ACCORDING TO HIS LIGHTS
'Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone;
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.'
...........
'Prevention is better than cure,' they say. Quite probably; anyway that must be the reason why our system of imprisonment is so popular, for whoever knew anyone cured by it?
What the exact state of Eugene Rattray's moral sentiments were upon the day that he was released from Rochester Gaol, it would be difficult to say.
Judging from the following record, I very much doubt whether the term of his imprisonment had materially affected his view of things.
What was his offence? The law called it by an awkward name having consequences; these consequences the law applied to a man who had come back of his own accord from Australia to 'face the music,' as he phrased it. I myself could never see that the offence was more than a chance effect of circumstances upon a formed character. It seemed to me futile to punish a chance effect, seeing that it was the formed character you wanted to get at; but anyway, 'they done it,' as Huck Finn has it.
When I went to see him in Pentonville, where he was known as 'that there tall Italian with the strong beard, wot carries 'is 'ead so 'igh' (certainly Eugene's origin was half Greek, but then it was all Greek to the warders—hence the Italian), he talked cheerfully enough, poor chap, and without any bitterness as to the past. As to the future, he put it away; he had to 'face the music,' and in doing that he was hard enough put to it to 'carry 'is 'ead 'igh' in the present, without thinking of the future. I suppose he realised to a certain degree what it would be like to 'come out,' but not greatly, for he told me that he felt exactly like a wrecked man flung on a desert island, when, on a February morning, with his certificate of discharge in his pocket, he walked out of Rochester Gaol into the world.
So feeling, he strolled to the end of the street, and there the sense of having lived his life pressed so strongly upon him that he stood debating dazedly whether he would not go back, and ask to be taken in again. He even took some steps in the direction of the prison, till the absurdity of the idea presented itself to his mind. He shook himself like a dog, and, pulling up before a shop window, looked long and critically at his image in the plate-glass. It was a presentable reflection, tall, straight, well-clothed; he took off his hat, and replaced it quickly with a shudder; he registered a mental vow not to remove his gloves for some days; he gazed at his upper lip blankly, it did not seem to fit in with his surroundings; finally he turned out his pockets—one pound fifteen shillings and sixpence.
This pantomime he went through mechanically, with the feeling that he must do something rational, something practical, however trifling, to save him from thought; and the next moment, the black waves of despair came rolling in over his flimsy breakwater one after the other, driving him with head down and huge strides anywhere away from his fellows. This was the tug; anything that had gone before was child's play to this. Oue into a world that could look, and point and whisper the words 'Convicted felon!' to which there was no answer. It had been different in there; what were the words but the common property of all? It was easy enough to hold one's head up in that dim world; but outside it, where everything was so clear and bright, where the light was strong—he cursed the sun; where everyone could and would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest his shame; where he was branded like any poor devil of a sheep on a bush run. He flung himself down in a field, and—well, there are some things that are best left alone, and the full tide of a strong man's humiliation is one of them.
Two hours later, Eugene walked into Rochester Station, his brow knit and his head thrown back, and cursing his fate silently in his heart. He took a first single to London.
'As long as I have a sou,' he thought, 'I'll give it for the only luxury left me—solitude;' and he jingled the few remaining coins in his pocket.
They say an habitual criminal turned loose again upon society goes back to the scene of his offence—there is also a saying about a dog. Eugene was not an habitual criminal, he was only a victim of circumstances, playing on a formed character, yet he experienced a vague desire to return to the circumstances. He has told me that on that short but divinely lonely journey he was able to think his position over rationally. Item—he had no money, but many relations and friends, possibly, nay probably, willing to help him. Item—he was of the leisured class, unfitted for, and—a large and—disqualified for anything, except the merest manual labour. Item—he was physically strong, but happily, so he had been told, not unlikely to die at any minute. Item—he loved the best of everything. Finally, item—he had no reputation, and therefore no self-respect. He cast about in agony for any foundation on which to base a self-respect, and he found one, whether good or bad, who knows? In the circumstances, to the man, the only one. 'Face the music; keep your head up; society has dealt you hard measure, treat it with the contempt with which it will undoubtedly treat you; if you let go the plank of your pride for but a minute, you drown.'
Nobody knew that he was free; his discharge had come a month earlier than expected, for some reason connected with certain services to the internal economy of the dim world. So far, good. The practical sum of his reflections came to this: 'Let no one know, avoid acquaintances, work in the docks till you have earned a passage to the diggings, and then'—he thought almost cheerfully of the 'then.'
He stepped out of the carriage serenely; after all it was only his friends and acquaintances that mattered, a tiny eddy in the huge whirlpool of existence; easy enough to keep out of that eddy. He was always of a sanguine disposition; it had been very hard, I remember, at school to persuade him that he would infallibly miss his remove. It is the sanguine people upon whom circumstances play their pranks; luckily the payment of the piper is not to them so severe a tax as it is to the others—the pendulum swings very evenly. He lunched, to fortify the reaction; he lunched well; it was the first meal he had had for fourteen months—those in the dim world did not count. A cup of coffee and a cigar completing the fortification, he walked out of the station and along the crowded streets, enjoying the stir and bustle around him.
Mechanically he moved westwards. Presently he found himself opposite one of his favourite haunts—he would go in and read the papers. He stopped at the steps with a jerk, the waves came rolling back on him again, he gripped his plank and strode on. Some vague idea of seeking the docks directed his steps eastwards again through the heart and centre of the hum. He caught himself gazing with an indifferent, almost a callous eye at places and objects which were as the very pivot upon which had turned the whirling wheel of circumstances that now forced him to walk among his fellows a branded outcast. As he passed the London and Westminster Bank in Lothbury, a grey-haired man, hurrying from the door, ran against him, and without apology hastened past westwards. Eugene, in no mood to be jostled, turned angrily, but something familiar in the man's back arrested his attention; the close, humping set of the shoulders, the head set stiffly forward, the walk of a man who goes straight to his object, and that object, money. Eugene looked after him undecided, then crossed the street, and hurrying on, took up a position that enabled him to see the face.
As he thought—his Uncle Stephen; no mistaking the shark's mouth between the close-cut white moustache and beard, the light grey eyes under thick lids, looking neither to the right nor left, mechanically summing up the price of the man's coat in front of him.
'Not a day older, the same amiable Uncle Stephen; you old beast!' muttered Eugene between his clenched teeth. He followed him, at first mechanically, then with a steadily growing resolve.
The one man who had had it in his power in the first place to check, in the second to annul circumstances—and yet not a hand raised, not even the kink of the crooked, grasping little finger unbent. The words, in the saw-like voice, dinned in his ears:
'You're a black sheep, sir, I'll do nothing for you.'
To-day he was bidding farewell to his identity and to his former life, but he meant to have a word with that man first; merely an expression of opinion. How he hated that back threading the mazes of Cheapside and Ludgate Hill, stopping every now and then before a picture or a china shop, 'bargain' in its every line.
'Four miles a day, and seventy,' thought Eugene disgustedly; 'he'll live to be a hundred.' The back threaded its way unwearyingly through the Strand and Charing Cross, and down the now gas-lighted Piccadilly, towards the Park, unconscious of the tall shadow that, dogging it grimly, waited for a less crowded thoroughfare. So journeying, they neared Hyde Park corner, and the back wavered; a slight drizzling rain had begun to fall.
'It's a cab fare against the gloss of that hat,' thought Eugene; 'um! thought so; the fare has it,' for the back had turned into the Park, and was being borne swiftly along under an umbrella in the direction of Kensington. Eugene turned up his coat collar, and crossing over to the opposite side, drew slightly nearer to the chase. As he intended the opinion to be a strong one, he preferred to have a fair field and no favour, and waited his chance quietly, knowing his Uncle's usual route would lead him through a sufficiently deserted region.
To speak his mind!—A very empty satisfaction, but still, some sort of salve to the bitterness of his feelings.
A nursemaid and her charge pressing homewards in the dim distance were now the only people in sight, and Eugene was on the point of ranging alongside, when something white lying in the pathway where his Uncle had just passed caught his eye. Stooping, he picked it up, and stopped mechanically to examine the contents of the packet. The light was dim, and he read the heading words on the covering with difficulty: 'Seabright Trust.'
He rubbed his eyes, and read it again. No mistake about the words: 'Seabright Trust,' the Trust of which himself and his respected Uncle were, or rather had been, the co-trustees; he tore open the covering.
Quite so; documents of importance, notes, gold, dropped, undoubtedly dropped by his Uncle. A fierce joy leapt up in his heart; he took one look at the fast disappearing figure, then drew quickly back into the shelter of some trees, and turned again to the contents of the packet.
His co-trustee—well, not exactly, now—possibly it might have been better for that gentleman, he thought with a bitter sneer, if he were still so. Over this Trust he had come to grief, over this Trust that man—his co-trustee—had shown him no mercy, no saving grace, not even the grace of a two days' silence. Hard measure, hardly dealt, 'black sheep—black sheep'—that was all. Well, things square themselves: over this Trust the black sheep would be quits; the documents were most important; the bottom of the Serpentine was quite an admirable place for them.
What construction the law would put upon their disappearance, really—he reflected with a grim smile—he couldn't say; his Uncle would doubtless know; he knew the consequences of everything so accurately. The memory of that fourteen months in the dim world pressed like lead upon his brain; the revengeful Southern blood leaped in his veins, and he ground his teeth and laughed aloud. He hoped it might be held criminal negligence, the documents were so important; it was, moreover, quite unfortunate for his co-trustee that it was at all events indirectly to the latter's interest that they should cease to exist. This would be better than speaking his mind. He leapt a paling and looked about him for stones suitable to weld the canvas covering and its contents to their new abode. Let him think; there were also notes and gold, these most certainly, whatever else happened, that man would have to restore, therefore by taking them he robbed nobody.
'By God! What I take from him is my due; he has taken everything from me; shall there be no exchange?'
'The notes may go,' he thought, 'they're risky. I'll give society no more chances, but the gold will give me a fresh start. Uncle Stephen! Uncle Stephen! this isn't your day out, it's mine, and by heaven I'll make the most of it'
Now, in this matter, as he said when he told me of it afterwards, he acted with conviction; there was no struggle in him as to the right or the wrong of the thing—it was so plain—no single qualm of hesitation or regret tempered the seething delight in the coming revenge, only he was forced to stamp his feet and grind his teeth to get back a clear power of thinking to his whirling brain.
He filled the bag with scientific care, first taking out the roll of gold; then tying the strings, he leapt back across the paling. The nearest way to the Serpentine led him across the path where the packet had been dropped. As he crossed it he saw a figure approaching slowly through the dusk, from the direction in which his Uncle had disappeared; he shrank behind a tree and watched. If it should be that old shark, and he were seen—well—a blow neatly given secured the necessary amount of silence, and did no great harm.
'He's an old man, and I don't want to hurt him, but by heaven I won't be stopped—.'
The figure advanced very slowly, and Eugene watched it anxiously in the fast waning light. It seemed to move forwards down the path a few feet with a jerk, and then to stop suddenly. It was bent almost double, so that no glimpse of the face could be seen, but a curious, indistinct, shrill murmur like the 'goo-gooing' of a dumb man came down to Eugene's ears.
'What the devil is it?' he thought, and as if for answer, one intelligible word 'Trust' came in a half-scream through the chill evening air, and then the 'goo-gooing' began again. Suddenly, when only some few yards away, the figure straightened itself as if animated by a spring, and Eugene saw his Uncle.
The right arm hung stiffened at his side, the left gesticulated wildly, pointing down the path and then to his mouth, out of one side of which came that weird and curious mumbling. Eugene shuddered; whatever else, there could be no fear of this pitiable being—he stepped from behind the tree and moved forward.
The figure continued to advance, dragging itself painfully along—as it seemed the left leg alone moving—and the eyes fixed on Eugene's advancing form had an intense look of agonised appeal. There was no recognition in them, only an unasked question; the mouth mumbled, the man's left hand alternately pointed down the path, and clutched the breast of his overcoat. It seemed to Eugene that the piteous searching in the eyes must pierce the covering which his buttoned coat formed over the lost bag, and with an involuntary movement he threw it open. The figure staggered, and with an inarticulate cry thrust out its hand for the bag. Eugene drew back—he must have time to think. His Uncle, a dim look of recognition struggling through the film of agonised entreaty, crouched almost double again before him. The drizzling mist shrouded the rest of the world, and these two figures stood alone.
A thousand thoughts and feelings surged in the nephew's mind. Gratified revenge, reluctant pity, and a growing railing at the fates. In a whirl of disgust he found that the thing he had in his heart to do was no longer in his power. Why had he lingered that minute to gloat over his revenge? Why turned his head as he was taking his road to that revenge? A minute sooner, this miserable, crouching, smitten figure, with its dumb, despairing look, and its dumb, despairing voice, would not have been cringing in supplication before him. What had befallen the man, hale a few minutes before, did not trouble him; he was bitterly raging at the failure of his revenge, and disgusted with the stroke of fate which had caused it, tearing from him his fresh start in life.
'If I could,'—he swung the bag doubtfully in his hand, and felt the gold in his pocket; 'if I only could,—but I can't, and there's an end of it. The old brute—he's down, and I can't kick him.' All feeling of pity for the miserable object before him was swallowed up in an amazing regret. He even cursed the training which caused him to feel the impossibility of that kick.
'A good many of my late friends would have been on in this piece,' he thought bitterly, 'and glad of the chance.'
He plucked the bag from under his coat, and opening it, dropped the stones out one by one.
'I suppose this'll have to go back too,' he muttered, and replaced the gold, with a sigh of disgust. The stricken man's eyes gleamed, and he put out his left hand feebly. Eugene put the bag into it, but the grasp was uncertain, and it fell again to the ground. The shock of seemingly losing it a second time was too much for the disordered intellect, and in a dead swoon, Stephen Rattray fell stiffly forward on to his nephew's shoulder.
Eugene laid him on the ground, carefully buttoned the packet into the inner pocket of his Uncle's coat, and then drew himself away to think. He couldn't get a clear grasp of things with that hated figure touching his. Leaning apart against a tree, and looking down at the helpless form, he dealt grimly and despitefully in his heart with the feeling that troubled him; let it stand for want of better phrasing at 'common humanity.' He railed at it; he even took some steps of retreat; he reasoned with himself.
This man, when a nod of the head might have saved, had reduced him to the level of the brute beasts—what duty then lay upon him to act but upon that level? This man lay there, dependent on him for a chance perhaps of further life. Yes, but there had been a bitter hour, when their positions had been reversed, and the closing of that hour, with its depths of horror and degradation, its blotting out of all hope and life, was vividly before him. This, too, was an old man, at the end of things, and he had been a young man at the beginning—that was but an aggravation. As things now were he had done him no wrong, taken no revenge; the packet was found; it was even himself that had restored it: the stroke had come through a visitation of the fates, through no dealing of his.
He searched, and he failed to see any reason why he should lift a finger to give back life to this hulk. It was adding insult to injury indeed to expect him to carry his enemy perhaps a mile in search of help. Leave him here?—and get help?—he would certainly die before it came. No, either all or nothing; and it should be, by heaven, nothing!
He turned on his heel,—and straightway it came upon him that these things were not done. Just as impossible as kicking a fellow on the ground, or shooting an unarmed man.
'By Gad! the other thing's got to be done! When I've lived a few years in Borneo or some such place, I shall know better how to deal with you, my friend; in the meantime—' he lifted him, and with wearily slow steps bore him disgustedly in the direction of the Alexandria Gate.
Now that he had begun, he meant to see it through; and with many a halt, for his Uncle was a heavy man, he got him through the fast closing fog to the crossing of Rotten Row.
'I don't want any fuss,' he thought, as he put his burden down and paused for breath; 'can't afford to have it advertised that I played the good Samaritan. Evening paper paragraphs—"The Admirable Convict," "Rattray Repents," "Remarkable occurrence in connection with a scandal in high life, showing the beneficial influences of our prison system—Nephew and Uncle"—Good Lord!'
He wiped his brow, and propping his Uncle's motionless form against a rail, went in search of a cab. He found a four-wheeler at the gate of the Park, and drove back in it.
'Now, my friend, bear a hand,' he said to the driver; 'this gentleman's had a stroke; we must get him home at once. Double fare, and look sharp—it's the only chance.' He gave the astonished man the address, and between them they lifted the helpless form into the cab.
When they drew up at the house, Eugene leapt out and rang the bell.
'Hope it's Ashton,' he thought. The old butler, a man who had known him from his youth up, opened the door, and recoiled in blank astonishment when he saw who was there.
'Master Eugene!' he said.
'All right, Ashton, don't make a row. Look here, my Uncle's had a stroke; he's in that cab; I came across him in the Park walking home; better get him in-doors at once. And look here, Ashton,' he lifted his hat significantly, and said grimly, 'you know all about me, I suppose; well, see that my name doesn't come out in this business.'
He held out his hand to the old man.
'Thank you, sir,' said the butler, taking it, 'always proud to take your hand, sir, believe me. I'll make it all right,—say I picked him up myself, if necessary; you can depend on me, sir.'
'Thank you, Ashton,' said Eugene; 'and look here, give that chap a sovereign,' he pointed to the cabman waiting at the door, 'and lend me another, there's a good fellow.'
The butler pulled two sovereigns out of his pocket.
'Proud to be of any use to you, sir,' he said.
Eugene, with a choke in his throat, helped them carry his Uncle into the house; and as the door closed, turned to the cabman.
'You haven't earned that sovereign yet,' he said, handing him one, 'it's all right, but you've got to shut your head—d'ye see? Now go on to the docks, and drive like Hell.'
He sat back in the cab that rattled eastwards through the fog, and he ground his teeth.
'That's over; and the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I'd do it again,' he said between them; and with those words, Eugene Rattray disappeared from among his fellows, and the place thereof knew him no more.