The coming of the King

Front matter

Chap,^/i Copyright No.

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I

There could be no doubt that Clarence Blackwood was irretrievably ruined, both financially and morally.

Whenever he appeared among the good people on the streets of his extremely respectable village the epithets “drunkard” and “gambler” followed him without fail.

Fifteen years before, when quite a young man, he had inherited a splendid fortune from his father, but by extravagant living terrible inroads had been made upon his wealth. Night after night he had scattered his father’s long-hoarded gains in reckless amusements with which young men are so often infatuated.

In addition to this, he had made the mistake of supposing that he could gain friends by assisting people financially. He had lent everybody money and endorsed everybody’s notes. Then the crash came. Of course, everybody said, “ I told you so.” It was perfectly natural for Parson Winkleton to remark with an air of profound originality that “a fool and his money are soon parted,” and nothing could have been more appropriate than to have Mrs. Evergood remark to a neighbor, over a cup of tea, in time-honored language, that “ wilful waste makes woful want.” But it did seem strange that so many of Clarence’s boon companions, who bad condescended to drink champagne at his expense and done him the favor to accept sundry loans, should now remark that “ Blackwood is a good fellow, but too much of a bore.”

And it did seem strange, though perfectly natural, I suppose, that the young ladies who had lent the lustre of their presence to his expensive balls and dinner parties in the past should now take the ad- 6 vice of their prudent mammas and show a decided preference for other young men, who were platitudinous both in sentiment and intellect, but who’ had the honor of being called “ steady” by the good people of the little town.

I had neglected to say, however, that although Clarence had certainly been very profuse in his expenditures up to this period, no one could say with justice that he had either drank or played to excess. He had simply been a jovial, reckless fellow, the dupe of pretended friends, and had found out too late the brutal, hackneyed truth, that all those alleged friends would actually dispense with his companionship, and very comfortably, too, after they could no longer make it profitable. I merely make this remark parenthetically, however, for the fact remained that he had lost all his fortune, and that being the case, what is the use of excuses or explanations ?

From that time, nevertheless, Blackwood became a changed man. He seemed to have learned no lesson from his experience, like good and discreet people ought to do, but he continued to lend to whomsoever asked, provided he had the requisite half-dollar or so, which, I am sorry to say, was generally not the case. While he of course did not have the same thoughtless confidence in human nature as in other days, still, when he possessed a dime, he would give it with a quiet resignation, if not the same cheerfulness, with which he threw away his hundreds and thousands before.

But he did take to drink, and he did seek refuge in the haunts of the card-table with a recklessness truly reprehensible. Then money, friends, reputation, and everything else necessary to gain a footing in this world were lost.

About this time an incident occurred which would have been ridiculous enough had not the conclusion been so painful to Clarence himself.

The news came to the quiet precincts of the village that Clarence’s uncle had died, leaving him another immense fortune, twice as large as that left by the father.

This was quite unexpected, as the uncle had been a comparatively young man, of robust health, and who, living at quite a distance, had never visited Clarence or apparently cared anything for him.

An attempt to portray the consequences of this extremely sensational news would be a task before which a pen like this might falter and stagger indeed.

Young ladies who had hitherto been chary of their smiles now fairly overflowed with sweetness.

Prudent mammas, whose disapprobation had hitherto been like the darkness of Egypt, which could be felt, strangely enough, began to embarrass him with profuse compliments, invitations to tea, sly taunts about his state of bachelorhood, coupling his name with that of their marriageable daughters and heaping upon him heaven knows how many other nice little nothings. They would often remark that

<c young men would sow their wild oats,” and that while they could not exactly approve of his past conduct, he was a very good fellow after all.

But it must be said here, though one may blush to relate it, that a later will of this uncle was found soon afterVards, by the terms of which all his fortune went to another relative, leaving Clarence without a dollar.

Over the events that followed among the good people of the village of Weatherford, when they found themselves thus hoodwinked and hoaxed and made ridiculous, I beg to draw a curtain so thick that no crusty cynic may invade the sanctity of discomfiture with unhallowed footstep or with eye profane.

Clarence for many days hardly ventured out of his door, because he felt that he had ceased to be an object of indifference, and had become a thing to be despised.

Although he was, of course, the greatest sufferer through this turn of affairs, people actually seemed to blame him for the evil tidings, since it made laughing-stocks of them as well as himself.

And now, at the time of the opening of this story, the end had come.

The mortgage upon the magnificent old family mansion had been foreclosed, and the next day Blackwood would be turned out upon the streets. With his dissipated habits, it required no prophet to foresee his utter degradation and desolation.

But let no one suppose that merely because of his dissipation, Blackwood had become utterly depraved. On the contrary, during all his downward course no one was half so generous as he. I never knew him to refuse a favor unless absolute poverty prevented. No one had ever begged of him bread that he did not make the beggar fare sumptuously. No one had ever begged of him raiment whom he did not clothe in garments as warm as any king could wear. Many a poor man at Christmas had found a remembrance from the same hand. Many a time have I seen him, as he passed a child crying in the streets, stop that he might soothe its troubles.

Why he should have persisted in his downward course to destruction was a mystery to many people ; but I suppose that, having discovered the utter ingratitude and selfishness of the world, he no longer had a desire to succeed in its society or its markets.

Bitterly did he regret the past; bitterly did he lament over golden opportunities now passed away forever.

But the world heeded none of his half-suppressed sighs. It was too busy congratulating the fortunate to sit in sackcloth with the unfortunate.

Every day, when he heard a footstep at the door, he would say to himself, “ That is Jack, or Tom, or Harry, my good old friends of better days, who have come to condole with me and show that they are still friendly.” But when he answered the call he would find some importunate bill-collector. Yes, a 10 bill-collector ! That is a friend indeed, for he is ever with you in your need : that is a friend who sticketh closer than a brother, for he does not desert you when the summer blossoms of prosperity have faded, but remains by your side through the gathering gloom of the November and December of financial ruin.

Every day when the postman came Clarence would say to himself, “ That is a letter from Blanche, iu which she will say that she loves me still and that she wishes me to come to see her again. She will say that she did not mean to hurt my feelings when she treated me so coldly the last time I saw her. She will tell me that she has been waiting, waiting, waiting all this time, hoping that I would come back. She will tell me that she would never have insulted me as she did had she thought I would have taken it in earnest ; she will tell me that she was only disguising her love with pretended indifference, and that she wishes me to forgive her ; she will say that she does not love that other fellow, who has neither soul nor intellect, but who is trying to buy her love with his money. She will tell me to come back to her ; she will help me to reform ; she will stand by me and encourage me till I am a man again, and then she will marry me.”

But when the postman had delivered his mail, the letters were found to be insulting notes from tradesmen clamorous for payment of overdue claims.

Sometimes, when he would hear an unusually 11 rapid footstep at the door, he would say to himself, “ Surely I cannot be mistaken this time ; some of the little school children whom I love so much, and whom I have petted and caressed so often, have come to see me, and they have probably brought me some flowers, or a piece of cake, or some such little trifle to show their love for me, and I will be prouder of that than if they brought a costly present from the richest man in the world.”

But when he would go to the door, it was more than likely that he would be confronted by the sheriff, coming to make a levy upon his household furniture.

And so on this day, as he strolled along the highway to his home on the outskirts of the village, he was sick at heart, and his very soul was filled with loathing at his lot.

Suddenly, however, he was confronted by a tramp, who, in the usual stereotyped way, told of inability to find work, of sickness, and of hard luck generally. He gave the tramp a nickel, and as he proceeded farther, he suddenly called to mind that that nickel was the last money he had between himself and the poor-house.

But he would have cared little for that, had not Parson Winkleton, who happened to see the transaction, informed him that the tramp was an impostor, wholly undeserving of sympathy. “You are too generous to be just,” said the parson, and Clarence winced beneath the thrust of this wellworn but keen-edged old saying, whose brutal truth has wounded many and many a noble heart, and left it scarred and cankered and corroded.

A few moments later he met the children coming from school, and he said to himself, “ Here at last I shall see beings who are free from calculation and deceit then he almost laughed like a boy himself as he thought of the days when they used to run to meet him with their little eager mouths lifted up for his kisses. But it had been a long time now since he had been able to buy them little toys and gew-gaws, and strange to say there was quite a lack of their old-time enthusiasm.

But little eight- year-old Mary, his favorite, came last of all, running as fast as her tiny feet could patter, her blue eyes sparkling, her golden hair tangled over her shoulders, and her cheeks red with excitement.

“ Oh, Mr. Blackwood,” she said, “ let me have a dime to buy some oranges.”

His heart became a lump of lead in an instant. He felt in his pockets again, but they were empty.

“ I haven’t a cent, little Mary,” he said, “ but I have a nice apple in my pocket for you.”

“Oh, I don’t care for apples,” she answered. “Our orchard at home is full of ’em, and I don’t like ’em, anyhow. But I will see papa and get the money from him.”

Then, as Clarence tried to catch her and take a kiss by force, she artfully slipped between his hands, 13 rejoined her comrades far down the lane, and left him standing alone.

He laughed in a mirthless sort of way, but for all his cynical expression, there was a lump in his throat, his chin quivered, his eyes were dim with something like tears, and his laugh changed almost into a sob.

He dropped the apple in the dust of the road ; then he picked it up, as if it had been a scorpion, threw it in the dust again, and crushed it to pieces with a stamp of his foot.

He hated this cruel frankness of childhood, which showed as much calculation and design as could have been unbosomed by Shylock himself.

II

It was late in the afternoon of a day in June, and Blackwood sat alone in the old family mansion on a high hill overlooking the scattered houses of the village of Weatherford. This was to be his last day in the old home, for on the next morning the new master was to take possession. All the servants had been dismissed. Not even a dog was on the place ; they had been given away by the master, since he was no longer able to afford them shelter.

The sun shone with a gentle glory in the mellow skies of summer. The yellow jasmines trailed with luxuriant clusters about the porch, and breathed such divine fragrance that the breezes reeled with delirious joy. The roses along the walk, arrayed in robes 14 of crimson and creamy white, trembled and tingled with ardent embraces of the buzzing bees.

But Clarence was at last aroused from his re very by the sound of barking dogs in the road below. The clamor increased until a stranger appeared, followed by the taunts and insults of a crowd of unruly boys and by a pack of yelping curs.

There could be no doubt of it ; this man was a tramp or a beggar, and was being driven out. of town by the rabble.

Clarence’s sense of decency was outraged. But the stranger, moving calmly before the crowd, without turning his head, came directly to Blackwood’s gate and stepped in. The rabble then retreated, and Clarence arose to meet the new-comer.

He was a man apparently about thirty years of age, and was dressed in the plainest and coarsest of garments. While not noticeably odd, his clothing was quite old-fashioned, and seemed like the garb of some foreigner.

“I have tried to get food and lodging for the night,” said the stranger ; “ but, as I had no money, I was turned away from every door, and I am sorry to say that I was treated with great rudeness besides.”

“ You are welcome,” replied Blackwood ; “ but, as this is my last night here, you must content yourself with a very light supper; besides, I think we will be awakened quite early to-morrow by the new owner, who will then move in.” Clarence did not 15 throw him a crust of bread, but treated him as the honored guest of a gentleman.

The stranger then told how he had been mistreated in the village; how this good lady had ordered him from her house ; how that substantial citizen had threatened him with a shot-gun ; how Parson Winkleton had remarked that he was doubtless an escaped convict; how Mrs. Evergood had told him that she had no use for beggars, and, finally, how the boys of the street had pursued him unmercifully.

Night having come at last, Clarence took his guest into the dining-room. All around the floor were scattered empty wine- bottles, ashes of cigars, and soiled playing-cards, giving silent but undeniable evidence of a revel some time before.

“ You must content yourself with milk and bread and a little fruit for supper,” said Clarence. “ I would serve you better, but Wiggs, the groceryman down there, has refused me credit, and so I can offer no more.”

“ Can it be,” said the stranger, “ that that man, whom you once rescued from financial ruin, should be so ungrateful as to refuse you meat and drink in the day of your misfortune ?”

Clarence started with amazement, and asked the stranger how he could possibly have known this without having been told? But the mysterious guest artfully evaded a direct answer.

Clarence then told the history of his past life, of his extravagance, and of his impending ruin. “ I have repented of my evil ways most bitterly,” he said ; “ but repentance, you know, cannot blot out the past.” The stranger evidently heard the story with regret, but offered no gratuitous advice aud spoke no reproaches.

Then it began to dawn upon Clarence’s mind that his guest was not a tramp or beggar, — no, not even an ordinary man, but a person of great attainments.

In appearance, too, his grace and his beauty were astonishing. His face was quite dark. His hair, hanging in gentle curls, was of a rich coppery brown, and shimmered in the lamplight with flashes of gold. His hands were delicately proportioned, but showed signs of menial toil ; his feet were small, but showed signs of many a weary journey. But, above all, his eyes, of the richest, deepest brown, were of matchless loveliness. They were as calm and as sweet as a twilight in October, with its dreamy shades, its tender after-glow and its dewy stars in the gathering dusk ; and while looking into their depths, you would dream of golden harvests* under a rising golden moon, the murmur of the reapers homeward bound, the tinkle of bells in the sheepfold, and the good-night song of the birds in the trees.

He was a being whose nationality no man could tell, whose social rank no one could determine. He was probably of Eastern birth, possibly a Hebrew, 17 but he had none of the indolent air of the Asiatic and none of the volatile worldliness of the Jew. His manners were those of an European without the European’s self-satisfied bearing. His language denoted secrecy, like that of the ancient Egyptian, without the Egyptian’s stern, hard-cut expression.

As to his social position, his elegant mien proclaimed him a prince, but his threadbare garments and his roughened hands proclaimed him a peasant. His knowledge of every subject in conversation showed him to be a man of wonderful culture, while his plain language and homely phrases placed him on a level with the most ignorant laborer. One remarkable feature of his character was that, while he was profoundly pious, his goodness was so modest as to be free both from bigotry and hypocrisy. It was not unpleasantly prominent.

Many overly-good- people are so free from fault as to lose all charity for the sins of others. Not so with him, for his heart seemed to overflow with compassion for the faults of all. The piety of many people is wearisome, but his piety was grateful and refreshing to the soul.

Blackwood was deeply interested in him ; nay, more, he was charmed, he was enthralled.

After a very light supper they went out on the porch again. It was quite dark. The moon was not shining, but myriads of stars twinkled through the gloom. All was silent save the drowsy chirp of insects in the trees, while the powerful perfume 18 of the jasmines and roses seemed to intoxicate the brain till it whirled in a maze of swoonful dreams. They sat talking until late in the night, the stranger in low, sweet accents charming Clarence more and more.

All at once his demeanor altered ; from the gentleness of his first manner he changed into an eager, impassioned strain, like the wondrous fervor of the poets of ancient days.

“ Listen, ” he said, placing his hand on Blackwood’s shoulder, and drawing nearer to him in the dark, —

“ Listen. You have been wondering for hours in a vain attempt to know who I am. I will tell you. My father is a king in a wonderful land, thousands of leagues away. I am his eldest son, travelling over the world in disguise. I conceal my rank because I love all people, and I wish to tread undisturbed among them. My love for them is so passionate, so deep, that no one but myself can comprehend it. That is why I am here to-night.”

Clarence sat still with amazement. Had these words been spoken by another he would have thought them the ravings of a madman ; but the terrible earnestness of those whispered words could not be distrusted.

“ Listen,” continued the wonderful stranger, with ever-increasing intensity, “ my father’s kingdom is beautiful beyond expression. It lies far away beyond the trackless oceans, where spring-time and 19 summer go hand in hand forever. The roses there blossom all the year round. There the leaves never fall from the trees and the birds never cease to sing. September, with her mournful eyes and her hectic flush, never treads through those flowery fields, and December, with his chill winds, never enshrouds in snow the splendor of those glorious gardens. In that kingdom are stately palms and purple-clustered vines that bear fruit in all seasons. Free from all storms, the lotus blooms like a star on every wave, and the swan builds her nest undisturbed by any hand. In the midst of that land is a wonderful palace, the home of my father, where the sound of the harp and the cymbal are never silent and Beauty and Bliss tread a delightful measure together forever. Nor does the soul ever tire of this excess of sweetness, but it swells with softest emotion, as though it were the heart of a bride on her nuptial day ; not a day of a few hours, but a day which lingers forever.”

The eyes of the stranger now blazed with emotion, like palpitating stars in the darkness, and his language was so intense, so passionate that the ardent affection of the mother for her child, the burning caresses of the lover showered upon the lips of his beloved, the fierce passion of the tiger for his mate, were as mere shadows of its fearful earnestness.

“And you, Clarence,” he continued rapidly, in the same eager whisper ; “ you I have found to be 20 truly generous and lovable in a world of selfishness and ingratitude. Although your sins have been great, they are all blotted out. I was driven from every door in this village save yours. You have never known me, but I have always known you. You have always been my enemy, but I have always been your friend. I am a prince ; I am wealthy beyond all calculation. You shall be my friend and my companion. You shall not awaken to a ruined life in the morning, but to-night you shall go with me to my home, where all is happiness and sweetness. I love you. Come !”

Then the wonderful stranger arose like a magnificent king and his locks shone in the darkness like a crown of gold. Clarence was amazed, and sank upon his knees. Then the terrible stranger’s hand fell upon his head like a flash of lightning, and all was over.

But was it a truth, or was it a mere fancy of Clarence, in that terrible moment, ere the mighty hand descended, that as it was lifted, diaphanous and radiant with splendor, he saw, or seemed to see, a black scar in the centre of the palm, made as if by an iron nail ?

The next day when the new master came to claim the house, Blackwood was found there on his knees, cold and still.

“ Died of heart-failure,” said the physician.

I once beheld, and shall never cease to remember, a celebrated picture, entitled “C’est l’Empereur !”

in which Napoleon is represented as having surprised a sleeping sentinel. On the face of the sentinel is depicted the most intense awe and the most abject terror. Surprised and confounded he looks into the face of the great monarch, and doubtless in a moment thinks of the terrible punishment that may come, the trial, the sentence to be shot at daybreak, when his wife is to be a widow and his children to be orphans. Such, to some extent, was the expression upon the dead face of Clarence Blackwood. There was the blank amazement and the intense awe, but there was no terror, no fear of future punishment depicted there ; rather, I should say, he gazed with the consciousness of full pardon from his monarch, — his monarch, greater than Napoleon, — and his amazement and awe were softened and sweetened by an expression of deepest reverence and idolatrous love.

MANUSCRIPT FOUND ON MOUNT MITCHELL.

I.

I, Cecil Dudley, gentleman, of the County of Devonshire, England, in this the year of our Lord, 1617, being in a dying condition, make this, my last statement, concerning the authorship of the plavs and poems commonly ascribed to one William Shakespeare, of the Globe Theatre, in the City of London.

I am now amid the wilds of that country known as North America, in the heart of a mountain range about one hundred and five and twenty leagues west of Roanoke Island.

This mountain range, so the savages have told me, is the highest between the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and another great chain of mountains over a thousand leagues away to the west ; and I am lying under a shelving rock on the summit of the topmost peak thereof.

I, Cecil Dudley, am the author of the plays and poems commonly ascribed to William Shakespeare, of the Globe Theatre, London ; but this, my last appeal to the world, may never reach the eyes of 23 mortal man until many centuries have passed, and, in all likelihood, not until the last day, when the trumpet of the angel Gabriel shall summon me and all mine enemies from the grave to meet face to face before the judgment seat of God.

II.

When I was a lad of very tender years, my father, Philip Dudley, conceived the plan of giving me, his only child, the benefits of such learning and companionship and travel as no youth in England had ever enjoyed before. I remember one day hearing him say to one of his friends, —

“ My son hath a most marvellous intellect. With the blessing of God, I shall rear him as no child hath ever been reared before. He shall read from all the greatest writers; he shall study under the most skilful masters ; he shall travel through all known lands ; he shall learn the manners of all peoples and the customs of all countries.

“No secret shall be hidden from him. The gates of all scholarship and all science shall be opened unto him. The common limitations of mankind shall not bind him. He shall become one with all the individuals of the world. Intellect shall hold converse with him in the idioms of every foreign tongue, and passion shall speak to him with the force and fire of every human dialect.”

It is needless for me to narrate all the story of my 24 early education and training. It is enough to say that my father was true to his word, for, from my earliest years, I was taught by the most renowned tutors, and thereafter received instruction in the most famous colleges of all England.

I became well versed in Latin and Greek, as well as the more wide-spread languages of later days.

After leaving college, I travelled over all the ^countries of Europe, as well as many in Asia and Africa. I visited ancient Egypt, and beheld the pyramids, which are the wonder of the world, and the face of the solemn Sphinx, who hath kept her secrets three thousand years. I wandered among the Ethiopians, far away in the kingdom of the Pygmies, where the Nile hath his source among the Mountains of the Moon, where the shadows from the sun point to the south and the sun himself riseth in the north ; I trod the mighty wilderness of the Ganges, where giant serpents crawl in monstrous coils, and where the gorgeous blossoms breathe a deadly-poisoned odor. As a savage among savages, I hunted the lion and the tiger in the tangled mazes of Nubian forests; I wandered oven to the secret kingdoms of Thibet and Cathay, and the marvellous empires of Prester John and Kublai Khan ; I famished on the burning sands of Sahara, and sailed through the mountains of ice far away in the Northern Oceans.

Then I returned to Europe, after ten years had passed, and in the course of time shortly thereafter, 25 wrote some lines of the poems which to-day bear the name of Shakespeare.

In a few days after my return, it came to pass that my father died, leaving me without any close kin, and without fortune of any magnitude. But I felt that, with the help of God, my fame was assured, — such fame as would place my name above all the kings and conquerors of the world ; that would endure when all the thrones and sceptres and diadems of all the empires of all the earth had glimmered into darkness forever; when the earth herself had grown old and shrivelled and wrinkled,, and the sun had become dim and dull, and evens until the dawn of the day of judgment.