XIX.
Gwinnan, upon recovering consciousness, showed no retrospective interest in the scene at the depot. He remarked imperatively to the physician whom he found in attendance that it was necessary for him to leave during the afternoon,—in fact, as soon as possible,—to hold court in a distant county. He added, for the instruction of the doctor, that the clerk could open court, and had no doubt done so on Monday and Tuesday, and would be obliged to repeat this on Wednesday, without the presence of the presiding judge, but Thursday was the last day for which the statute had provided the alternative. He evidently expected that if the physician had any flimsy objections he would withdraw them before this grave necessity, understanding that this was no time for the indulgence of professional whimseys.
There was something so arrogantly disregardful of any other claims upon his attention, so belittling of merely corporeal considerations, that the physician would have been a little less than medical had he been able to repress a certain sense of domination as he answered, “Well, that happened more than two weeks ago, judge, and I reckon court was adjourned over to the next term.”
Gwinnan became aware with a sort of amaze that the hands he lifted did not seem his own; that his head was light and giddy, or dully aching; that he was fretful and helpless; that no manner of respect was paid to his views. He was hardly pleased by the exchange of identity with this ill-adjusted, listless, forlorn being; the less when he finally grew able to stand upon his feet again, and was informed that for the next month or so he must do nothing but seek to interest and entertain the invalid, to see that he forbore to dwell on business, to seek to occupy his attention with passing events, to divert him with trifles.
It might have seemed even to others an arduous task to amuse with incidents a man whose every waking moment was occupied by principles. So completely had his rarefied, judicial ambition, his pride of office, his solicitous reverence of its dignity, attenuated his personality that he cared little for Gwinnan as a man; he respected him as a judge. He had held himself sedulously to his aspirations; as it were on his knees, he had served his vocation day and night. It was to him as essential an organic constituent of his being as the lungs; he could ill live without it, even for a time. Perhaps he might not have made the effort had not the physician warned him that he might never be fit for business, never again sit upon the bench, should he overexert himself now, before recovering from the effect of those terrible blows upon the skull. He became suddenly tractable, wistful, and turned mournfully to the search of light entertainment. He assented with a dreary docility to the prescription of a change of air and scene. He accepted without demur, with a dull sense of endurance, the plan briskly devised for him to spend a week or two in Nashville, and if he did not recuperate rapidly, to go thence South for the winter. He was not given to scanning his own mental poses and adjusting them to some theory of symmetry; he could but feel, however, as if he were already dead, stalking among scenes in which he had no interest, half-heartedly mingling with men whose every instinct was as far removed from the spirit that swayed him as if some essential condition of existence divided them. It was with a truly post-mortem indifference that he listened to the talk of his friends who sought him out during his stay in Nashville,—very interesting talk, doubtless, but purposeless, inefficacious; they cited neither case nor section. He preferred to sit alone and idle before the blazing coal fire in his own room,—expressionless with the stereotyped hotel furniture; now and then he roused himself, with a conscientious start, when he found his mind revolving like a moth around some scintilla juris which had a special attraction for him.
He had experienced a sense of reluctant relinquishment to find how the weeks had fled during his illness. Winter had advanced; the Cumberland River was full of floating ice; the town had the shrunken, deserted, torpid aspect common to every southern city when the snow is on the ground. No one was abroad without absolute necessity except the English sparrow, prosperous exile. In the hope of varying the tedium, one evening, Gwinnan sat down in one of the arm-chairs drawn close to the balustrade of the corridor overlooking the rotunda. It was a coigne of vantage from which all the life of the hotel was visible. Below, at the desk, the in-coming travelers were registering their names; the click of billiards was a cheerful incident of the atmosphere, with the rising of the fumes of many a cigar. On the opposite corridor the clatter of dishes could be heard from the dining-room, and occasionally there emerged gentlemen and toothpicks. The rumble of the elevator sounded ceaselessly, and now and then fluttering flounces issued from its door which was visible down a cross-hall.
Behind Gwinnan the great windows opened upon the snowy street. He could see the white roofs opposite gleam dimly against the nebulous sky. Carriage-lamps sometimes flashed past, yellow, lucent with jeweled effects. An electric light hard by flamed with a fibrous radiance, and empurpled the black night, and conjured circles, mystically white, far-reaching into the snow. The plate-glass gave a reflection of his long lank figure and the red velvet arm-chair, and of the innumerable children of the place, racing about, unrestrained, in white frocks, much bedizened. There was a dog among them, a poodle, in his white frock too, accoutered also with a sharp, shrill cry, and swiftly gamboling despite much fat. He had as independent an aspect as if he knew that all the legislators crowded into all the caucuses in the city could not compass a dog-law that would interfere with his pretty liberty, or place a tax on his frizzy head. The sovereign people would have none of it. And so the obnoxious law stands repealed, and the dog-star is in the ascendant. Now and then he came and sat at Gwinnan’s feet, with a lolling tongue and panting sides.
There had been a caucus in the reading-room of the hotel, and presently the doors opening upon the corridor began to disgorge knots of men, some of whom walked off together, others stood in discussion. Now and then one was seized by a lobbyist, lying in wait. Gwinnan was aware of Harshaw’s presence before he saw him: a liquid, gurgling, resonant laugh, and then the floater, accompanied by a colleague into whose arm he had hooked his own, came through the door. His hat was thrust on the back of his yellow head; he stroked his yellow beard with a gesture of self-satisfaction; his face was broad and animated, and pink with prosperity.
Fortune was favoring Mr. Harshaw, and few men have ever basked in her smiles so appreciatively. He had the reputation of being very influential in the House. His coöperation was eagerly sought. In truth, as a wire-puller he had developed marked dexterity, and there were precious few things that Mr. Harshaw could not accomplish in a caucus. He did a little “log-rolling,” but he was chary of the interchange of favors, carrying his point usually by persistence and pugnacity, and he possessed tremendous staying power as a debater. He had a certain barbaric delight in oppression; having become possessed of the opportunity, he used it often when neither he nor his constituents had anything to gain. He took advantage of his ascendency to pay off many old grudges, some of them of a purely arbitrary construction and æsthetic nature. He was in some sort aware that his colleagues were ashamed of his rough manners, his bullying, his coarse onslaughts, in which, being of the same political party, they were often constrained to appear as his supporters. He continually alluded to himself as if he were of peculiarly humble origin, representing himself as being of the People, from the People, and FOR the People, and forcing the conclusion that the other members from his region were bloated aristocrats. Nevertheless, whoever would go to the State Senate next session, it seemed safe to say that the demagogue had assured his own nomination; for merit had a fine chance to be modest, as behooves it, while Mr. Harshaw was shaping the future by manipulating the present.
And now suddenly he was not quite sure that he wanted the nomination. In these days, while he divided his time between the beautiful Capitol building and one of the hotels of the town, he meditated much upon Mink’s assault upon Judge Gwinnan in the depot of Glaston. Not in the interest of his client, however; even the most solicitous of counsel could not be expected to occupy his attention with the fate of the wayward Mink, who had passed beyond his aid. Mink’s deed did not in truth seem to Harshaw so very much amiss. Of course he recognized its iniquity, being one of those cognizable by the law, but he also perceived in it the finger of Providence,—laid somewhat heavily, it must be confessed, on Gwinnan. He speculated deeply, despite his other absorptions, on who would probably be elected to supply Gwinnan’s place, in case of the death of the wounded incumbent, and he reflected that he himself as a lawyer was highly esteemed in that circuit, for he had a large practice throughout the region, and that moreover, by a certain fortuitous circumstance, he was eligible for the position; although his law office was in Shaftesville, he lived on his farm which was several miles distant, just within the boundaries of Kildeer County, one of the judicial circuits over which Gwinnan presided. Apart from his repute at the bar, he was well known to the people at large through certain popular measures he had advocated. He devoted himself to these with renewed ardor. He never allowed himself to view with a vacillating mind any course, however obviously salutary, when he had once discovered with a keen instinct that it was unlikely to secure the approval of the masses. Nevertheless, he applied his tact with such success that this foregone conclusion was not readily apparent, and he was continually beset for his influence. He had a secret gratulation that he was held in special veneration by the lobbyists. He could ill maintain the aspect of unwilling captive, when he was waylaid and button-holed, and his attention eagerly entreated for certain measures. As an anxious-faced man, who had evidently been awaiting him, stepped forward now, glancing with a casual apology at his friend, who walked on, Harshaw’s reluctant pause, his frown, his important bored sufferance, were as fine histrionically as if he were playing at being a statesman on a stage,—which, indeed, he was.
He listened with a divided mind to the outpouring of the lobbyist, his opaque blue eyes fixed in seeming deliberation upon the chandelier hanging down into the rotunda below, his exceedingly red lips pursed up in a pucker of dubitation. Now and then he patted the toe of one boot on the floor meditatively. Occasionally he looked his interlocutor full in the face, asking a question, presumably a poser; then his triumphant, resonant, burly laugh would vibrate above the dancing of the over-dressed children, and the riotous barking of the dog, and the tinkling waltzes played by a band of musicians ranged about the fountain in the rotunda. His entertainment in his own self-importance and posings was so absorbing that the lobbyists and the advocates of many measures were often at a loss to know how best to reach Mr. Harshaw’s desire to serve his country; for he did not love money, and his integrity, as far as it was concerned, was above suspicion.
All at once genuine interest usurped these feignings on his face. His eye fell on Judge Gwinnan walking along the corridor, and leaning upon a stout cane. He looked very thin, very pale, taller than before, and somehow his face was more youthful with the wistfulness of illness upon it, his hair clipped close, and the eyes hollow and luminous. He moved slowly, and with little spirit.
Harshaw stepped briskly forward, with a curt “Excuse me” to the lobbyist, taking no reproach for leaving him with his mouth open, for it seemed his normal condition.
“Why, judge,” Harshaw exclaimed, with his bluff familiarity, “you look bloomin’!” He was about to stretch out his hand, but desisted, noticing that Gwinnan held his hat in one hand, and leaned upon his stick with the other. He took the judge by the elbow, as he walked a few steps with him. A dim image of the pair paced along in the plate-glass windows, as if their doubles were stalking without in the snow in scenes of which they were unconscious. “I had no idea you were pulling together so fast,” he continued, scanning the face which was almost spectral in its attenuation and pallor, in close contrast to his own fat floridity of countenance, his red lips, his gleaming white teeth, his mane of yellow hair, and his dense yellow beard. His wide, black soft hat stuck on the back of his head accented his high color. “But I declare, it’s worth while for a man to get hit over the head to find out how important he is, and how he is esteemed. I never knew more profound sympathy and indignation than the affair excited. As to myself, I felt it especially, as I had taken so much stock in that rascally client of mine.”
Gwinnan made no reply. His face was turned toward Harshaw with a certain unresponsiveness, an inscrutable questioning, a cadaverous gravity. His hollow eyes were very bright and large. Somehow they put Harshaw out of countenance. Something there was in their expression beyond his skill to decipher. He became a trifle embarrassed, and yet he could not have said why. He went on at random. He had observed that a number of people were remarking them. There was nothing uncommon in the peripatetic method that the interview had taken, but suddenly he found it odd that Gwinnan had not paused.
“That fellow, Mink Lorey, is a most extraordinary and unexpected kind of scamp,” Harshaw proceeded uneasily, making talk. “To my certain knowledge, he cared so little about the girl that he refused to see her when she came to visit him in jail. But the idea that another man admired her seemed to set him wild.”
Gwinnan stopped short.
“What girl?” he asked, in his soft, inexpressive drawl.
“The girl that testified,—Alethea Sayles,” said Harshaw, relieved that Gwinnan had spoken, and striving for his old bluff assurance, but still conscious that he had lost his tact. “She was pretty, very pretty indeed, and you were not alone in having the good taste to notice it. The rest of us didn’t have to pay for it with a broken head, though, eh, judge? Ha! ha!”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Mr. Harshaw,” said Gwinnan, leaning against one of the great pillars, the reflection in the plate-glass duplicating the posture on the snowy sidewalk, as if that other self, liberated and in isolated independence, busied in different scenes, now meditated, and now spoke and now lifted a fiery glance, “I will take this opportunity to tell you that I believe you to be an egregious liar, and I know you for an arrant hypocrite.”
“Sir!” cried Harshaw, starting back, tingling from the words as if they were blows. He made an instinctive gesture toward his pistol pocket; it was empty. He was acutely conscious of the spectators who pressed a little nearer, noticing the excitement.
Gwinnan’s voice had a singular carrying quality, and every deliberate, low-toned word was distinct.
“I repudiate your professions of friendship. I despise your protestations of sympathy. If your threats at the court-house door in Shaftesville had been earlier repeated to me, ludicrously impotent as they are, you should never have approached me again. Now,”—his voice broke suddenly, in his feebleness and excitement, and was thin and tremulous and shrill,—“keep out of my way, or I will beat you with this stick like a dog!”
Gwinnan had lifted the stick, and shook it threateningly in his trembling hand. Harshaw, with his own reasons for declining to give the first blow, could only shrink and wince in anticipation. The stick did not descend on him, however, for Gwinnan turned, and, leaning on it, made his way down the corridor among the wondering men, who slowly opened an aisle for him in their midst.