THE RETURNED EXILE.
Danger, long travel, want, or woe,
Soon change the form that best we know;
For deadly fear can time outgo,
And blanch at once the hair;
Hard time can roughen form and face,
And grief can quench the eyes' bright grace;
Nor does old age a wrinkle trace
More deeply than despair.
—Scott.
"Victor Hartman!" exclaimed Mr. Lyle, in a tone of astonishment and joy, as he sprang from his chair and grasped both the hands of the traveler and shook them heartily—"Victor Hartman! My dear friend, I am so delighted—and so surprised—to see you! Sit down—sit down!" he continued, dragging forward a chair and forcing his visitor into it. "But I never should have known you again," he concluded, gazing intently upon the bronzed, gray, tall, broad-shouldered man before him.
"I am much changed," answered the stranger, in a deep, mellifluous voice, that reminded the hearer of sweet, solemn church music.
"Changed! Why, you left us a mere stripling! You return to us a mature man. To all appearance, you might be the father of the boy who went away," said the minister, still gazing upon the stranger.
"And yet the time has not been long; though indeed I have lived much in that period," said the traveler, in the same rich, deep tone, and with a smile that rendered his worn face bright and handsome for the moment.
"Well, I am delighted to see you. But how is it that I have this joyful surprise?" inquired the minister.
"What brings me here, you would ask; and why did I not write and tell you that I was coming?" said Hartman, with an odd smile. "Well, I will explain. When I got your letter acknowledging the receipt of the last remittance I sent to you for my children, I learned for the first time by that same letter that my boy would graduate at this Commencement, and hoped to take the highest honors of his college. Well, a steamer was to sail at noon that very day. I thought I would like to be present at the Commencement and see my boy take his degree. I packed my trunk in an hour, embarked in the 'Porte d'Or' in another hour, and here I am."
"That was prompt. When did you arrive?"
"Our steamer reached New York on Thursday noon. I took the night train for Washington, where I arrived at five on Friday morning. I took the morning boat for Aquia Creek, and the train for Richmond and Charlottesville. I got here about noon."
"And you have not seen your protéges?"
"Yes, I have seen my boy pass the hotel twice to-day. I knew him by his likeness to his unfortunate father. But I did not make myself known to him. I do not intend to do so—at least not at present."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" echoed Hartman, sorrowfully. "Ah, would he not shrink from me in disgust and abhorrence?"
"No; not if he were told the awful injustice that has been done you."
"But if he were told, would he believe it? We have no proof that any injustice has been done me, except those anonymous letters and the word of that strange horseman who waylaid me on my tramp and thrust a bag of gold in my hands, with the words, 'You never intended to kill Henry Lytton, and you never killed him. Some one else intended to kill him, and some one else killed him.'"
"Have you ever heard anything more of that mysterious horseman?"
"Not one word."
"Have you no suspicion of his identity?"
"None, beyond the strong conviction that I feel that he himself was the homicide and the writer of the anonymous letters."
"Well, I can not tell you why, but I always felt persuaded of your innocence, even before the coming of those anonymous letters, and even while you were bitterly accusing yourself."
"You knew it from intuition—inward teaching."
"May I ask you, Hartman, why after you discovered that you had nothing to do with the death of Henry Lytton, you still determined to burden yourself with the support and education of his children—a duty that was first assumed by you as an atonement for an irreparable injury you supposed you had done them?"
"Why I still resolved to care for them after I learned that I had nothing to do with their great loss? Indeed I can not tell you. Perhaps—partly because I sympathized with them in a sorrow that was common to us all, in so far as we all suffered from the same cause; partly, I also think, because it was pleasant to have some one to live for and work for; partly because I was so grateful to find myself free from blood guiltiness that I wished to educate those children as a thank-offering to Heaven! It was also very pleasant to me to think of this boy at college and this girl at school, and to hope that some day they might come to look upon me with affection instead of with horror. And then I took so much pride in talking to my brother miners about my son at the University and my daughter at the Academy! And then, again, your letters—every one of them telling of the progress my children made and the credit they were doing me. I tell you, sir, all this was a great comfort to me, and made me feel at home in this strange, lonesome world," said the exile, warmly.
"Hartman, you have a noble soul! You must have made a very great pecuniary sacrifice for the sake of these young people," said the minister, earnestly.
"No, sir; no sacrifice at all. That was the strangest part of it; for it seemed to me the more I gave the more I had."
"How was that?"
"I don't know how it was, sir; but such was the fact. But I will tell you what I do know."
"Yes, tell me, Hartman."
"You may remember, Mr. Lyle, that when I told you I was going back to California I explained to you that I knew a place where I felt sure money was to be made."
"Yes, I remember."
"Well, sir, the place was a gully at the foot of a certain spur of the mountains, called the Red Cleft. Now, at that time I knew very little of geology. I know more now. Also, I had had but little experience in mining; and, moreover, whenever I mentioned Red Ridge I was simply laughed at by my mates. I was laughed out of giving the place a fair trial. But even after I left the Gold State the idea of the treasure hidden in the gully at the foot of Red Ridge haunted me day and night, something always prompting me to go back there and dig. Sir, it was intuition—inward teaching. When I went back to California I made for Red Ridge. Sir, when I first went to Red Ridge I dug there eight weeks without finding gold. That was the time my mates laughed at me. When I next went back—the time I now speak of—I worked four hours and then struck—struck one of the best paying mines in the Gold State. It is worked by a company now, but I have half of all the shares."
"You have been wonderfully blessed and prospered, Hartman."
"Yes," said the traveler, reverently bowing his head; "for their sakes, I have."
"And for your own, I trust, Hartman."
"Mr. Lyle—"
"Well, Hartman."
"May I ask you a favor?"
"Certainly you may."
"You addressed all your letters to me under the name of Joseph Brent."
"Yes, certainly—at your request."
"Continue, then, to call me Joseph Brent. That name is mine by act of legislature."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, and I have a still better claim. It was the name of my grandfather—my mother's father. It was also the name of his eldest son, my uncle, who died recently a bachelor, in the State of Missouri, and left me his farm there, on condition that I should take his name. I was more anxious to have his name than his estate. So I applied to the legislature, and the name that I had borrowed so long became my own of right."
"So I am to introduce you to my young friends as Mr. Joseph Brent?"
"Yes, if you please. Let the name of poor Victor Hartman sink quietly into the grave. And do not let them know that I was Victor Hartman, or that Joseph Brent was ever their benefactor," said the exile, gravely.
"I will keep your counsel so long as you require me to do so, hoping that the time may speedily come when all shall be made as clear to these young people as it is to me."
"Now when will you introduce me to my children?"
"To-morrow, after the ceremonies are concluded. But, my friend, it is a little strange to hear you call these grown-up young people your children, when you yourself can be but little older than the young man."
"In years, yes. But in long experience, suffering, thought, how much older I am than he is! You yourself said that, to all outward appearance, I might be the father of the boy who went away two years ago."
"Yes, for you are very much changed—not only in your person, but in dress and address."
"You mean that I speak a little more correctly than I used to do? Well, sir, in these two years all the time that was not spent in work was spent in study. Or, rather, as study was to me the hardest sort of work, it would be most accurate to say all the time not spent by me in manual was spent in mental labor. I had had a good public-school education in my boyhood. I wished to recover all I had lost, and to add to it. You see, Mr. Lyle, I did not want my boy and girl to be ashamed of me when, if ever, we should meet as friends," said Hartman, with his old smile.
"That they could never be. Any other than grateful and affectionate they could never be to you—if I know them."
"I believe that too. I believe my children will love me when they understand all."
"Be sure they will. But, Hartman—by the way, I like the name of Hartman, and I hope you will let me use it when we are alone, on condition that I promise never to use it when we are in company."
"As you please, Mr. Lyle."
"Then, Hartman, I was about to say that when I hear you speak of Henry Lytton's son and daughter as your boy and girl, the wonder comes over me as to whether you never think of marriage—of a wife and children of your own."
"Mr. Lyle, since my mother went away to heaven I have never felt any interest in any woman on earth. I have been interested in some girls, but they happened to be children: and I could count them with the fingers of one hand and have a finger or two left over. Let me see," said Hartman, with his odd smile. "First there was Sal's Kid."
"Sal's Kid?" echoed the minister, who had never heard the name before, but thought it a very eccentric one.
"Yes, Sal's Kid—a wild-eyed, elf-locked, olive-skinned little imp, nameless, but nicknamed Sal's Kid, who lived in a gutter called Rat Alley, down by the water-side in New York. I used to be fond of the child when I was cook's galley-boy, and our ship was in port there. I haven't seen her for ten years, yet I've never forgotten her. And I would give a great deal to know whatever became of Sal's Kid. Probably she has gone the way of the rest. They were all beggars, thieves, or worse," added Hartman, with a deep sigh.
"And the next?" inquired the minister, with a wish to recall his visitor from sorrowful thoughts.
"The next girl that interested me," continued Hartman, looking up with a bright smile, as at the recollection of some celestial vision, "was as different from this one as the purest diamond from a lump of charcoal. She was a radiant blonde, with golden hair and sapphire eyes and a blooming complexion. In the darkest hour of my life she appeared to me a heavenly messenger! They were leading me from the Court House to the jail, after my sentence. I was passing amid the hooting crowd, bowed down with despair, when this fair vision beamed upon me and dispersed the furies. She looked at me with heavenly pity in her eyes. She spoke to me and told me to pray, and said that she too would pray for me. At her look and voice the jeering crowd fell back in silence. I thought of that picture of Doré's where the celestial visitant dispersed the fiends. I have never, never seen her since."
"And you do not know who she was?"
"Her companions called her 'Emma.' That is all I know."
"The third girl in whom you became interested?"
"Is my child Laura Lytton, whom I have never seen. During the weeks I was in Mr. Lytton's law office I never once beheld his son or daughter."
"Then personally you are a stranger to both?"
"Yes, personally I am a stranger to both. But to-morrow I hope to know them, although I can not be perfectly made known to them. Remember, Mr. Lyle, I do not wish them to know that I was ever Victor Hartman, or that Joseph Brent was ever their benefactor."
"I will remember your caution. But I will hope, as I said before, for the time when they shall know and esteem you as I know and esteem you."
"Your confidence in me has been, and is, one of my greatest earthly supports," said Hartman, earnestly, as he arose to bid his friend good-night.
Long after his visitor had left him, Mr. Lyle sat at his window in an attitude of deep thought.
The unexpected meeting with Victor Hartman had deprived him of all power or wish to sleep.
He sat at the window watching the crowd that thronged the village streets with his outward eyes, but reviewing all the past with his inner vision. It was long after midnight before he retired.