A son of Old Harry; a novel

Front matter

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Prologue

IT did not need the verdict of Science to assure me that I am doomed. Yet, I have just heard it announced. Calmly, qui¬ etly, without a quaver in his voice, one of the most eminent of his profession, has declared : “ There is little, I may say no hope of recov¬ ery, nor any immediate prospect of death. You may live weeks, perhaps months, possi¬ bly years ; but you will never be—other than what you are.’*

Other than what I am ! I expected this decision— knew in reason it must be so—yet the words fell upon my consciousness with a strange, numbing sense of horror.

“ Other than what you are !” I repeated to myself, as I heard the firm, elastic steps echoing along the corridor of the great hotel outside my room when the physician went away. What am I ? It did not need knowledge such as his to determine. Half dead and half alive!

A Son of Old Harry.

This body which has served me so well at need, and which, whatever else I may have done, I have never abused, has been cut in twain. One-half has already passed beyond the realm of consciousness. The inert limbs chain me to the couch. The nerves which traverse the yet unshrunken tissues, bring only dim, vague mes¬ sages of need—dull, prickling appeals for aid. I live, but it is only a half-life. The brain is alert; the soul alive ; the body slipping helplessly and hopelessly into the tomb.

It is a strange ending of a strange life—a life strange enough without such tragedy—a life already curiously dismembered by Fate. Has it been one life—or two— or three ? Am I the lad who set out on life’s journey half a century ago unmindful of the destiny that awaited him ? Did I grow to be what I was, or did some strange alembic transform my nature ? It is hard to tell. Per¬ haps in the earlier life was hid the fruitage of the later years—and the one was but an evolution from the others.

What shall I do with this interval between life and death ? Review the past ? I cannot change it. Nay, I would not if I could. Not that I have always done the best or chosen always the wisest course. Perhaps I sometimes did the very worst. But the one act which colored all my after life, I committed purposely, with full knowledge of its import, and I have no desire to repent or to be forgiven. Whether it was right or wrong, I do not know ; worse yet, I hardly care. Nay, looking backward at it from this vantage-ground of truth, my dying bed, I do not hesitate to say that I am glad I did the thing which made my name a syno¬ nym of shame, so bitter that Cain himself, even with the ineffaceable mark upon his brow, might well pity the man condemned to wear it.

Prologue .

It cut my life in twain even as my body is now cleft. What I had been, I was never to be again. The child my mother bore has already been dead more years than he lived. I have had two lives—two lives with a black, bottomless gulf between them. Yet the past has no terrors for me. As to the future, I do not know what it may have in store. If I am to live hereafter, and I hope I may, I trust my destiny with Him who shaped the past which He will judge. I do not fear His judgment. I have no need to prepare for death. I am ready for it —at least as ready as I ever shall be—as ready as I ever can be.

No living mortal save myself knows who I really am, or even guesses what I was. Why should he ? I died a score of years ago—died and was inurned in infamy. A continent thrilled with horror at the obloquy of my act. My name is remembered only to be detested. Even I can hardly realize that it was once mine. My life seems bounded by the red horizon of my shame. He who lived beyond it, and bore that other name, was not I, but another. I never think of him but in the third person. Men blotted this name off the tablets of friendship; women denied with angry vehemence all knowledge of him who bore it. It was erased from the roll of honor on which I had written it with the sword— from the records of the church ; from the scroll of fame —for I had made it famous in a way, by honorable endeavor. Even the brethren of the “ Mystic Tie ” dis¬ owned me. In all the world there was not one to offer me the hand of sympathy or speak my name with pity.

Why should I not write the story of this strangely dis¬ jointed life. The future is denied me—why should I not recall the past ? I do not know that any one will care to read the tale. Indeed, I do not think I desire so

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A Son of Old Harry .

much that it should be read as that it should be fairly stated. I wish to tell the truth, and am not sure I would always do so, if I thought what I write would be read by many.

I have often wondered that men should care to write about themselves, or that others should care to read what people think, or, rather, desire others to believe they think about themselves—their dreams, acts purposes and achievements. A man’s testimony for or against himself is not apt to be reliable. I have always thought there was no greater liar that St. Augus¬ tine in his “Confessions." I read them when I was young. If I had believed them, they would have done me harm. In his desire to glorify his Redeemer, I think he slandered his Creator. His idea of evil was delusive, too. The sinful thought is not the full equiv¬ alent of wrongful purpose ripening into harmful act.

Yet St. Augustine was probably as nearly truthful as any one can be who writes of himself in order that the world may read.

I have read many so-called “Lives" of men who desired to extol their own purity, demonstrate or defend or explain the acts they feared the future might not esti¬ mate as they desired. I have no such motive. What I did cannot be extenuated. Why I did it is a matter of no consequence. I expect nothing of to-morrow and have no defence to make of yesterday. I could at the best only admit that of which I am accused, and affirm the very motive which was assigned. I do not regret it, and can derive no benefit from its-confession. The world would demand either a show of repentance or a display of boastful depravity. I can offer neither. I would be glad if one who knew her might read the plain, unvarnished tale of my life that she might be judged aright. That is

Prologue.

all I desire. So far as I am concerned, it is a matter of no moment. There is but one whose good opinion I would greatly care to retain ; and hers, of all persons in the world, I think would be least likely to survive a knowledge of the truth. It is strange that I should care for the judgment of one who wears a nurse’s cap and apron, more than for all the world beside ; but it is true. So I will write and she shall read ; and whether she excuse or condemn, it shall be of none the less advantage to her.

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Chapter I. A Timely Phenomenon

It was forty years ago. A man of middle age, whose frame was wasted by disease, lay upon a bed opposite a bright wood-fire, by which sat a woman weeping bit¬ terly and wiping away her tears with the blue-checked cambric apron which she wore. A sturdy boy of twelve years stood near the foot of the bed, digging his chubby fists into his eyes and sobbing dolorously. A man younger than the invalid, but so closely resembling him as to leave no doubt that he was a brother, stood with hushed face at the head of the bed and looked angrily down at the offending youngster. The countenance of the sick man evinced great anxiety. The stubby beard gave his emaciated face a somber look. Jet black hair hung in a dark, almost forbidding mass across his sal¬ low forehead. Blue eyes shone with a tremulous, humid glow beneath the knotted, beetling brows. A full under-lip showed through the dark beard moving ner¬ vously. A red flannel shirt was visible beneath the coarse white cotton one with its unlaundried bosom.

The hand that rested on the coverlet, though pale and shrunken, still bore the tan of accustomed toil, and the great joints and broad, stiff nails told that the sick man

A Son of Old Harry .

H had been of powerful physique. Tufts of black hair showed upon the shrunken phalanges, revealing a ghastly story of the ravages of disease. His face was kindly but severe, and his voice trembled more from excitement than feebleness, as he said, sternly :

“ What is this I hear, my son ?”

Seth Goodwin was a very sick man. His friends, relatives, and even the attending physician, said that he had not long to live. They told him so, too, with that reckless disregard for consequences which characterized a life in which preparation to die was considered a much more important fact than death itself. Lest he should perchance forget the fate impending over him, a preternatural gloom pervaded the room in which he lay, which was kept at a stifling temperature, with every breath of air excluded, lest Nature should refuse to sub¬ mit to the general verdict. Apprehension was written on the countenance of every one who approached the bedside. Many asked, in solemn tones, after his spir¬ itual welfare. Several insisted upon praying with him. The wife wept and tried to hide her tears. The brother, recently arrived, had put a stop to some of these things. He had insisted on cheerful faces, few callers and no prayers. The wife thought him cruel; the neighbors called him wicked ; the doctor said he was sensible. He himself said that Seth had made his will, was ready to die, and probably would die; but he shouldn’t be worried to death nor lose any chance of life through fretting over what couldn’t be helped.

The sick man was only a common farmer, one of those sturdy men who, when the middle West was but half subdued, undertook to win competence by complet¬ ing the conquest the pioneers had begun. It was before the days of railroads and telegraphs. The highways of traffic lay along the great lakes, a hundred miles to the

A Timely Phenomenon .

northward, or up and down the great river, a hundred miles to the southward. Wagons and boats were the sole means of transport. The stage-coach was the only carrier-pigeon. Roads had been hewn through the forest on the lines blazed by the government surveyors, until every State west of the Alleghanies must have looked to an aerial beholder like a great checker-board cut in the arboreal verdure. Here and there the dullyellow roadways were flanked by green meadows and thrifty homesteads. Villages and towns, the ganglia of traffic and precursors of a new civilization, were clus¬ tered here and there. The forest, which represented the stored-up wealth of unnumbered centuries, was still accounted the enemy of the thrifty settler, who warred against it with fire and steel. The mighty walnuts, whitewoods, maples, beeches, oaks and elms which hedged in the clearings with a continuous living wall a hundred feet in height, even though of the finest grain and clearest fiber, were counted worthless to the owner. Men were still hired to destroy these monarchs of the forest. Only from their ashes, leached and boiled into crude forms of caustic soda—“potash,” it was called—could a merchantable product be obtained by which the owner might get pay for the labor of “ clear¬ ing.” The value of the land depended upon the cost of cutting away the forest. The denser the growth and the richer the wood, the heavier the cost of removal.

The land teemed with the promise of unexampled productiveness. Horses and cattle, sheep and swine were abundant ; but only the first were highly prized, according to more recent standards of comparison. It was a tedious and costly matter to drive the cattle and swine a thousand miles to market. The fleece was more easily transported, and despite the disadvantages of production, wool became one of the first articles of i6

A Son of Old Harry .

commerce of this region. Grain and cheese were exported also, but the cost of carriage made the prices very low.

With the irrepressible energy which marked the epoch in which he lived, Seth Goodwin and his young wife had set out a dozen years before to overcome these obstacles —to build a home and acquire a competence. They had succeeded well; but before their plans had reached entire fruition, one of those great financial revulsions that sweep over the world had touched the products of toil and they had shrunk almost to nothing. His desire to increase his possessions had induced him to mortgage what he had already acquired to secure money to buy more. When the shrinkage in values came, he fought bravely, working with redoubled energy ; and for a time his hope for ultimate success was not without reason¬ able basis. Whatever courage, integrity and good credit could do to avert disaster, that Seth Goodwin could be relied upon to accomplish ; but after a time disease came, and with it, very soon, despair. The sick man faced his doom with composure, but the thought that he would leave his wife and child unprovided for, filled both his waking moments and his dreams with agony.

The boy had been a source of constant anxiety, espe¬ cially to his mother, ever since he had been able to find his way into danger. He had now been summoned to his father’s bedside to be reproved for an offence which derived the greater part of its enormity from the condi¬ tion of his parent’s health. Among the duties which this illness had imposed upon the lad was the care of a colt which from a suckling had been the pride of the boy’s heart. It had been “ broken,” as the process of training the horse to work is barbarously called, the summer before. The boy had ridden him to plow corn.

HE STRAPPED A SHEEPSKIN ON THE BAC K OF THE COLT.— See Page 18 .

A Timely Phenomenon . ly and to and from the field, and since he had had him in his care, had ridden him, perhaps, oftener than was nec¬ essary, to the brook, which babbled along under the hill-side half a furlong from the barn, for water. This fact, not having come to the parents' knowledge, had never been forbdiden. He was a resolute lad and had shown a capacity to “ look after things,” as the mother had expressed it, which was a great comfort to the afflicted woman, and being reported to the father had won his warm approval.

A fortnight before, the brother of the sick man had come to assist the wife in taking care of him. He was a somewhat gay young fellow whose pride centered in a mare noted throughout all the region as a “ quarterhorse,” of great speed. Since he had owned her she had done some notable work, but was not regarded as quite strong enough for the long distance races then in vogue. This mare the uncle had brought with him and she had occupied a stall next to the boy’s colt, Pompey.

Racing was at that time a popular amusement in that region. The tracks were often “ straightaway,” and the equipments of the sport very crude, but good time was often made, and the associations of the turf were far more reputable than they are to-day. Almost in front of Seth Goodwin’s house stood a beech-tree, which was the beginning of what was known through all that region as “ the measured mile,” a level stretch along the State Road, which was a favorite place for trials of speed between the fancy nags of the neighborhood. In these trials, the boy had always manifested a lively interest, and was well aware of the reputation the brown mare belonging to his uncle Horace had earned in many a hard-won race as the “ Queen ” of that particular bit of turf. Pier fame did not, however, in the least eclipse, in his opinion, the glory of his own pretty bay, in whose

IS

A Son of Old Harry .

capacity to distance the “ Queen ” herself, the boy was a firm believer. This belief he did not hesitate to avow, and when some of his playmates made light of this theory, he promptly offered to put it to the test by a race between them along the accustomed track.

It was not the season of races. A heavy snow had fallen, but the weather was mild, and it had been beaten down into two smooth parallel tracks, bordered on either side by a white flocculent cushion. There happened to be among the boys one who boasted of some experience as a jockey, who volunteered to ride the Queen, and young Goodwin declared his readiness to back his own favorite in a literal sense. It is not in boy nature to “ take a dare,” and words quickly grew into deeds. The horses were bridled. Cooper, the challenger, who was some years older than the colt’s champion, insisted on having the only saddle in the barn. The boy made no objection. He had rarely ridden with a saddle. He merely strapped a sheep-skin on the back of the low, rangy bay colt, which stood beside the bony, flat-limbed mare on the great bam-floor during the controversy, and declared himself ready for the trial.

The jockeys mounted and rode out, the colt leading the way. The other boys followed on foot. They went down the lane toward the brook, and took the cart-track up the hollow out of sight of the house, to the road, instead of going through the yard. Nobody gave any specific reason for taking this course, but the boys all knew it was to prevent their being interrupted and the race spoiled by any interference of the elders. The house was quite a distance from the road, and they trusted on escaping observation until too late to put an end to their sport. When they reached the road, they trotted up to the big beech; a mark was made in the snow on each side of the track ; one of the boys was

A Timely Phenomenon.

named as starter ; the horses were turned back and brought carefully up, neck and neck, to the starting-place.

“ Go !” shouted Billy Wayland, the starter, throwing his cap in the air.

“ Go !” shouted the other boys at the top of their voices.

Mrs. Seth Goodwin looked out of the kitchen window just in time to see two horses, with boyish figures on their backs, flash across her field of vision. A swift intuition told her who they were, and she sank into a chair with a low, shuddering moan. She was a weak, nervous woman, whose reliance had been in her hus¬ band’s magnificent strength. Now that this support was likely to be removed, she was already looking for¬ ward to a widowhood in which the son, so wonderfully like his father in self-reliance, should be her chief dependence. If there was one thing that she feared more than another, it was a horse. From the first, the boy’s fondness for the colt had filled her with apprehen¬ sion. A thousand times she had in fancy seen him bitten, kicked, torn, mangled by the spirited beast he would persist in fondling. Now she beheld him borne headlong to his doom on the back of this same winged terror.

There was a shriek from the group of boys by the roadside—an unmistakable cry of alarm. She saw them gazing in terror along the level vista of the “ measured mile.” There were more shouts. Some ran in one direction and some in another. She heard louder, more terrified cries. She was sure one voice said : “ He’s

down ! He’s killed !” She did not stop to ask who was slain. Her heart told her. She was not only to be a widow but childless ! The snow grew red—bloody red —then yellow and green to her dazed vision. The room

A Son of Old Harry .

whirled round and round as she sank to the floor in a dead faint. Here her brother-in-law found her when^ startled by the noise of her fall, he came from the sick¬ room to inquire its cause. Taking her in his arms, he laid her on the bed in an adjoining room. By that time more than one of the frightened boys were clamoring at the door.

It did not take many inquiries to learn the facts. Even his heart stood still with fear at the thought of two unpracticed boys starting out to ride a race with a a hard-bitted flyer and a half-broken colt. He was in the road in an instant, snatching off his coat as he went, clenching his hands, throwing out his chest and shutting his lips close as a man must who is going to take a long run. Away up the road he could see two moving spots —or was there only one ? He did not stop to question. A quarter of a mile away there was a black heap by the roadside. It was alive and audible ; there was no doubt about that. Two of the boys reached it about the time he struck the roadway. They raised it into a sitting posture. The clamor grew louder.

“ I never thought the whelp would make such a fuss as that,” said the runner to himself, disgustedly, as he drew near. “ Ah, it’s not Jack ! What’s the matter ?” he asked, pausing and shaking the boy by the collar as he spoke. “ Stop your yelling, Sam Cooper, and tell me what’s the matter!”

“ Oh, I’m killed! I shall die ! I know I shall !” howled the frightened boy.

The questioner soon found that however frightened the lad might be, the deep snow had saved him from serious injury. All he could learn about his nephew was that he was “ sure to be killed a result he thought not unlikelv. but man-like consoled himself with the contemptuous remaric :

A Timely Phenomenon .

“ If he is he won’t make such an infernal fuss about it.”

Having- thus expressed himself, Uncle Horace resumed, with the pertinacity peculiar to the Goodwins, the apparently hopeless pursuit of the runaway.

It was an hour later when he returned. He was rid¬ ing the Queen, whose head drooped down as she swung it back and forth in a long fox-walk, while the steam rose from her heaving flanks, and clouds of vapor poured from her distended nostrils. He held the colt’s rein, while a worn switch, which he carried in his right hand, seemed a sufficient explanation of the lachrymose con¬ dition of the lad on the colt’s back. Both horses were evidently tired, as was natural after a two-mile heat in the snow, for they had passed the limit and only been stopped when nearly a mile beyond.

The colt’s condition did not escape the horseman’s eye as he put the animals in the stable and blanketed them carefully lest they should take cold. He was drenched with sweat by his unaccustomed effort, but not in the least blown, and his steaming flanks throbbed evenly and steadily, as if he had merely had a fling in the pasture, instead of trying conclusions with the best horse in that region. When the uncle had attended to the horses he hooked his fingers in the boy’s collar and led him to the house. Seeing her child safe, the mother had already informed the father of the main facts in the case. After a short consultation with his brother, the lad was called in. His mother followed, taking her station on the hearth and weeping as if her heart would break—whether from joy or sorrow, it would be hard to tell.

“ What is this you have been doing, Hubert ?” repeated the invalid, tremulously.

The boy’s name was John Hubert. His mother gen-

A Son of Old Harty.

erally spoke of him as John ; his father always addressed him as Hubert ; his uncle and playmates called him Jack.

“ I didn’t—mean—no harm,” sobbed the boy as he industriously rolled his fists in and out against his eyes, as if seriously contemplating the removal of the offend¬ ing members.

“ You knew it was wrong ?”

“ I—I—s’pose so.”

“ Then, why did you do it ?”

“ Well, you see, sir—Sam Cooper—he—he—we was all in the barn and talking about—about Pomp and— and the Queen, sir—that is, the boys was talking about old Queen, and—and I told ’em Pomp was a better horse’n she’d ever been; and he is, too.”

“ Pompey is a good colt, but he has never run a race ; so you should not have said that. It is not nice to brag.”

“It wasn’t any bragging, father; I was sure of it,” said the lad, stoutly.

“ But you had never seen him run.”

“ Oh yes, I had,” answered the boy, quite cheerfully ; “ and rode him, too.”

“ When and where ?” demanded the father, sternly.

“ Oh, lots of times ; last fall, after the races.”

“ My son, answer me : Have you ever ridden him on the measured mile before ?”

“ Yes, sir,” answered the lad, bowing his head and beginning to sob again.

“ How was it that you were never seen before ?”

“ It—it was at night.”

“ At night! Didn’t you know you were not old enough to do such things ?”

“ But I went after the doctor at night when you were first taken sick,” sobbed the boy.

A Timely Phenomenon .

2 3

“ So you did,” said the father, softening.

“ And you said that was right, though I didn’t let you know about it.”

“ That’s a fact, my son—”

“ And Doctor Kelsey said if he had waited to walk, it would have been too late,” interrupted the mother, who could not help interceding for the child.

11 But you know I do not approve of horse-racing,” continued the father, changing his ground. “ It is not a creditable business for any one to engage in.”

“ Uncle Horace races,” protested the boy.

“You see, now,” said the sick man, reproachfully, turning to his brother, “ what your example is doing. The boy might have been killed.”

“ Well, he wasn’t; and I don’t think he’s likely to be, judging from what I saw of his riding.”

“ Oh, it’s no trouble to ride Pomp,” exclaimed the boy, eagerly.

“ But Sam Cooper was badly hurt, I hear, and he is considerably older than you, Hubert.”

“He would have been all right, too, if he had just stuck on—but he got scared—that’s what was the mat¬ ter with him. You see, the old mare had the best of the send-off—’cause she was used to it, I guess. But when Pomp see she was trying to get away from him, he laid down to it and shut the light out between ’em almost as if she was standing still. Of course, she didn’t like that, and just let out the best she had. She went so fast, I guess it scared Sam, for he kind of slid off into the snow, and began to holler ; but the old mare kept right on. ’Twasn’t any use, though,” continued the excited lad ; “ Pomp was on her quarter when we got to the bars of No. 7, and ’fore we’d got to the three-quar¬ ter maple, he was a neck ahead. Queen was a-doin’ her best, too, and I didn’t touch the switch to Pompey, but

A Son of Old Harry .

by the time we got to the mile post, he was—well—quite a few lengths ahead—three or four—anyhow,” said the boy, doggedly, looking up at his uncle.

“ My son !” said the father sternly.

“ It’s so, father. Do you think I'd tell a lie ?” asked the boy, choking back the tears.

“ Why didn’t you stop there ?” asked the uncle.

“ I did try to, and I could have stopped Pomp easy enough, but every time I’d pull him up, old Queen would try to rush by.”

“ Just like her,” muttered Horace to himself, appre¬ ciatively. “ I’d risk the old girl to run a race all by herself, and win it, too, if it was in the cards for her to do so.”

“ My son, you cannot expect any one to believe you when you claim to have outrun the swiftest horse in the country with a snip of a colt.”