and aunts, and was gone, oh, ever and ever so
long!--half a lifetime--nearly two years--and came back; and then his
thoughts became confused. Then he thought of Judge Markham, and now
he was sure that the Judge did not like him; and he remembered that
Julia's mother, as he came towards manhood, was kind and patronizing,
and that when he went to say good-by to Julia, three months ago,
although she knew he was coming, she was not at home, and he only saw
her mother and Nell Roberts. Then he thought of all the things he had
tried to do within the last two years, and how he had done none of
them. People had not liked him, and he had not suspected why, and had
not cared. People liked his elder brothers, and he was glad and proud
of it; and a jumble of odds and ends and fragments became tangled and
snarled in his mind. What would people say of his return? Did he care?
He asked nobody's leave to go, and came back on his own account. But
his mother--she would look sad; but she would be glad. It certainly
was a mistake, his going; could it be a blunder, his returning?
He was thinking shallowly; but deeper thoughts came to him. He began
to believe that easy places did not exist; and he scorned to seek them
for himself, if they did. The world was as much to be struggled with
in one place as another; and, after all, was not the struggle mainly
with one's own self, and could that be avoided? Then what in himself
was wrong? what should be fought against? Who would tell him? Men
spoke roughly to him, and he answered back sharply. He couldn't help
doing that. How could he be blamed? He suspected he might be.
He knew there were better things than to chop and clear land, and
make black salts, or tend a saw-mill, or drive oxen, or sell tape and
calico; but, in these woods, poor and unfriended, how could he find
them? Was not his brother Henry studying law at Jefferson, and were
they not all proud of him, and did not everybody expect great things
of him? But Henry was different from him. Dr. Lyman believed in
him; Judge Markham spoke with respect of him. Julia Markham--how
inexpressibly lovely and radiant and distant and inaccessible she
appeared! And then he felt sore, as if her father had dealt him a
blow, and he thought of his sending him away the year before, and
wished he had explained. No matter. How he writhed again and again
under the sting of his contemptuous sarcasm! "He wouldn't even pick me
up; would leave me to lie by the wayside."
Towards sundown, weary and saddened, he reached the centre,
"Jugville," as he had named it, years before, in derision. He was a
mile and a half from home, and paused a moment to sit on the platform
in front of "Marlow's Hotel," and rest. The loungers were present in
more than usual force,--Jo and Biather Alexander, old Neaze Savage,
old Cal Chase, Tinker,--any number of old and not highly-esteemed
acquaintances.
"Hullo, Bart Ridgeley! is that you?"
Bart did not seem to think it necessary to affirm or deny.
"Ben away, hain't ye? Must a-gone purty much all over all creation,
these last three months. How's all the folks where you ben?"
No reply. A nod to one or two of the dozen attracted towards him was
the only notice he took of them, seeming not to hear the question and
comments of Tinker. His silence tempted old Cal, the small joker of
the place, to open:
"You's gone an everlastin' while. S'pose you hardly know the place,
it's changed so."
"It has changed some," he answered to this; "its bar-room loafers
are a good deal more unendurable, and its fools, always large, have
increased in size."
A good-natured laugh welcomed this reply.
"There, uncle Cal, it 'pears to me you've got it," said one.
"'Pears to me we've all got it," was the response of that worthy.
"Come in, Bart," said the landlord, "and take something on the
strength o' that."
"Thank you, I will be excused; I have a horror of a sudden death;"
and, taking up his valise, he started across the fields to the near
woods.
"Bully!" "Good!" "You've got that!" cried several to the discomfited
seller of drinks. "It is your treat; we'll risk the stuff!" and the
party turned in to the bar to realize their expectations.
"There is one thing 'bout it," said Bi, "Bart hain't changed much,
anyway."
"And there's another thing 'bout it," said uncle Bill, "a chap that
carries such a sassy tongue should be sassy able. He'll answer some
chap, some day, that wun't stan' it."
"The man that picks him up'll find an ugly customer; he'd be licked
afore he begun. I tell you what, them Ridgeley boys is no fighters,
but the stuff's in 'em, and Bart's filled jest full. I'd as liv tackle
a young painter." This was Neaze's view.
"That's so," said Jo. "Do you remember the time he had here last fall,
with that braggin' hunter chap, Mc-Something, who came along with his
rifle, darin' all hands about here to shute with him? He had one of
them new peck-lock rifles, and nobody dared shute with him; and Bart
came along, and asked to look at the feller's gun, and said something
'bout it, and Mc-Somebody dared him to shute, and Bart sent over to
Haw's and got 'old Potleg,' that Steve Patterson shot himself with,
and loaded 'er up, and then the hunter feller wouldn't shute except
on a bet, and Bart hadn't but fifty cents, and they shot twenty rods
off-hand, and Bart beat him; and they doubled the bet, and Bart beat
agin, and they went on till Bart won more'n sixty dollars. Sometimes
the feller shot wild, and Bart told him he'd have to get a dog to hunt
where he hit, and he got mad, and Bart picked up his first half-dollar
and pitched it to Jotham, who put up the mark, and left the rest on
the ground."
"There come mighty near bein' trouble then, an' there would ha' ben ef
the Major hadn't took Bart off," said Bi.
And while these rough, good-natured men talked him over, Barton walked
off southerly, across the newly-shorn meadow, to the woods. Twilight
was in their depths, and shadows were stealing mysteriously out, and
already the faint and subtle aroma which the gathering dew releases
from foliage, came out like an incense to bathe the quick and healthy
senses of the wearied youth. He removed his hat, opened his bosom,
expanded his nostrils and lungs, and drank it as the bee takes nectar
from the flowers. What an exquisite sense of relief and quiet came to
him, as he found himself lost in the shadows of the young night! Not a
tree in these woods that he did not know, and they all seemed to reach
out their mossy arms with their myriad of little, cool, green
hands, to welcome him back. They knew nothing of his failures and
disappointments, and were more sympathizing than the coarse and ribald
men whose rude taunts he had just heard, and to whose admiration he
was as indifferent as to their sarcasm. These were grand and beautiful
maple woods, free from tangling underbrush, and standing thick and
stately on wide, gentle slopes; and to-night the lisping breath of
the summer evening came to this young but sad and burdened heart, with
whispers soothing and restful.
He had never been so long from home before; the nearer he approached
it, the more intense his longings grew, and he passed rapidly through
the open glades, disappearing momentarily in the obscurity of the
thickets, past the deserted sugar camp, until finally the woods grew
lighter, the trees more scattered, and he reached the open pasture
lands in sight of the low farm-house, which held his mother and home.
How strange, and yet familiar, even an absence of only three months
made everything! The distance of his journey seemed to have expanded
the months into years.
He entered by a back way, and found his mother in the little front
sitting-room. She arose with--"Oh, Barton, have you come?" and
received from his lips and eyes the testimonials of his heart. She
was slight, lithe, and well made, with good Puritan blood, brain, and
resolution; and as she stood holding her child by both his hands, and
looking eagerly into his face, a stranger would have noticed their
striking resemblance. Her face, though womanly, was too marked and
strong for beauty. Both had the square decisive brow, and wide, deep
eyes--hers a lustrous black, and his dark gray or blue, as the light
was. Her hair was abundant, and very dark; his a light brown, thick,
wavy, and long. Both had the same aquiline nose, short upper-lip,
bland, firm, but soft mouth, and well-formed chin. Her complexion was
dark, and his fair--too fair for a man.
"Yes, mother, I have come; are you glad to see me?"
"Glad--very glad, but sorry." She had a good deal of the Spartan in
her nature, and received her son with a sense of another failure,
and failures were not popular with her. "I did not hear from you--was
anxious about you; but now, when you come back to the nothing for you
here, I know you found less elsewhere."
"Well, mother, I know I am a dreadful drag even on your patience, and
I fear a burden besides, instead of a help. I need not say much to
you; you, at least, understand me. It was a mistake to go away as
I did, and I bring back all I carried away, with the result of some
reflection. I can do as much here as anywhere. I hoped I could do
something for you, and I, poor unweaned baby and booby, can do better
for myself near you than elsewhere."
Not much was said. She was thoughtful, deep natured, tender, and
highly strung, though not demonstrative, and these qualities in him
were modified by the soft, sensuous, imaginative elements that came to
him--all that he inherited, except his complexion, from his father.
His mother gave him supper, and he sat and inquired about home events,
and gave her a pleasant account of their relatives in the lower part
of the State. He said nothing of the discovery he had made among
them--her own family relatives--that she had married beneath her,
and had never been forgiven; and he fancied that he discovered some
opening of old, old sorrows, dating back to her girlhood days, as
he talked of her relatives. The two younger brothers came rattling
in--George, a handsome, eager young threshing-machine, a bright,
broad-browed boy, and Edward, older, with drooping head and thoughtful
face, and with something of Bart's readiness at reply. George ran to
him--
"Oh, Bart, I am so glad! and there is so much--a flock of turkeys--and
a wolverine, and oh! so many pigeons and everything--more than you can
shoot in all the fall!"
"Well, captain, we will let them all live, I guess, unless that
wolverine comes around!"
"There is a real, true wolverine; several have seen him, and he
screeches, and yells, and climbs trees, and everything!"
"There _is_ something around," said Edward. "Theodore and Bill Johnson
heard him, over in the woods, not a week ago."
"Likely enough," replied Bart; "but wolverines don't climb. There
may be a panther. Now, Ed, what has been going on on the farm? Is the
haying done?"
"Yes; and the wheat is all in, and most all the oats. The corn is
splendid in the old elm lot, and then the Major has been chopping
down your old sugar camp, where we worked when you came home from old
Hewitt's."
"Oh, dear, that was the loveliest bit of woodland, in the bend of the
creek, in all the magnificent woods; well?"
"He has nearly finished the Jenks house," resumed Edward, "and is now
at Snow's, in Auburn. He said you would be home before now."
"What about his colts?"
"Oh, Arab runs about wild as ever, and he has Dolf with him."
"How many hands has he with him?"
"Four or five."
"Dr. Lyman asked about you," said George, "and wondered where you
were. He said you would be back in three weeks, and that something
must have happened."
"It would be lucky for the Doctor's patients," replied Bart, "if
something should keep him away three days."
"I guess he wants you to go a-fishing with him. They had a great time
down there the other day--he, and Mr. Young, and Sol Johnson. They
undertook to put up a sail as Henry and you do, and it didn't work,
and they came near upsetting; and' Sol and old man Young were scart,
and old Young thought he would get drownded. Oh, it must have been
fun!"
And so the boys chippered, chirped, and laughed on to a late bed-time,
and then went to bed perfectly happy.
Then came inquiries about Henry, who had written not long before, and
had wondered why he had not heard from Barton; and, at last, wearied
and worn with his three hundred miles' walk, Bart bade his mother
good-night, and went to his old room, to rest and sleep as the young,
and healthful, and hopeful, without deep sorrows or the stings of
conscience, may do. In the strange freaks of a half-sleeping fancy, in
his dreams, he remembered to have heard the screech of a wild animal,
and to have seen the face of Julia Markham, pale with the mingled
expression of courage and fear.
CHAPTER II.
THE BLUE CHAMBER.
In the morning he found the front yard had a wild and tangled, and
the garden a neglected look, and busied himself, with the boys, in
improving their appearance.
In the afternoon he overhauled a small desk, the contents of which
soon lay about on the floor. There were papers of all colors and
sizes--scraps, single sheets, and collections of several pages--all
covered with verses in many hands, from that of the young boy to
elegant clerkly manuscript. They seemed to represent every style of
poetic composition. It would have been amusing to watch the manner
and expression with which the youth dealt with these children of his
fancy, and to listen to his exclamations of condensed criticism. He
evidently found little to commend. As he opened or unrolled one after
another, and caught the heading, or a line of the text, he dashed it
to the floor, with a single word of contempt, disgust, or derision.
"Faugh!" "Oh!" "Pshaw!" "Blank verse? Blank enough!" Some he lingered
over for a moment, but his brow never cleared or relented, and each
and all were condemned with equal justice and impartiality. When the
last was thrown down, and he was certain that none remained, he rose
and contemplated their crumpled and creased forms with calm disdain.
"Oh, dear! you thought, some of you, that you might possibly be
poetry, you miserable weaklings and beguilers! You are not even
verses--are hardly rhymes. You are, one and all, without sense or
sound." His brow grew severe in its condemnation. "There! take
that! and that! and that!"--stamping them with his foot; "poor
broken-backed, halting, limping, club-footed, no-going, unbodied,
unsouled, nameless things. How do you like it? What business had you
to be? You had no right to be born--never were born; had no capacity
for birth; you don't even amount to failures! Words are wasted on you:
let me see if you'll burn." Lighting one, he threw it upon the hearth.
"It does! I am surprised at that. I rather like it. How blue and faint
the flame is--it hardly produces smoke, and"--watching until it was
consumed--"no ashes. Too ethereal for smoke and ashes. Let me try the
rest;" and he did.
He then opened a small drawer and took out a portfolio, in which were
various bits of bristol-board and paper, covered with crayon and pen
sketches, and some things in water-colors--all giving evidence of a
ready hand which showed some untaught practice. Whether his sense of
justice was somewhat appeased, or because he regarded them with more
favor, or reserved them for another occasion, was, perhaps, uncertain.
Singularly enough, on each of them, no matter what was the subject,
appeared one or more young girl's heads--some full-faced, some
three-fourths, and more in profile--all spirited, all looking alike,
and each having a strong resemblance to Julia Markham. Two or three
were studied and deliberate attempts. He contemplated these long and
earnestly, and laid them away with a sigh. They undoubtedly saved the
collection.
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