Darrel of the Blessed Isles by Irving Bacheller

I >> Irving Bacheller >> Darrel of the Blessed Isles

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"Poor youth!" said the old man. "Thou hast no coat--take mine.
Take it, I say. It will give thee comfort an' me happiness."

He would hear no refusal, and again the coat changed owners, giving
happiness to the old and comfort to the new.

Then Trove went down the rickety stairs and away in the darkness.

VI

A Certain Rick Man

Riley Brooke had a tongue for gossip, an ear for evil report, an
eye for rascals. Every day new suspicions took root in him, while
others grew and came to great size and were as hard to conceal as
pumpkins. He had meanness enough to equip all he knew, and gave it
with a lavish tongue. In his opinion Hillsborough came within one
of having as many rascals in it as there were people. He had tried
to bring them severally to justice by vain appeals to the law,
having sued for every cause in the books, but chiefly for trespass
and damages, real and exemplary. He was a money-lender, shaving
notes or taking them for larger sums than he lent, with chattel
mortgages for security. Foreclosure and sale were a perennial
source of profit to him. He was tall and well past middle age,
with a short, gray beard, a look of severity, a stoop in his
shoulders, and a third wife whom nobody, within the knowledge of
the townfolk, had ever seen. If he had no other to gossip with, he
provided imaginary company and talked to his own ears. He thought
himself a most powerful and agile man, boasting often that he still
kept the vigour of his youth. On his errands in the village he
often broke into an awkward gallop, like a child at play. When he
slackened pace it was to shake his head solemnly, as if something
had reminded him of the wickedness of the world.

"If I dared tell all I knew," he would whisper suggestively, and
then proceed to tell much more than he could possibly have known.
Any one of many may have started his tongue, but the shortcomings
of one Ezekiel Swackhammer were for him an ever present help and
provocation. If there were nothing new to talk about, there was
always Swackhammer. Poor Swackhammer had done everything he ought
not to have done. The good God himself was the only being that had
the approval of old Riley Brooke. It was curious--that turning of
his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of
the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness
of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day
when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding
himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray. Sundays and
every Wednesday evening he wore a stove-pipe hat and a long frock
coat of antique and rusty aspect. On his way to church--with
hospitality even for the like of him, thank God!--he walked slowly
with head bent until, remembering his great agility and strength,
he began to run, giving a varied exhibition of skips and jumps
terminating in a sort of gallop. Once in the sacred house he
looked to right and left accusingly, and aloft with encouraging
applause. His God was one of wrath, vengeance, and destruction;
his hell the destination of his enemies. They who resented the
screw of his avarice, and pulled their thumbs away; they who
treated him with contempt, and whose faults, compared to his own,
were as a mound to a mountain--they were all to burn with
everlasting fire, while he, on account of that happy thought the
day of the sheep-shearing, was to sit forever with the angels in
heaven.

"Ye're going t' heaven, I hear," said Darrel, who had repaired a
clock for him, and heard complaint of his small fee.

"I am," was the spirited reply.

"God speed ye!" said the tinker, as he went away.

In such disfavour was the poor man, that all would have been glad
to have him go anywhere, so he left Hillsborough.

One day in the Christmas holidays, a boy came to the door of Riley
Brooke, with a buck-saw on his arm.

"I'm looking for work," said the boy, "and I'd be glad of the
chance to saw your wood."

"How much a cord?" was the loud inquiry.

"Forty cents."

"Too much," said Brooke. "How much a day?"

"Six shillings."

"Too much," said the old man, snappishly. "I used to git six
dollars a month, when I was your age, an' rise at four o'clock in
the mornin' an' work till bedtime. You boys now-days are a lazy
good-fer-nothin' lot. What's yer name?"

"Sidney Trove."

"Don't want ye."

"Well, mister," said the boy, who was much in need of money, "I'll
saw your wood for anything you've a mind to give me."

"I'll give ye fifty cents a day," said the old man.

Trove hesitated. The sum was barely half what he could earn, but
he had given his promise, and fell to. Riley Brooke spent half the
day watching and urging him to faster work. More than once the boy
was near quitting, but kept his good nature and a strong pace.
When, at last, Brooke went away, Trove heard a sly movement of the
blinds, and knew that other eyes were on the watch. He spent three
days at the job--laming, wearisome days, after so long an absence
from heavy toil.

"Wal, I suppose y& want money," Brooke snapped, as the boy came to
the door. "How much?"

"One dollar and a half."

"Too much, too much; I won't pay it."

"That was the sum agreed upon."

"Don't care, ye hain't earned no dollar 'n a half. Here, take that
an' clear out;" having said which, Brooke tossed some money at the
boy and slammed the door in his face. Trove counted the money--it
was a dollar and a quarter. He was sorely tempted to open the door
and fling it back at him, but wisely kept his patience and walked
away. It was the day before Christmas. Trove had planned to walk
home that evening, but a storm had come, drifting the snow deep,
and he had to forego the visit. After supper he went to the Sign
of the Dial. The tinker was at home in his odd little shop and
gave him a hearty welcome. Trove sat by the fire, and told of the
sawing for Riley Brooke.

"God rest him!" said the tinker, thoughtfully puffing his pipe.
"What would happen, think ye, if a man like him were let into
heaven?"

"I cannot imagine," said the boy.

"Well, for one thing," said the tinker, "he'd begin to look for
chattels, an' I do fear me there'd soon be many without harps."

"What is one to do with a man like that?" Trove inquired.

"Only this," said the tinker; "put him in thy book. He'll make
good history. But, sor, for company he's damnably poor."

"It's a new way to use men," said Trove.

"Nay, an old way--a very old way. Often God makes an example o'
rare malevolence an' seems to say, 'Look, despise, and be anything
but this.' Like Judas and Herod he is an excellent figure in a
book. Put him in thine, boy."

"And credit him with full payment?" the boy asked.

"Long ago, praise God, there was a great teacher," said the old
man. "It is a day to think of Him. Return good for evil--those
were His words. We've never tried it, an' I'd like to see how it
may work. The trial would be amusing if it bore no better fruit."

"What do you propose?"

"Well, say we take him a gift with our best wishes," said the
tinker.

"If I can afford it," the boy replied.

The tinker answered quickly: "Oh, I've always a little for a
Christmas, an' I'll buy the gifts. Ah, boy, let's away for the
gifts. We'll--we'll punish him with kindness."

They went together and bought a pair of mittens and a warm muffler
for Riley Brooke and walked to his door with them and rapped upon
it. Brooke came to the door with a candle.

"What d'ye want?" he demanded.

"To wish you Merry Christmas and present you gifts," said Trove.

The old man raised his candle, surveying them with surprise and
curiosity.

"What gifts?" he inquired in a milder tone.

"Well," said the boy, "we've brought you mittens and a muffler."

"Ha! ha! Yer consciences have smote ye," said Brooke, "Glory to God
who brings the sinner to repentance!"

"And fills the bitter cup o' the ungrateful," said the tinker. And
they went away.

"I'd like to bring one other gift," said Darrel.

"What's that?"

"God forgive me! A rope to hang him. But mind thee, boy, we are
trying the law o' the great teacher, and let us see if we can learn
to love this man."

"Love Riley Brooke?" said Trove, doubtfully.

"A great achievement, I grant thee," said the tinker. "For if we
can love him, we shall be able to love anybody. Let us try and see
what comes of it."

A man was waiting for Darrel at the foot of the old stairs--a tall
man, poorly dressed, whom Trove had not seen before, and whom, now,
he was not able to see clearly in the darkness.

"The mare is ready," said Darrel. "Tis a dark night."

He to whom the tinker had spoken made no answer.

"Good night," said the tinker, turning. "A Merry Christmas to
thee, boy, an' peace an' plenty."

"I have peace, and you have given me plenty to think about," said
Trove.

On his way home the boy thought of the stranger at the stairs,
wondering if he were the other tinker of whom Darrel had told him.
At his lodging he found a new pair of boots with only the Christmas
greeting on a card.

"Well," said Trove, already merrier than most of far better
fortune, "he must have been somebody that knew my needs."

VII

Darrel of the Blessed Isles

The clock tinker was off in the snow paths every other week. In
more than a hundred homes, scattered far along road lines of the
great valley, he set the pace of the pendulums. Every winter the
mare was rented for easy driving and Darrel made his journeys
afoot. Twice a day Trove passed the little shop, and if there were
a chalk mark on the dial, he bounded upstairs to greet his friend.
Sometimes he brought another boy into the rare atmosphere of the
clock shop--one, mayhap, who needed some counsel of the wise old
man.

Spring had come again. Every day sowers walked the hills and
valleys around Hillsborough, their hands swinging with a godlike
gesture that summoned the dead to rise; everywhere was the odour of
broken field or garden. Night had come again, after a day of magic
sunlight, and soon after eight o'clock Trove was at the door of the
tinker with a schoolmate.

"How are you?" said Trove, as Darrel opened the door.

"Better for the sight o' you," said the old man, promptly. "Enter
Sidney Trove and another young gentleman."

The boys took the two chairs offered them in silence.

"Kind sor," the tinker added, turning to Trove, "thou hast thy cue;
give us the lines."

"Pardon me," said the boy. "Mr. Darrel, my friend Richard Kent."

"Of the Academy?" said Darrel, as he held to the hand of Kent.

"Of the Academy," said Trove.

"An', I make no doubt, o' good hope," the tinker added. "Let me
stop one o' the clocks--so I may not forget the hour o' meeting a
new friend."

Darrel crossed the room and stopped a pendulum.

"He would like to join this night-school of ours," Trove answered.

"Would he?" said the tinker. "Well, it is one o' hard lessons.
When ye come t' multiply love by experience, an' subtract vanity
an' add peace, an' square the remainder, an' then divide by the
number o' days in thy life--it is a pretty problem, an' the result
may be much or little, an' ye reach it--"

He paused a moment, thoughtfully puffing the smoke.

"Not in this term o' school," he added impressively.

All were silent a little time.

"Where have you been?" Trove inquired presently.

"Home," said the old man.

There was a puzzled look on Trove's face.

"Home?" he repeated with a voice of inquiry.

"I have, sor," the clock tinker went on. "This poor shelter is not
me home--it's only for a night now an' then. I've a grand house
an' many servants an' a garden, sor, where there be flowers--lovely
flowers--an' sunlight an' noble music. Believe me, boy, 'tis
enough to make one think o' heaven."

"I did not know of it," said Trove.

"Know ye not there is a country in easy reach of us, with fair
fields an' proud cities an' many people an' all delights, boy, all
delights? There I hope thou shalt found a city thyself an' build
it well so nothing shall overthrow it--fire, nor flood, nor the
slow siege o' years."

"Where?" Trove inquired eagerly.

"In the Blessed Isles, boy, in the Blessed Isles. Imagine the
infinite sea o' time that is behind us. Stand high an' look back
over its dead level. King an' empire an' all their striving
multitudes are sunk in the mighty deep. But thou shalt see rising
out of it the Blessed Isles of imagination. Green--forever green
are they--and scattered far into the dim distance. Look! there is
the city o' Shakespeare--Norman towers and battlements and Gothic
arches looming above the sea. Go there an' look at the people as
they come an' go. Mingle with them an' find good
company--merry-hearted folk a-plenty, an' God knows I love the
merry-hearted! Talk with them, an' they will teach thee wisdom.
Hard by is the Isle o' Milton, an' beyond are many--it would take
thee years to visit them. Ah, sor, half me time I live in the
Blessed Isles. What is thy affliction, boy?"

He turned to Kent--a boy whose hard luck was proverbial, and whose
left arm was in a sling.

"Broke it wrestling," said the boy.

"Kent has bad luck," said Trove. "Last year he broke his leg."

"Obey the law, or thou shalt break the bone o' thy neck," said
Darrel, quickly.

"I do obey the law," said Trent.

"Ay--the written law," said the clock tinker, "an' small credit to
thee. But the law o' thine own discovery,--the law that is for
thyself an' no other,--hast thou ne'er thought of it? Ill luck is
the penalty o' law-breaking. Therefore study the law that is for
thyself. Already I have discovered one for thee, an' it is, 'I
have not limberness enough in me bones, so I must put them in no
unnecessary peril.' Listen, I'll read thee me own code."

The clock tinker rose and got his Shakespeare, ragged from long
use, and read from a fly-leaf, his code of private law, to wit:--

"Walk at least four miles a day.

"Eat no pork and be at peace with thy liver.

"Measure thy words and cure a habit of exaggeration.

"Thine eyes are faulty--therefore, going up or down, look well to
thy steps.

"Beware of ardent spirits, for the curse that is in thy blood. It
will turn thy heart to stone.

"In giving, remember Darrel.

"Bandy no words with any man.

"Play at no game of chance.

"Think o' these things an' forget thyself."

"Now there is the law that is for me alone," Darrel continued,
looking up at the boys. "Others may eat pork or taste the red cup,
or dally with hazards an' suffer no great harm--not I. Good
youths, remember, ill luck is for him only that is ignorant,
neglectful, or defiant o' private law."

"But suppose your house fall upon you," Trove suggested.

"I speak not o' common perils," said the tinker. "But
enough--let's up with the sail. Heave ho! an' away for the Blessed
Isles. Which shall it be?"

He turned to a rude shelf, whereon were books,--near a score,--some
worn to rags.

"What if it be yon fair Isle o' Milton?" he inquired, lifting an
old volume.

"Let's to the Isle o' Milton," Trove answered.

"Well, go to one o' the clocks there, an' set it back," said the
tinker.

"How much?" Trove inquired with a puzzled look.

"Well, a matter o' two hundred years," said Darrel, who was now
turning the leaves. "List ye, boy, we're up to the shore an' hard
by the city gates. How sweet the air o' this enchanted isle!

"'And west winds with musky wing
Down the cedarn alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.'"

He quoted thoughtfully, turning the leaves. Then he read the
shorter poems,--a score of them,--his voice sounding the noble
music of the lines. It was revelation for those raw youths and led
them high. They forgot the passing of the hours and till near
midnight were as those gone to a strange country. And they long
remembered that night with Darrel of the Blessed Isles.

VIII

Dust of Diamonds in the Hour-glass

The axe of Theron Allen had opened the doors of the wilderness.
One by one the great trees fell thundering and were devoured by
fire. Now sheep and cattle were grazing on the bare hills. Around
the house he left a thicket of fir trees that howled ever as the
wind blew, as if "because the mighty were spoiled." Neighbours
had come near; every summer great rugs of grain, vari-hued, lay
over hill and dale.

Allen bad prospered, and begun to speculate in cattle. Every year
late in April he went to Canada for a drove and sent them south--a
great caravan that filled the road for half a mile or more,
tramping wearily under a cloud of dust. He sold a few here and
there, as the drove went on--a far journey, often, to the sale of
the last lot.

The drove came along one morning about the middle of May, 1847.
Trove met them at the four corners on Caraway Pike. Then about
sixteen years of age, he made his first long journey into the world
with Allen's drove. He had his time that summer and fifty cents
for driving. It was an odd business, and for the boy full of new
things.

A man went ahead in a buckboard wagon that bore provisions. One
worked in the middle and two behind. Trove was at the heels of the
first section. It was easy work after the cattle got used to the
road and a bit leg weary. They stopped them for water at the
creeks and rivers; slowed them down to browse or graze awhile at
noontime; and when the sun was low, if they were yet in a land of
fences, he of the horse and wagon hurried on to get pasturage for
the night.

That first day some of the leaders had begun to wander and make
trouble. For that reason Trove was walking beside the buckboard in
front of the drove.

"We'll stop to-night on Cedar Hill," said the boss, about
mid-afternoon. "Martha Vaughn has got the best pasture and the
prettiest girl in this part o' the country. If you don't fall in
love with that girl, you ought t' be licked."

Now Trove had no very high opinion of girls. Up there in Brier
Dale he had seen little of them. At the red schoolhouse, even,
they were few and far from his ideal. And they were a foolish lot
there in Hillsborough, it seemed to him--all save two or three who
were, he owned, very sweet and beautiful; but he had seen how they
tempted other boys to extravagance, and was content with a sly
glance at them now and then.

"I don't ever expect to fall in love," said Trove, confidently.

"Wal, love is a thing that always takes ye by surprise," the other
answered. "Mrs. Vaughn is a widow, an' we generally stop there the
first day out. She's a poor woman, an' it gives her a lift."

They came shortly to the little weather-stained house of the widow.
As they approached, a girl, with arms bare to the elbow, stood
looking at them, her hand shading her eyes.

"Co' boss! Co' boss! Co' boss!" she was calling, in a sweet,
girlish treble.

Trove came up to the gate, and presently her big, dark eyes were
looking into his own. That very moment he trembled before them as
a reed shaken by the wind. Long after then, he said that something
in her voice had first appealed to him. Her soft eyes were,
indeed, of those that quicken the hearts of men. It is doubtful if
there were, in all the world, a lovelier thing than that wild
flower of girlhood up there in the hills. She was no dream of
romance, dear reader. In one of the public buildings of a certain
capital her portrait has been hanging these forty years, and wins,
from all who pass it, the homage of a long look. But Trove said,
often, that she was never quite so lovely as that day she stood
calling the cows--her shapely, brown face aglow with the light of
youth, her dark hair curling on either side as it fell to her
shoulders.

"Good day," said he, a little embarrassed.

"Good day," said she, coolly, turning toward the house.

Trove was now in the midst of the cattle. Suddenly a dog rushed
upon them, and they took fright. For a moment the boy was in
danger of being trampled, but leaped quickly to the backs of the
cows and rode to safety. After supper the men sat talking in the
stable door, beyond which, on the hay, they were to sleep that
night. But Trove stood a long time with the girl, whose name was
Polly, at the little gate of the widow.

They seemed to meet there by accident. For a moment they were
afraid of each other. After a little hesitation Polly picked a
sprig of lilac. He could see a tremble in her hand as she gave it
to him, and he felt his own blushes.

"Couldn't you say something?" she whispered with a smile.

"I--I've been trying to think of something," he stammered.

"Anything would do," said the girl, laughing, as she retreated a
step or two and stood with an elbow leaning on the board fence.
She had on her best gown.

It was a curious interview, the words of small account, the
silences full of that power which has been the very light of the
world. If there were only some way of reporting what followed the
petty words,--swift arrows of the eye, lips trembling with the
peril of unuttered thought, faces lighting with sweet discovery or
darkening with doubt,--well, the author would have better
confidence.

Their glances met--the boy hesitated.

"I--don't think you look quite as lovely in that dress," he
ventured.

A shadow of disappointment came into her face, and she turned away.
The boy was embarrassed. He had taken a misstep. She turned
impatiently and gave him a glance from head to foot.

"But you're lovely enough now," he ventured again.

There was a quick movement of her lips, a flicker of contempt in
her eyes. It seemed an age before she answered him.

"Flatterer!" said she, presently, looking down and jabbing the
fence top with a pin. "I suppose you think I'm very homely."

"I always mean what I say."

"Then you'd better be careful--you might spoil me." She smiled
faintly, turning her face away.

"How so?"

"Don't you know," said she, seriously, "that when a girl thinks
she's beautiful she's spoiled?"

Their blushes had begun to fade; their words to come easier.

"Guess I'm spoilt, too," said the boy, looking away thoughtfully.
"I don't know what to say--but sometime, maybe, you will know me
better and believe me." He spoke with some dignity.

"I know who you are," the girl answered, coming nearer and looking
into his eyes. "You're the boy that came out of the woods in a
little red sleigh."

"How did you know?" Trove inquired; for he was not aware that any
outside his own home knew it.

"A man told us that came with the cattle last year. And he said
you must belong to very grand folks."

"And how did he know that?"

"By your looks."

"By my looks?"

"Yes, I--I suppose he thought you didn't look like other boys
around here." She was now plying the pin very attentively.

"I must be a very curious-looking boy."

"Oh, not very," said she, looking at him thoughtfully. "I--I--well
I shall not tell you what I think," She spoke decisively.

She had begun to blush again.

Their eyes met, and they both looked away, smiling. Then a moment
of silence.

"Don't you like brown?" She was now looking down at her dress, with
a little show of trouble in her eyes.

"I liked the brown of your arms," he answered.

The pin stopped; there was a puzzled look in her face.

"I'm afraid it's a very homely dress, anyway," said she, looking
down upon it, as she moved her foot impatiently.

Her mother came out of doors. "Polly," said she, "you'd better go
over to the post-office."

"May I go with her?" Trove inquired.

"Ask Polly," said the widow Vaughn, laughing.

"May I?" he asked.

Polly turned away smiling. "If you care to," said she, in a low
voice.

"You must hurry and not be after dark," said the widow.

They went away, but only the moments hurried. They that read here,
though their heads be gray and their hearts heavy, will understand;
for they will remember some little space of time, with seconds
flashing as they went, like dust of diamonds in the hour-glass.

"Don't you remember how you came in the little red sleigh?" she
asked presently.

"No."

"I think it's very grand," said she. "It's so much like a story."

"Do you read stories?"

"All I can get. I've been reading 'Greytower.'"

"I read it last winter," said the boy. "What did you like best in
it?"

"I'm ashamed to tell you," said she, with a quick glance at him.

"Please tell me."

"Oh, the love scenes, of course," said she, looking down with a
sigh, and a little hesitation.

"He was a fine lover."

"I've something in my eye," said she, stopping.

"Perhaps I can get it," said he; "let me try."

"I'm afraid you'll hurt me," said she, looking up with a smile.

"I'll be careful."

He lifted her face a little, his fingers beneath her pretty chin.
Then, taking her long, dark lashes between thumb and finger, he
opened the lids.

"You are hurting," said she, soberly; and now the lashes were
trying to pull free.

"I can see it," said he.

"It must be a bear--you look so frightened."

"It's nothing to be afraid of," said the boy.

"Well, your hands tremble," said she, laughing.

"There," he answered, removing a speck of dust with his
handkerchief.

"It is gone now, thank you," said Polly, winking.

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