XIII—3 A.M. of February 17, 1909
Miss Koehler (at the bedside, distressed and pale): “He must have died some time between one and two, doctor. I left him at one o’clock, comfortable as I could make him. He said he was feeling as well as could be expected. He’s been very weak during the last few days, taking only a little gruel. Between half past one and two I thought I heard a noise, and came to see. He was lying just as you see here, except that his hands were up to his throat, as if it were hurting or choking him. I put them down for fear they would stiffen that way. In trying to call one of the other nurses just now, I found that the bell was out of order, although I know it was all right when I left, because he always made me try it. So he may have tried to ring.”
Dr. Major (turning the head and examining the throat): “It looks as if he had clutched at his throat rather tightly this time, I must say. Here is the mark of his thumb on this side and of his four fingers on the other. Rather deep for the little strength he had. Odd that he should have imagined that some one else was trying to choke him, when he was always pressing at his own neck! Throat tuberculosis is very painful at times. That would explain the desire to clutch at his throat.”
Miss Liggett: “He was always believing that an evil spirit was trying to choke him, doctor.”
Dr. Major: “Yes, I know—association of ideas. Dr. Scain and I agree as to that. He had a bad case of chronic tuberculosis of the throat, with accompanying malnutrition, due to the effect of the throat on the stomach; and his notion about evil spirits pursuing him and trying to choke him was simply due to an innate tendency on the part of the subconscious mind to join things together—any notion, say, with any pain. If he had had a diseased leg, he would have imagined that evil spirits were attempting to saw it off, or something like that. In the same way the condition of his throat affected his stomach, and he imagined that the spirits were doing something to his food. Make out a certificate showing acute tuberculosis of the esophagus as the cause, with delusions of persecution as his mental condition. While I am here we may as well look in on Mr. Baff.”
III
CHAINS
As Garrison left his last business conference in K——, where the tall buildings, and the amazing crowds always seemed such a commentary on the power and force and wealth of America and the world, and was on his way to the railway station to take a train for G——, his home city, his thoughts turned with peculiar emphasis and hope, if not actual pleasure—and yet it was a pleasure, of a sad, distressed kind—to Idelle. Where was she now? What was she doing at this particular moment? It was after four of a gray November afternoon, just the time, as he well knew, winter or summer, when she so much preferred to be glowing at an afternoon reception, a “thé dansant,” or a hotel grill where there was dancing, and always, as he well knew, in company with those vivid young “sports” or pleasure lovers of the town who were always following her. Idelle, to do her no injustice, had about her that something, even after three years of marriage, that drew them, some of the worst or best—mainly the worst, he thought at times—of those who made his home city, the great far-flung G——, interesting and in the forefront socially and in every other way.
What a girl! What a history! And how strange that he should have been attracted to her at all, he with his forty-eight years, his superior (oh, very much!) social position, his conservative friends and equally conservative manners. Idelle was so different, so hoyden, almost coarse, in her ways at times, actually gross and vulgar (derived from her French tanner father, no doubt, not her sweet, retiring Polish mother), and yet how attractive, too, in so many ways, with that rich russet-brown-gold hair of hers, her brown-black eyes, almost pupil-less, the iris and pupil being of the same color, and that trig, vigorous figure, always tailored in the smartest way! She was a paragon—to him at least—or had been to begin with.
How tingling and dusty these streets of K—— were, so vital always! How sharply the taxis of this mid-Western city turned corners!
But what a period he had endured since he had married her, three years before! What tortures, what despairs! If only he could make over Idelle to suit him! But what a wonderful thing that destroying something called beauty was, especially to one, like himself, who found life tiresome in so many ways—something to possess, a showpiece against the certain inroads of time, something wherewith to arouse envy in other persons.
At last they were reaching the station!
She did not deserve that he should love her. It was the most unfortunate thing for him that he did, but how could he help it now? How overcome it? How punish her for her misdeeds to him without punishing himself more? Love was such an inscrutable thing; so often one lavished it where it was not even wanted. God, he could testify to that! He was a fine example, really. She cared about as much for him as she did for the lamp-post on the corner, or an old discarded pair of shoes. And yet— He was never tired of looking at her, for one thing, of thinking of her ways, her moods, her secrets. She had not done and was not doing as she should—it was impossible, he was beginning to suspect, for her so to do—and still—
He must stop and send her a telegram before the train left!
What a pleasure it was, indeed, anywhere and at all times, to have her hanging on his arm, to walk into a restaurant or drawing-room and to know that of all those present none had a more attractive wife than he, not one. For all Idelle’s commonplace birth and lack of position to begin with, she was the smartest, the best dressed, the most alluring, by far—at least, he thought so—of all the set in which he had placed her. Those eyes! That hair! That graceful figure, always so smartly arrayed! To be sure, she was a little young for him. Their figures side by side were somewhat incongruous—he with his dignity and years and almost military bearing, as so many told him, she with that air of extreme youthfulness and lure which always brought so many of the younger set to her side wherever they happened to be. Only there was the other galling thought: That she did not wholly belong to him and never had. She was too interested in other men, and always had been. Her youth, that wretched past of hers, had been little more than a lurid streak of bad, even evil—yes, evil—conduct. She had, to tell the truth, been a vile girl, sensuous, selfish, inconsiderate, unrepentant, and was still, and yet he had married her in spite of all that, knowing it, really. Only at first he had not known quite all.
“Yes, all three of these! And wait till I get my sleeper ticket!”
No wonder people had talked, though. He had heard it—that she had married him for his money, position, that he was too old, that it was a scandal, etc. Well, maybe it was. But he had been fond of her—terribly so—and she of him, or seemingly, at first. Yes, she must have been—her manner, her enthusiasm, if temporary, for him! Those happy, happy first days they spent together! Her quiet assumption of the rôle of hostess in Sicard Avenue at first, her manner of receiving and living up to her duties! It was wonderful, so promising. Yes, there was no doubt of it; she must have cared for him a little at first. Her brain, too, required a man of his years to understand—some phases of her moods and ideas, and as for him—well, he was as crazy about her then as now—more so, if anything—or was he? Wasn’t she just as wonderful to him now as she had been then? Truly. Yes, love or infatuation of this kind was a terrible thing, so impossible to overcome.
“Car three, section seven!”
Would he ever forget the night he had first seen her being carried into the Insull General on that canvas ambulance stretcher, her temple bruised, one arm broken and internal injuries for which she had to be operated on at once—a torn diaphragm, for one thing—and of how she had instantly fascinated him? Her hair was loose and had fallen over one shoulder, her hands limp. Those hands! That picture! He had been visiting his old friend Dr. Dorsey and had wondered who she was, how she came to be in such a dreadful accident and thought her so beautiful. Think of how her beauty might have been marred, only it wasn’t, thank goodness!
His telegram should be delivered in one hour, at most—that would reach her in time!
Then and there he had decided that he must know her if she did not die, that perhaps she might like him as he did her, on the instant; had actually suffered tortures for fear she would not! Think of that! Love at first sight for him—and for one who had since caused him so much suffering—and in her condition, torn and bruised and near to death! It was wonderful, wasn’t it?
How stuffy these trains were when one first entered them—coal smoky!
And that operation! What a solemn thing it was, really, with only himself, the doctor and three nurses in the empty operating room that night. Dorsey was so tall, so solemn, but always so courageous. He had asked if he might not be present, although he did not know her, and because there were no relatives about to bar him from the room, no one to look after her or to tell who she was, the accident having occurred after midnight in the suburbs, he had been allowed by Dorsey to come in.
“Yes, put them down here!”
He had pulled on a white slip over his business suit, and clean white cotton gloves on his hands, and had then been allowed to come into the observation gallery while Dorsey, assisted by the hospital staff, had operated. He saw her cut open—the blood—heard her groan heavily under ether! And all the time wondering who she was. Her history. And pitying her, too! Fearing she might not come to! How the memory of her pretty shrewd face, hidden under bandages and a gas cone, had haunted him!
The train on this other track, its windows all polished, its dining-car tables set and its lamps already glowing!
That was another of those fool dreams of his—of love and happiness, that had tortured him so of late. From the first, almost without quite knowing it, he had been bewitched, stricken with this fever, and could not possibly think of her dying. And afterward, with her broken arm set and her torn diaphragm mended, he had followed her into the private room which he had ordered and had charged to himself (Dorsey must have thought it queer!) and then had waited so restlessly at his club until the next morning, when, standing beside her bed, he had said: “You don’t know me, but my name is Garrison—Upham Brainerd Garrison. Perhaps you know of our family here in G——, the Willard Garrisons. I saw you brought in last night. I want to be of service to you if I may, to notify your friends, and be of any other use that I can. May I?”
How well he remembered saying that, formulating it all beforehand, and then being so delighted when she accepted his services with a peculiar, quizzical smile—that odd, evasive glance of hers!
Men struck car wheels this way, no doubt, in order to see that they were not broken, liable to fly to pieces when the train was running fast and so destroy the lives of all!
And then she had given him her address—her mother’s, rather, to whom he went at once, bringing her back with him. And so glad he was to know that there was only her mother, no husband or— And the flowers he had sent. And the fruit. And the gifts generally, everything he thought she might like! And then that queer friendship with Idelle afterwards, his quickly realized dream of bliss when she had let him call on her daily, not telling him anything of herself, of course, evading him rather, and letting him think what he would, but tolerating him! Yes, she had played her game fair enough, no doubt, only he was so eager to believe that everything was going to be perfect with them—smooth, easy, lasting, bliss always. What a fool of love he really was!
What a disgusting fat woman coming in with all her bags! Would this train never start?
At that time—how sharply it had all burned itself into his memory!—he had found her living as a young widow with her baby daughter at her mother’s, only she wasn’t a widow really. It was all make-believe. Already she had proved a riant scoffer at the conventions, a wastrel, only then he did not know that. Where he thought he was making an impression on a fairly unsophisticated girl, or at least one not roughly used by the world, in reality he was merely a new sensation to her, an incident, a convenience, something to lift her out of a mood or a dilemma in which she found herself. Although he did not know it then, one of two quarreling men had just attempted to kill her via that automobile accident and she had been wishing peace, escape from her own thoughts and the attentions of her two ardent wooers, for the time being, at the time he met her. But apart from these, even, there were others, or had been before them, a long line apparently of almost disgusting—but no, he could not say quite that—creatures with whom she had been—well, why say it? And he had fancied for the moment that he was the big event in her life—or might be! He!
But even so, what difference did all that make either, if only she would love him now? What would he care who or what she was, or what she had done before, if only she really cared for him as much as he cared for her—or half as much—or even a minute portion! But Idelle could never care for any one really, or at least not for him, or him alone, anyway. She was too restless, too fond of variety in life. Had she not, since the first six or seven months in which she had known and married him, little more than tolerated him? She did not really need to care for anybody; they all cared for her, sought her.
At last they were going!
Too many men of station and means—younger than himself, as rich or richer, far more clever and fascinating in every way than he would ever be (or she would think so because she really liked a gayer, smarter type than he had ever been or ever could be now)—vied with him for her interest, and had with each other before ever he came on the scene. She was, in her queer way, a child of fortune, a genius of passion and desire, really. Life would use her well for some time yet, whatever she did to him or any other person, or whatever he sought to do to her in revenge, if he ever did, because she was interesting and desirable. Why attempt to deny that? She was far too attractive yet, too clever, too errant, too indifferent, too spiritually free, to be neglected by any one yet, let alone by such seeking, avid, pleasure lovers as always followed her. And because she wouldn’t allow him to interfere (that was the basis on which she had agreed to marry him, her personal freedom) she had always been able to go and do and be what she chose, nearly, just as she was going and doing now.
These wide yards and that ruck of shabby yellow-and-black houses, begrimed and dirty externally, and internally no doubt, with souls in them nearly as drab, perhaps. How much better it was to be rich like himself and Idelle; only she valued her station so lightly!
Always, wherever he went these days, and his affairs prevented him from being with her very much, she was in his mind—what she was doing, where she was going, with whom she might be now—ah, the sickening thought, with whom she might be now, and where—with that young waster Keene, possibly, with his millions, his shooting preserve and his yacht; or Browne, equally young and still in evidence, though deserted by her to marry him, Garrison; or Coulstone, with whom Idelle had had that highly offensive affair in Pittsburgh five years before, when she was only eighteen. Eighteen! The wonder year! He, too, was here in G—— now after all these years, this same Coulstone, and after Idelle had left him once! Yes, he was hanging about her again, wanting her to come back and marry him, although each of them had remarried!
That flock of crows flying across that distant field!
Of course, Idelle laughed at it, or pretended to. She pretended to be faithful to him, to tell him all this was unavoidable gossip, the aftermath of a disturbing past, before ever she saw him. But could he believe her? Was she not really planning so to do—leave him and return to Coulstone, this time legally? How could he tell? But think of the vagaries of human nature and character, the conniving and persuasive power of a man of wealth like Coulstone. He had left his great business in Pittsburgh to come here to G—— in order to be near her and annoy him (Garrison) really—not her, perhaps—with his pleas and crazy fascination and adoration when she was now safely and apparently happily married! Think of the strangeness, the shame, the peculiarity of Idelle’s earlier life! And she still insisted that this sort of thing was worth while! All his own station and wealth and adoration were not enough—because he could not be eight or ten people at once, no doubt. But why should he worry? Why not let her go? To the devil with her, anyhow! She merely pretended to love him in her idle, wanton spirit, because she could—well, because she could play at youth and love!
Barkersburg—a place of 30,000, and the train not stopping! The sun, breaking through for just one peep at this gray day, under those trees!
The trouble with his life, as Garrison now saw it, was that throughout it for the last twenty years, and before that even, in spite of his youth and money, he had been craving the favor of just such a young, gay, vigorous, attractive creature as Idelle or Jessica—she of his earlier years—and not realizing it, until he met Idelle, his desire. And this, of course, had placed him at a disadvantage in dealing with women like them. Years before—all of fourteen now, think of it!—there had been that affair between himself and Jessica, daughter of the rich and fashionable Balloghs, of Lexington, which had ended so disastrously for him. He had been out there on Colonel Ledgebrook’s estate attending to some property which belonged to his father when she had crossed his path at the colonel’s house, that great estate in Bourbon County. Then, for the first time really, he had realized the delight of having a truly beautiful girl interested in him, and him alone, of being really attracted to him—for a little while. It was wonderful.
The smothered clang of that crossing bell!
But also what a failure! How painful to hark back to that, and yet how could he avoid it? Although it had seemed to end so favorably—he having been able to win and marry her—still in reality it had ended most disastrously, she having eventually left him as she did. Jessica, too, was like Idelle in so many ways, as young, as gay, nearly as forceful, not as pretty, and not with Idelle’s brains. You had to admit that in connection with Idelle. She had more brains, force, self-reliance, intuition, than most women he knew anything about, young or old.
But to return to Jessica. At first she seemed to think he was wonderful, a man of the world, clever, witty, a lover of light, frivolous, foolish things, such as dancing, drinking, talking idle nonsense, which he was not at all. Yes, that was where he had always failed, apparently, and always would. He had no flair, and clever women craved that.
That flock of pigeons on that barn roof!
At bottom really he had always been slow, romantic, philosophic, meditative, while trying in the main to appear something else, whereas these other men, those who were so successful with women at least, were hard and gay and quick and thoughtless, or so he thought. They said and did things more by instinct than he ever could, were successful—well, just because they were what they were. You couldn’t do those things by just trying to. And gay, pretty, fascinating women, such as Idelle or Jessica, the really worthwhile ones, seemed to realize this instinctively and to like that kind and no other. When they found a sober and reflective man like himself, or one even inclined to be, they drew away from him. Yes, they did; not consciously always, but just instinctively. They wanted only men who tingled and sparkled and glittered like themselves. To think that love must always go by blind instinct instead of merit—genuine, adoring passion!
This must be Phillipsburg coming into view! He couldn’t mistake that high, round water tower!
Ah, the tragedy of seeing and knowing this and not being able to remedy it, of not being able to make oneself over into something like that! Somehow, Jessica had been betrayed by his bog-fire resemblance to the thing which she took him to be. He was a bog fire and nothing more, in so far as she was concerned, all she thought he was. Yet because he was so hungry, no doubt, for a woman of her type he had pretended that he was “the real thing,” as she so liked to describe a gay character, a man of habits, bad or good, as you choose; one who liked to gamble, shoot, race, and do a lot of things which he really did not care for at all, but which the crowd or group with which he was always finding himself, or with whom he hoped to appear as somebody, was always doing and liking.
These poor countrymen, always loitering about their village stations!
And the women they ran with were just like them, like Jessica, like Idelle—smart, showy and liked that sort of man—and so—
Well, he had pretended to be all that and more, when she (Jessica) had appeared out of that gay group, petite, blonde (Idelle was darker), vivacious, drawn to him by his seeming reality as a man of the world and a gay cavalier. She had actually fallen in love with him at sight, as it were, or seemed to be at the time—she!—and then, see what had happened! Those awful months in G—— after she had returned with him! The agonies of mind and body!
If only that stout traveling man in that gray suit would cease staring at him! It must be the horn-rimmed glasses he had on which interested him so! These mid-Western people!
Instantly almost, only a few weeks after they were married, she seemed to realize that she had made a mistake. It seemed not to make the slightest difference to her, after the first week or so, that they were married or that he was infatuated with her or that he was who he was or that her every move and thought were beautiful to him. On the contrary, it seemed only to irritate her all the more. She seemed to sense then—not before—that he was really the one man not suited to her by temperament or taste or ideas, not the kind she imagined she was getting, and from then on there were the most terrible days, terrible—
That pretty girl turning in at that village gate!
Trying, depressing, degrading really. What dark frowns used to flash across her face like clouds at that time—she was nineteen to his twenty-four, and so pretty!—the realization, perhaps, that she had made a mistake. What she really wanted was the gay, anachronistic, unthinking, energetic person he had seemed to be under the stress of the life at Ledgebrook’s, not the quiet, reasoning, dreamy person he really was. It was terrible!
Tall trees made such shadowy aisles at evening!
Finally she had run away, disappeared completely one morning after telling him she was going shopping, and then never seeing him any more—ever—not even once! A telegram from Harrisburg had told him that she was going to her mother’s and for him not to follow her, please; and then before he could make up his mind really what to do had come that old wolf Caldwell, the famous divorce lawyer of G——, representing her mother, no doubt, and in smooth, ingratiating, persuasive tones had talked about the immense folly of attempting to adjust natural human antipathies, the sadness of all human inharmonies, the value of quiet in all attempts at separation, the need he had to look after his own social prestige in G——, and the like, until finally Caldwell had persuaded him to accept a decree of desertion in some Western state in silence and let her go out of his life forever! Think of that!
The first call for dinner! Perhaps he had better go at once and have it over with! He wanted to retire early to-night!
But Jessica—how she had haunted him for years after that! The whole city seemed to suggest her at times, even after he heard that she was married again and the mother of two children, so strong was the feeling for anything one lost. Even to this day certain corners in G——, the Brandingham, where they had lived temporarily at first; Mme. Gateley’s dressmaking establishment, where she had had her gowns made, and the Tussockville entrance to the park—always touched and hurt him like some old, dear, poignant melody.
How this train lurched as one walked! The crashing couplings between these cars!
And then, after all these busy, sobering years, in which he had found out that there were some things he was not and could not be—a gay, animal man of the town, for instance, a “blood,” a waster; and some things that he was—a fairly capable financial and commercial man, a lover of literature of sorts, and of horses, a genial and acceptable person in many walks of society—had come Idelle.
Think of the dining-car being crowded thus early! And such people!
He was just settling down to a semi-resigned acceptance of himself as an affectional, emotional failure in so far as women were concerned, when she had come—Idelle—this latest storm which had troubled him so much. Idelle had brains, beauty, force, insight—more than Jessica ever had had, or was he just older?—and that was what made her so attractive to men, so indifferent to women, so ready to leave him to do all the worshiping. She could understand him, apparently, at his time of life, with his sober and in some ways sad experiences, and sympathize with him most tenderly when she chose, and yet, strangely enough, she could ignore him also and be hard, cruel, indifferent. The way she could neglect him at times—go her own way! God!
Not a bad seat, only now it was too dark to see anything outside! These heavy forks!
But to return to that dreadful pagan youth of hers, almost half-savage: take that boy who shot himself at the age of sixteen for love of her, and all because she would not run away with him, not caring for him at all, as she said, or she would have gone! What a sad case that was, as she had told it, at least. The boy’s father had come and denounced her to her parents in her own home, according to her, and still she denied that it had been her fault. And those other two youths, one of whom had embezzled $10,000 and spent it on her and several other boys and girls! And that other one who had stolen five hundred in small sums from his father’s till and safe and then wasted it on her and her companions at country inns until he was caught! Those country clubs! Those little rivers she described, with their canoes—the automobiles of these youths—the dancing, eating, drinking life under the moon in the warmth of spring and summer under the trees! And he had never had anything like that, never! When one of the boys, being caught, complained of her to his parents as the cause of his evil ways she had denied it, or so she said, and did still to this day, saying she really did not know he was stealing the money and calling him coward or cry-baby. Idelle told him of this several years ago as though it had some humorous aspects, as possibly it had, to her—who knows? but with some remorse, too, for she was not wholly indifferent to the plight of these youths, although she contended that what she had given them of her time and youth and beauty was ample compensation. Yes, she was a bad woman, really, or had been—a bad girl, say what one would, a child of original evil impulse. One could not deny that really. But what fascination also, even yet, and then no doubt—terrible! He could understand the actions of those youths, their recklessness. There was something about sheer beauty, evil though it might be, which overcame moral prejudices or scruples. It had done so in his case, or why was he living with her? And so why not in theirs?
How annoying to have a train stop in a station while you were eating!
Beauty, beauty, beauty! How could one gainsay the charm or avoid the lure of it? Not he, for one. Trig, beautiful women, who carried themselves with an air and swing and suggested by their every movement passion, alertness, gayety of mind! The church bells might ring and millions of religionists preach of a life hereafter with a fixed table of rewards and punishments, but what did any one know of the future, anyhow? Nothing! Exactly nothing, in spite of all the churches. Life appeared and disappeared again; a green door opened and out you went, via a train wreck, for instance, on a night like this. All these farmers here tilling their fields and making their little homes and towns—where would they be in forty or fifty years, with all their moralities? No, here and now was life, here and now beauty—here and now Idelle, or creatures like her and Jessica.
He would pay his bill and go into the smoker for a change. It would be pleasant to sit there until his berth was made up.
Then, take that affair of the banker’s son, young Gratiot it was, whom he knew well even now here in G——, only Gratiot did not know that he knew—or did he? Perhaps he was still friendly with Idelle, although she denied it. You could never really believe her. He it was, according to her, who had captured her fancy with his fine airs and money and car when she was only seventeen, and then robbed her (or could you call it robbery in Idelle’s case, seeking, restless creature that she was?) of her indifferent innocence. No robbery there, surely, whatever she might say.
Those fascinating coke ovens blazing in the dark beside the track, mile after mile!
Somehow her telling him these things at first, or rather shortly after they were married and when she was going to make a clean breast of everything and lead a better life, had thrown a wonderful glamour over her past.
“Gay Stories”! What a name for a magazine! And that stout old traveling man reading it!
What a strange thing it was to be a girl like that—with passions and illusions like that! Perhaps, after all, life only came to those who sought it with great strength and natural gifts. But how hard it was on those who hadn’t anything of that kind! Nevertheless, people should get over the follies of their youth—Idelle should, anyhow. She had had enough, goodness knows. She had been one of the worst—hectic, vastly excited about life, irresponsible—and she should have sobered by now. Why not? Look at all he had to offer her! Was that not enough to effect a change? While it made her interesting at times, this left-over enthusiasm, still it was so ridiculous, and made her non-desirable, too, either as wife or mother. Yet no doubt that was what had made her so fascinating to him, too, at this late day and to all those other men in B—— and elsewhere—that blazing youthfulness. Strange as it might seem, he could condone Idelle’s dreadful deeds even now, just as her mother could, if she would only behave herself, if she would only love him and him alone—but would she? She seemed so determined to bend everything to her service, regardless,—to yield nothing to him.
No use! He couldn’t stand these traveling men in this smoking room! He must have the porter make up his berth!
And then had come Coulstone, the one who was still hanging about her now, the one with whom she had had that dreadful affair in Pittsburgh, the affair that always depressed him to think about even now. Of course, there was one thing to be said in extenuation of that, if you could say anything at all—which you couldn’t really—and that was that Idelle was no longer a good girl then, but experienced and with all her blazing disposition aroused. She had captured the reins of her life then and was doing as she pleased—only why couldn’t he have met her then instead of Coulstone? He was alive then. And his own life had always been so empty. When she had confessed so much of all this to him afterward—not this Coulstone affair exactly, but the other things—why hadn’t he left her then? He might have and saved himself all this agony—or could he have then? He was twice her age when he married her and knew better, only he thought he could reform her—or did he? Was that the true reason? Could he admit the true reason to himself?
“Yes, make it up right away, if you will!” Now he would have to wait about and be bored!
But to come back to the story of Coulstone and all that hectic life in Pittsburgh. Coulstone, it seems, had been one of four or five very wealthy young managing vice-presidents of the Iverson-Centelever Frog and Switch Company, of Pittsburgh. And Idelle, because her father had suddenly died after her affair with young Gratiot, never knowing a thing about it, and her mother, not knowing quite what to do with her, had (because Idelle seemed to wish it) sent her to stay with an aunt in Pittsburgh. But the aunt having to leave for a time shortly after Idelle reached there, a girl friend had, at Idelle’s instigation, apparently, suggested that she stay with her until the aunt’s return, and Idelle had then persuaded her mother to agree to that.
That tall, lanky girl having to sleep in that upper berth opposite! European sleeping cars were so much better!
Her girl friend was evidently something like Idelle, or even worse. At any rate, Idelle appeared to have been able to wind her around her finger. For through her she had found some method of being introduced to (or letting them introduce themselves) a few of these smart new-rich men of the town, among them two of these same vice-presidents, one of whom was Coulstone. According to Idelle, he was a lavish and even reckless spender, wanting it to appear generally that he could do anything and have anything that money could buy, and liking to be seen in as many as a dozen public places in one afternoon or evening, especially at week-ends, only there weren’t so many in Pittsburgh at the time.
This must be Centerfield, the state capital of E——, they were now passing without a pause! These expresses cut through so many large cities!
From the first, so Idelle said, he had made violent love to her, though he was already married (unhappily, of course), and she, caring nothing for the conventions and not being of the kind that obeys any laws (wilful, passionate, reckless), had received him probably in exactly the spirit in which he approached her, if not more so. That was the worst of her, her constant, wilful, pagan pursuit of pleasure, regardless of anybody or anything, and it still held her in spite of him. There was something revolting about the sheer animality of it, that rushing together of two people, regardless. Still, if it had been himself and Idelle now—
How fortunate that he had been able to obtain a section! At least he would have air!
There had been a wild season, according to her own admissions or boastings—he could never quite tell which—extending over six or seven months, during which time Idelle had pretended to her mother, so she said, to prefer to live with her girl friend rather than return home. She had had, according to her, her machine, her servants, clothes without end, and what-not—a dream-world of luxury and freedom which he had provided and from which she never expected to wake, and her mother totally ignorant of it all the while! There had been everything she wished at her finger tips—hectic afternoons, evenings and midnights; affairs at country clubs or hotel grills, where the young bloods of the city and their girls congregated; wild rides in automobiles; visits to the nearest smartest watering-places, and the like. Or was she lying? He could scarcely think so, judging by her career with him and others since.
Ah, what a comfort to fix oneself this way and rest, looking at the shadowy moonlit landscape passing by!
Idelle had often admitted or boasted that she had been wildly happy—that was the worst of it—that she had not quite realized what she was doing, but that she had no remorse either, even now—that she had lived! (And why should she have, perhaps? Weren’t all people really selfish at bottom—or were they?) Only, owing to her almost insatiable pagan nature, there were other complications right then and there—think of that!—an older rival millionaire, if you please, richer by far than Coulstone, and more influential locally ... and younger ones, too, who sought her but really did not win her, she having no time or plan for them. As it happened, the older one, having been worsted in the contest but being partially tolerated by her, had become frantically jealous and envious, although “he had no right,” as she said, and had finally set about making trouble for the real possessor, and succeeded to the extent of exposing him and eventually driving him out of the great concern with which he was connected and out of Pittsburgh, too, if you please, on moral grounds (?), although he himself was trying to follow in Coulstone’s footsteps! And all for the love or possession of a nineteen-year-old girl, a petticoat, a female ne’er-do-well! How little the world in general knew of such things—and it was a blessed thing, too, by George! Where would things be if everybody went on like that?
The rhythmic clack of these wheels and trucks over these sleeper joints—a poetic beat, of sorts!
But Idelle was so naïve about all this now, or pretended to be, so careless of what he or any one else might think in case they ever found out. She did not seem to guess how much he might suffer by her telling him all this, or how much pain thinking about it afterward might cause him. She was too selfish intellectually. She didn’t even guess, apparently, what his mood might be toward all this, loving her as he did. No—she really didn’t care for him, or any one else—couldn’t, or she couldn’t have done anything like that. She would have lied to him rather. She had been, and was—although now semi-reformed—a heartless, careless wastrel, thinking of no one but herself. She had not cared about the wives of either of those two men who were pursuing her in B——, or what became of them, or what became of any of the others who had pursued her since. All she wanted was to be danced attendance on, to be happy, free, never bored. The other fellow never counted with Idelle much. In this case the wife of the younger lover, Coulstone, had been informed, the conservatives of the city appealed to, as it were. Coulstone, seeing the storm and being infatuated with his conquest, suggested Paris or a few years on the Riviera, but, strangely enough, Idelle would have none of it, or him, then. She wouldn’t agree to be tied down for so long! She had suffered a reversal of conscience or mood—even—or so she said,—went to a priest, went into retirement here in G——, having fled her various evil pursuers.
How impressive the outlying slopes of these mountains they were just entering!
And yet he could understand that, too, in some people, anyhow,—the one decent thing in her life maybe, a timely revolt against a too great and unbroken excess. But, alas, it had been complicated with the fact that she wasn’t ready to leave her mother or to do anything but stay in America. Besides things were becoming rather complicated. The war on J—— C—— threatened to expose her. Worse yet,—and so like her, life had won her back. Her beauty, her disposition, youth and age pursuing her—one slight concession to indulgence or pleasure after another and the new mood or bent toward religiosity was entirely done away with. Her sensual sex nature had conquered, of course.
That little cabin on that slope, showing a lone lamp in the dark!
And then—then—
Morning, by George! Ten o’clock! He had been asleep all this time! He would have to hurry and dress now!
But where was he in regard to Idelle? Oh yes!... How she haunted him all the time these days! Coulstone, angered at her refusal to come with him again (she could not bring herself to do that, for all her religiosity, she said, not caring for him so much any more), but frightened by the presence of others, had eventually transferred all his interests from Pittsburgh to G——, and at this very time, on the ground of some form of virtue or duty—God only knows what!—five years later, indeed—was here in G—— with his wife and attempting to persuade her that she ought to give him a divorce in order to permit him to marry Idelle and so legitimize her child! And he, Garrison, already married to her! The insanity of mankind!
He must be hurrying through his breakfast; they would soon be nearing G—— now ... and he must not forget to stop in at Kiralfy’s when he reached G—— and buy some flowers for her!
But Idelle was not to be taken that way. She did not care for J—— C—— any more, or so she said. Besides nothing would cure her varietism then or now but age, apparently. And who was going to wait for age to overtake her? Not he, anyhow. Why, the very event that threw her into his arms—couldn’t he have judged by that if he had had any sense? Wasn’t that just such another affair as that of Coulstone and old Candia, only in this case it concerned much younger men—wasters in their way, too—one of whom, at least, was plainly madly in love with her, while the other was just intensely interested. Why was it that Idelle’s affairs always had to be a complex of two or more contending parties?
The condition of these washrooms in the morning!
According to her own story, she had first fallen in love, or thought she had, with the younger of the two, Gaither Browne, of the Harwood Brownes here in G—— and then while he was still dancing attendance on her (and all the while Coulstone was in the background, not entirely pushed out of her life) young Gatchard Keene had come along with his motor cars, his yacht, his stable of horses, and she had begun to flirt with him also. Only, by then—and she didn’t care particularly for him, either—
What a crowded breakfast car—all the people of last night, and more from other cars attached since, probably!
—she had half promised young Browne that she would marry him, or let him think she might; had even confessed a part of her past to him (or so she said) and he had forgiven her, or said it didn’t matter. But when Keene came along and she began to be interested in him Browne did not like this new interest in the least, became furiously jealous indeed. So great was his passion for her that he had threatened to kill her and himself if she did not give up Keene, which, according to her, made her care all the more for Keene. When Browne could stand it no longer and was fearful lest Keene was to capture the prize—which he was not, of course, Idelle being a mere trifler at all stages—he had invited her out on that disastrous automobile ride—
A mere form, eating, this morning! No appetite—due to his troubled thoughts, of course, these days!
—which had ended in her being carried into his presence at the Insull General. Browne must have been vividly in love with her to prefer to kill himself and her in that fashion rather than lose her, for, according to her, he had swung the car squarely into the rocks at Saltair Brook, only it never came out in the papers, and neither Idelle nor Browne would tell.
All railway cars seemed so soiled toward the end of a ride like this!
She professed afterwards to be sorry for Browne and inquired after him every day, although, of course, she had no sympathy for him or Keene, either,—for no man whom she could engage in any such contest. She was too wholly interested in following her own selfish bent. Afterward, when Keene was calling daily and trying to find out how it really did happen, and Coulstone was still in evidence and worrying over her condition (and old Candia also, he presumed—how could he tell whom all she had in tow at that time?), she refused to tell them, or any of a half dozen others who came to inquire. Yet right on top of all that she had encouraged him, Garrison, to fall in love with her, and had even imagined herself, or so she sneeringly charged, whenever they quarreled, in love with him, ready to reform and lead a better life, and had finally allowed him to carry her off and marry her in the face of them all! What were you to make of a creature like that? Insanity, on his or her part? Or both? Both, of course.
Kenelm! They were certainly speeding on! Those four wooden cows in that field, advertising a brand of butter!
But she could be so agreeable when she chose to be, and was so fascinatingly, if irritatingly, beautiful all the time!
There was no doubt, though, that things were now reaching such a state that there would have to be a change. He couldn’t stand this any longer. Women like Idelle were menaces, really, and shouldn’t be tolerated. Most men wouldn’t stand for her, although he had. But why? Why? Well, because he loved her, that was why, and you couldn’t explain love. And the other reason—the worst of all—was the dread he had been suffering of late years of being left alone again if she left him. Alone! It was a terrible feeling, this fear of being left alone in the future, and especially when you were so drawn to some one who, whatever her faults, could make you idyllically happy if she only would. Lord, how peculiar these love passions of people were, anyhow! How they swayed one! Tortured one! Here he was haunted all the time now by the knowledge that he would be miserable if she left him, and that he needed some one like her to make him happy, a cheerful and agreeable beauty when she chose to be, fascinating even when she was not, and yet knowing that he would have to learn to endure to be alone if ever he was to get the strength to force her to better ways. Why couldn’t he? Or why couldn’t she settle down and be decent once? Well, he would have to face this out with her, once and for all now. He wasn’t going to stand for her carrying on in this fashion. She must sober down. She had had her way long enough now, by God! He just wasn’t going to pose as her husband and be a shield for her any longer! No sir, by George.
Only thirty-eight miles more! If she were not there now, as she promised!
Beginning to-day she would have to give him a decent deal or he would leave her. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—stand for it any longer. Think of that last time he had come on from K——, just as he was coming to-day, and she had agreed to be at home—because he had made her promise before going that she would—and then, by George, when he got off the train and walked into the Brandingham with Arbuthnot to telephone, having just told Arbuthnot that he expected to find her out at the house, wasn’t she there with young Keene and four or five others, drinking and dancing?
“Why, there’s your wife now, Garrison,” Arbuthnot had laughingly jested, and he had had to turn it all off with that “Oh, yes, that’s right! I forgot! She was to meet me here. How stupid of me!”
Why hadn’t he made a scene then? Why hadn’t he broken things up then? Because he was a blank-blanked fool, that’s why, allowing her to pull him around by the nose and do as she pleased! Love, that’s why! He was a damned fool for loving her as much as he did, and in the face of all he knew!
Nearing Shively! Colonel Brandt’s stock-farm! Home soon now! That little town in the distance, no connection with the railroad at all!
On that particular occasion, when at last they were in a taxi, she had begun one of her usual lies about having come downtown for something—a romper for Tatty—only when he ventured to show her what she was doing to herself and him socially, that he was being made a fool of, and that he really couldn’t stand it, hadn’t she flown into the usual rage and exclaimed: “Oh, all right! Why don’t you leave me then? I don’t care! I don’t care! I’m bored! I can’t help it! I can’t always sit out in Sicard Avenue waiting for you!”
In Sicard Avenue. And that on top of always refusing to stay out there or to travel with him anywhere or to meet him and go places! Think of that for a happy married life, will you? Love! Love! Yes, love! Hell!
Well, here was Lawndale now, only eighteen miles—that meant about eighteen minutes from here, the way they were running now—and he would soon see her now if she was at home. If she only were, just this one time, to kiss him and laugh and ask about the trip and how he had made out, and let him propose some quiet dinner somewhere for just the two of them, a quiet dinner all to themselves, and then home again! How delightful that would be! Only— No doubt Charles would be at the station with the jitney, as he always called the yellow racer. He would have to summon all his ease to make his inquiry, for one had to keep one’s face before the servants, you know—but then it was entirely possible that Charles wouldn’t know whether she was home or not. She didn’t always tell the servants. If she wasn’t there, though—and after that letter and telegram— Well—now—this time!—by God!—
Wheelwright! They were running a little later, perhaps, but they would enter the station nearly on time!
But take, again, that last affair, that awful scene in the Shackamaxon at C——, when without his knowing it she had gone down there with Bodine and Arbuthnot and that wretched Aikenhead. Think of being seen in a public place like the Shackamaxon with Aikenhead and two such other wasters (even if Mrs. Bodine were along—she was no better than the others!), when she was already married and under so much suspicion as it was. If it weren’t for him she would have been driven out of society long ago! Of course she would have! Hadn’t General and Mrs. de Pasy cut her dead on that occasion?—only when they saw that he had joined her they altered their expressions and were polite enough, showing what they would do if they had to deal with her alone.
That brown automobile racing this train! How foolish some automobilists were!
Well, that time, coming home and finding her away, he had run down to C—— on the chance of finding her there—and sure enough there she was dancing with Aikenhead and Bodine by turns, and Mrs. Bodine and that free Mrs. Gildas and Belle Geary joining them later. And when he had sought her out to let her know he was back quite safe and anxious to see her, hadn’t she turned on him with all the fury of a wildcat—“Always following me up and snooping around after me to catch me in something!” and that almost loud enough for all the others to hear! It was terrible! How could anybody stand for such a thing! He couldn’t, and retain his self-respect. And yet he had—yes, he had, more shame to him! But if it hadn’t been that he had been so lonely just beforehand and so eager to see her, and hadn’t had those earrings for her in his pocket—thinking they would please her—perhaps he wouldn’t have done as he did, backed down so. As it was—well, all he could think of at the moment was to apologize—to his own wife!—and plead that he hadn’t meant to seem to follow her up and “snoop around.” Think of that! Hang it all, why hadn’t he left her then and there? Supposing she didn’t come back? Supposing she didn’t? What of it? What of it? Only—
“This way out, please.”
Well, here was G—— at last, and there was Charles, well enough, waiting as usual. Would she be home now? Would she? Perhaps, after all, he had better not say anything yet, just go around to Kiralfy’s and get the flowers. But to what end, really, if she weren’t there again? What would he do this time? Surely this must be the end if she weren’t there, if he had any strength at all. He wouldn’t be put upon in this way again, would he?—after all he had told himself he would do the last time if ever it happened again! His own reputation was at stake now, really. It depended on what he did now. What must the servants think—his always following her up and she never being there or troubling about him in the least?
“Ah, Charles, there you are! To Kiralfy’s first, then home!”
She was making him a laughing-stock, or would if he didn’t take things in hand pretty soon to-day, really—a man who hung onto a woman because she was young and pretty, who tolerated a wife who did not care for him and who ran with other men—a sickening, heartless social pack—in his absence. She was pulling him down to her level, that’s what she was doing, a level he had never deemed possible in the old days. It was almost unbelievable—and yet— But he would go in and get the flowers, anyway!
“Back in a minute, Charles!”
And now here was Sicard Avenue, again, dear old Sicard, with its fine line of trees on either side of its broad roadway, and their own big house set among elms and with that French garden in front—so quiet and aristocratic! Why couldn’t she be content with a place like this, with her present place in society? Why not? Why not be happy in it? She could be such an interesting social figure if she chose, if she would only try. But no, no—she wouldn’t. It would always be the same until—until—
The gardener had trimmed the grass again, and nicely!
“No, suh, Mr. Garrison,” George was already saying in that sing-song darky way of his as he walked up the steps ahead of him, and just as he expected or feared he would. It was always the way, and always would be until he had courage enough to leave once and for all—as he would to-day, by George! He wouldn’t stand for this one moment longer—not one. “Mrs. Garrison she say she done gone to Mrs. Gildas’” (it might just as well have been the Bodines, the Del Guardias or the Cranes—they were all alike), “an’ dat yo’ was to call her up dere when yo’ come in or come out. She say to say she lef’ a note fo’ yo’ on yo’ dresser.”
Curse her! Curse her! Curse her! To be treated like this all the time! He would fix her now, though, this time! Yes, he would. This time he wouldn’t change his mind.
And the brass on the front door not properly cleaned, either!
“George,” this to his servant as the latter preceded him into his room—their room—where he always so loved to be when things were well between them, “never mind the bags now. I’ll call you later when I want you,” and then, as the door closed, almost glaring at everything about him. There in the mirror, just above his military brushes, was stuck a note—the usual wheedling, chaffering rot she was inclined to write him when she wanted to be very nice on such occasions as this. Now he would see what new lying, fooling communication she had left for him, where he would be asked to come now, what do, instead of her being here to receive him as she had promised, as was her duty really, as any decent married woman would—as any decent married man would expect her to be. Oh, the devil!
That fly buzzing in the window there, trying to get out!
What was the use of being alive, anyway? What the good of anything—money or anything else? He wouldn’t stand for this any longer, he couldn’t—no, he couldn’t, that was all there was to it! She could go to the devil now; he wouldn’t follow her any more—never, never, never!—the blank-blank-blank-blank——! This was the end! This was the way she was always doing! But never again now, not once more! He’d get a divorce now! Now, by George, for once he would stand his ground and be a man, not a social door-mat, a humble beggar of love, hanging around hat in hand waiting for her favors! Never again, by God! Never!! Never!!! Only—
That letter of hers on the dresser there waiting for him, as usual!
“Dearest Old Judge: This isn’t the real one. This is just a hundred-kiss one, this. The real one is pinned to your pillow over there—our pillow—where it ought to be, don’t you think? I don’t want you to be unhappy at not finding me home, Judgie, see? And I don’t want you to get mad and quarrel. And I do want you to be sure to find the other letter. So don’t be angry, see? But call me up at the Gildas’. I’m dying to see you, dearie, really and truly I am! I’ve been so lonesome without you! (Yes!) You’re sure to find me out there. And you’re not to be angry—not one little frown, do you hear? I just couldn’t help it, dearest! So read the other letter now!
“Idelle.”
If only his hands wouldn’t tremble so! Damn her! Damn her! Damn her! To think she would always treat him like this! To think he was never to have one decent hour of her time to himself, not one! Always this running here, there and everywhere away from him, as it were!
He crumpled up the note and threw it on the floor, then went to the window and looked out. There over the way at her own spacious door was young Mrs. Justus just entering her car—a simple, home-loving little woman, who would never dream of the treacheries and eccentricities of Idelle; who, if she even guessed what manner of woman she was, would never have anything more to do with her. Why couldn’t he have loved a girl like her—why not? And just beyond, the large quiet house of the Walterses, those profoundly sober people of the very best ways and means, always so kind and helpful, anxious to be sociable, of whom Idelle could think of nothing better to say than “stuffy.” Anything kind and gentle and orderly was just stuffy to her, or dull. That was what she considered him, no doubt. That’s because she was what she was, curses on her! She couldn’t stand, or even understand, profoundly worthy people like the Justuses or the Walterses. (There was May Walters now at her dining-room window.) And then there were the Hartleys.... But that other note of hers—what did it say? He ought to read that now, whether he left or no; but he would leave this time, well enough!
He turned to the twin bed and from the fretted counterpane unpinned the second lavender-colored and scented note—the kind Idelle was always scribbling when she was doing things she shouldn’t. It didn’t make one hanged bit of difference now what she wrote, of course—only— He wouldn’t follow her this time; no, he wouldn’t! He wouldn’t have anything more to do with her ever! He would quit now, lock the doors in a few minutes, discharge the servants, cut off her allowance, tell her to go to blazes. He would go and live at a club, as he had so often threatened before to himself—or get out of G——, as he had also threatened. He couldn’t stand the comment that would follow, anyhow. He had had enough of it. He hated the damned city! He had never had any luck in it. Never had he been happy here, in spite of the fact that he had been born and brought up here, and twice married here—never! Twice now he had been treated like this by women right here in this city, his home town, where everybody knew! Twice he had been made a fool of, but this time—
The letter, though!
“Dearest and best of hubbies, I know you’re going to be disappointed at not finding me here, and in spite of anything I can say, probably terribly angry, too. (I wish you wouldn’t be, darling!) But, sweetheart, if you’ll only believe me this time (I’ve said that before when you wouldn’t, I know, and it wasn’t my fault, either), it wasn’t premeditated, really, it wasn’t! Honest, cross my heart, dear, twenty ways, and hope to die!”
(What did she really care for his disappointment or what he suffered, curse her!)
“Only yesterday at four Betty called up and insisted that I should come. There’s a big house party on, and you’re invited, of course, when you get back. Her cousin Frank is coming and some friends of his,”
(Yes, he knew what friends!)
“and four of my old girl chums, so I just couldn’t get out of it, nor would I, particularly since she wanted me to help her, and I’ve asked her so many times to help us—now, could I?”
Idelle’s way in letters, as in person, was always bantering. To the grave with Betty Gildas and all her house parties, in so far as he was concerned, the fast, restless, heartless thing! Why couldn’t she have been here just this once, when he wanted her so much and had wired and written in plenty of time for her to be!
But no, she didn’t care for him. She never had. She merely wanted to fool him along like this, to keep his name, his position, the social atmosphere he could give her. This whole thing was a joke to her—this house, his friends, himself, all—just nothing! Her idea was to fool him along in this way while she continued to run with these other shabby, swift, restless, insatiable creatures like herself, who liked cabarets, thés dansants, automobile runs to this, that and the other wretched place, country house parties, country clubs, country this, country that, or New York and all its shallow and heartless mockery of simplicity and peace. Well, he was through. She was always weary of him, never anxious to be with him for one moment even, but never weary of any of them, you bet—of seeking the wildest forms of pleasure! Well, this was the end now. He had had enough. She could go her own way from now on. Let the beastly flowers lie there—what did he care? He wouldn’t carry them to her. He was through now. He was going to do what he said—leave. Only—
He began putting some things in another bag, in addition to the ones he had—his silk shirts, extra underwear, all his collars. Once and for all now he wouldn’t stand this—never! Never!
Only—
As he fumed and glared, his eye fell on his favorite photo of Idelle—young, rounded, sensuous, only twenty-four to his forty-eight, an air and a manner flattering to any man’s sense of vanity and possession—and then, as a contrast, he thought of the hard, smiling, self-efficiency of so many of her friends—J—— C——, for one, still dogging her heels in spite of him, and Keene, young and wealthy, and Arbuthnot—and who not else?—any one and all of whom would be glad to take her if he left her. And she knew this. It was a part of her strength, even her charm—curse her! Curse her! Curse her!
But more than that, youth, youth, the eternal lure of beauty and vitality, her smiling softness at times, her geniality, her tolerance, their long talks and pleasant evenings and afternoons. And all of these calling, calling now. And yet they were all at the vanishing point, perhaps never to come again, if he left her! She had warned him of that. “If I go,” she had once said—more than once, indeed—“it’s for good. Don’t think I’ll ever come back, for I won’t.” And he understood well enough that she would not. She didn’t care for him enough to come back. She never would, if she really went.
He paused, meditating, biting his lips as usual, flushing, frowning, darkening—a changeable sky his face—and then—
“George,” he said after the servant had appeared in answer to his ring, “tell Charles to bring the jitney around again, and you pack me the little brown kit bag out of these others. I’m going away for a day or two, anyhow.”
“Yes, suh!”
Then down the stairs, saying that Idelle was a liar, a wastrel, a heartless butterfly, worthy to be left as he proposed to leave her now. Only, once outside in his car with Charles at the wheel, and ready to take him wherever he said, he paused again, and then—sadly— “To the Gildases, and better go by the Skillytown road. It’s the shortest!”
Then he fell to thinking again.
IV
ST. COLUMBA AND THE RIVER
The first morning that McGlathery saw the great river stretching westward from the point where the initial shaft had been sunk he was not impressed by it—or, rather, he was, but not favorably. It looked too gray and sullen, seeing that he was viewing it through a driving, sleety rain. There were many ferry boats and craft of all kinds, large and small, steaming across its choppy bosom, giant steamers, and long projecting piers, great and mysterious, and clouds of gulls, and the shriek of whistles, and the clang of fog-bells,... but he did not like water. It took him back to eleven wretched seasick days in which he had crossed on the steamer from Ireland. But then, glory be, once freed from the mysteries of Ellis Island, he had marched out on dry land at the Battery, cloth bags in hand, and exclaimed, “Thanks be, I’m shut av it!”
And he thought he was, for he was mortally afraid of water. But fate, alas! had not decreed it as a permanent thing. As a matter of fact, water in one form or another had persistently seemed to pursue him since. In Ireland, County Clare, from whence he hailed, he had been a ditcher—something remotely connected with water. Here in America, and once safely settled in Brooklyn, he had no sooner sought work than the best he could seemingly get was a job in connection with a marsh which was being drained, a very boggy and pool-y one—water again, you see. Then there was a conduit being dug, a great open sewer which once when he and other members of the construction gang were working on it, was flooded by a cloudburst, a tremendous afternoon rain-storm which drove them from it with a volume of water which threatened to drown them all. Still later, he and thirty others were engaged in cleaning out a two-compartment reservoir, old and stone-rotten, when, one-half being empty and the other full, the old dividing wall broke, and once more he barely escaped with his life by scrambling up a steep bank. It was then that the thought first took root in his mind that water—any kind of water, sea or fresh—was not favorable to him. Yet here he was, facing this great river on a gray rainy November morning, and with the avowed object of going to work in the tunnel which was about to be dug under it.
Think of it! In spite of his prejudices and fears, here he was, and all due to one Thomas Cavanaugh, a fellow churchman and his foreman these last three years, who had happened to take a fancy to him and had told him that if he came to work in the tunnel and prosecuted his new work thoroughly, and showed himself sufficiently industrious and courageous, it might lead to higher things—viz., bricklaying, or plastering, in the guise of cement moulding, down in this very tunnel, or timbering, or better yet, the steel-plate-joining trade, which was a branch of the ironworkers’ guild and was rewarded by no less a compensation than twelve dollars a day. Think of it—twelve dollars a day! Men of this class and skill were scarce in tunnel work and in great demand in America. This same Cavanaugh was to be one of the foremen in this tunnel, his foreman, and would look after him. Of course it required time and patience. One had to begin at the bottom—the same being seventy-five feet under the Hudson River, where some very careful preliminary digging had to be done. McGlathery had surveyed his superior and benefactor at the time with uncertain and yet ambitious eyes.
“Is it as ye tell me now?” he commented at one place.
“Yis. Av course. What d’ye think I’m taalkin’ to ye about?”
“Ye say, do ye?”
“Certainly.”
“Well! Well! Belike it’s a fine job. I dunno. Five dollars a day, ye say, to begin with?”
“Yis, five a day.”
“Well, a man in my line could git no more than that, eh? It wouldn’t hurt me fer once, fer a little while anyway, hey?”
“It would be the makin’ av ye.”
“Well, I’ll be with ye. Yis, I’ll be with ye. It’s not five I can git everywhere. When is it ye’ll be wantin’ me?”
The foreman, a Gargantuan figure in yellow jeans and high rubber boots smeared to the buttocks with mud, eyed him genially and amiably, the while McGlathery surveyed his superior with a kind of reverence and awe, a reverence which he scarcely felt for any other man, unless perchance it might be his parish priest, for he was a good Catholic, or the political backer of his district, through whom he had secured his job. What great men they all were, to be sure, leading figures in his life.
So here he was on this particular morning shortly after the work had been begun, and here was the river, and down below in this new shaft, somewhere, was Thomas Cavanaugh, to whom he had to report before he could go to work.
“Sure, it’s no colleen’s job,” he observed to a fellow worker who had arrived at the mouth of the shaft about the same time as himself, and was beginning to let himself down the ladder which sank darkly to an intermediate platform, below which again was another ladder and platform, and below that a yellow light. “Ye say Mr. Cavanaugh is below there?”
“He is,” replied the stranger without looking up. “Ye’ll find him inside the second lock. Arr ye workin’ here?”
“Yis.”
“Come along, then.”
With a bundle which consisted of his rubber boots, a worn suit of overalls, and with his pick and shovel over his shoulder, he followed. He reached the bottom of the pit, boarded as to the sides with huge oak planks sustained by cross beams, and there, with several others who were waiting until the air pressure should be adjusted, entered the lock. The comparatively small and yet massive chamber, with its heavy iron door at either end, responding so slowly to pressure, impressed him. There was only a flickering light made by a gasoline torch here. There was a whistling sound from somewhere.
“Ever work under air pressure before, Paddy?” inquired a great hulking ironworker, surveying him with a genial leer.
“Air what?” asked McGlathery without the slightest comprehension of what was meant, but not to be outdone by mere words. “No, I never did.”
“Well, ye’re under it now, two thousand pounds to the square inch. Don’t ye feel it?”
Dennis, who had been feeling an odd sensation about his ear-drums and throat, but had no knowledge that it was related to this, acknowledged that he did. “’Tis air, is it?” he inquired. “’Tis a quare feeling I have.” The hissing ceased.
“Yuh want to look out fer that, new man,” volunteered another, a skimpy, slithery, genial American. “Don’t let ’em rush that stuff on yuh too fast. Yuh may git the ‘bends.’”
Dennis, ignorant as to the meaning of “bends,” made no reply.
“D’yuh know what the ‘bends’ is, new man?” persisted the other provocatively.
“Naw,” replied Dennis awkwardly after a time, feeling himself the centre of a fire of curious observations and solicitation.
“Well, yuh will if yuh ever git ’em—haw! haw!” this from a waggish lout, a bricklayer who had previously not spoken. The group in the lock was large. “It comes from them lettin’ the pressure be put on or took off too fast. It twists yer muscles all up, an’ does sumpin’ to yer nerves. Yuh’ll know it if yuh ever git it.”
“Member Eddie Slawder?” called another gaily. “He died of it over here in Bellevue, after they started the Fourteenth Street end. Gee, yuh oughta heerd him holler! I went over to see him.”
Good news, indeed! So this was his introduction to the tunnel, and here was a danger not commented on by Cavanaugh. In his dull way McGlathery was moved by it. Well, he was here now, and they were forcing open the door at the opposite side of the lock, and the air pressure had not hurt him, and he was not killed yet; and then, after traversing a rather neatly walled section of tunnel, albeit badly littered with beams and plates and bags of cement and piles of brick, and entering another lock like the first and coming out on the other side—there, amid an intricate network of beams and braces and a flare of a half dozen great gasoline lamps which whistled noisily, and an overhanging mass of blackness which was nothing less than earth under the great river above, was Cavanaugh, clad in a short red sweater and great rubber boots, an old yellowish-brown felt hat pulled jauntily over one ear. He was conversing with two other foremen and an individual in good clothes, one of those mighties—an engineer, no doubt.
Ah, how remote to McGlathery were the gentlemen in smooth fitting suits! He viewed them as you might creatures from another realm.
Beyond this lock also was a group of night workers left over from the night before and under a strange foreman (ditchers, joiners, earth carriers, and steel-plate riveters), all engaged in the rough and yet delicate risk of forcing and safeguarding a passage under the river, and only now leaving. The place was full. It was stuffy from the heat of the lamps, and dirty from the smear of the black muck which was over everything. Cavanaugh spied Dennis as he made his way forward over the widely separated beams.
“So here ye arr! These men are just after comin’ out,” and he waved a hand toward the forward end of the tunnel. “Git in there, Dennis, and dig out that corner beyond the post there. Jerry here’ll help ye. Git the mud up on this platform so we can git these j’ists in here.”
McGlathery obeyed. Under the earthy roof whose surface he could see but dimly at the extreme forward end of the tunnel beyond that wooden framework, he took his position. With a sturdy arm and a sturdy back and a sturdy foot and leg, he pushed his spade into the thick mud, or loosened it with his pick when necessary, and threw it up on the crude platform, where other men shoveled it into a small car which was then trundled back over the rough boards to the lock, and so on out. It was slow, dirty, but not difficult work, so long as one did not think of the heavy river overhead with its ships and its choppy waves in the rain, and the gulls and the bells. Somehow, Dennis was fearfully disturbed as to the weight of this heavy volume of earth and water overhead. It really terrified him. Perhaps he had been overpersuaded by the lure of gold? Suppose it should break through, suppose the earth over his head should suddenly drop and bury him—that dim black earth overhead, as heavy and thick as this he was cutting with his shovel now.
“Come, Dennis, don’t be standin’ there lookin’ at the roof. The roof’s not goin’ to hurt ye. Ye’re not down here to be lookin’ after the roof. I’ll be doin’ that. Just ye ‘tend to yer shovelin’.”
It was the voice of Cavanaugh near at hand. Unconsciously McGlathery had stopped and was staring upward. A small piece of earth had fallen and struck him on the back. Suppose! Suppose!
Know, O reader, that the business of tunneling is one of the most hazardous and dramatic, albeit interesting, of all known fields of labor. It consists, in these latter days at least, in so far as under-water tunneling is concerned, of sinking huge shafts at either end or side of a river, lake or channel (one hundred feet, perhaps, within the shore line) to a depth of, say, thirty feet below the water level, and from these two points tunneling outward under the bottom of the river until the two ends meet somewhere near the middle. The exact contact and precise joining of these outer ends is considered one of the true tests of skilful engineering. McGlathery personally understood all this but dimly. And even so it could not cheer him any.
And it should be said here that the safety of the men who did the work, and the possibility of it, depended first on the introduction at either end, just at the base of the shafts and then at about every hundred or so feet, as the tunnel progressed outward, of huge cylindrical chambers, or locks, of heavy iron—air locks, no less—fifteen feet in diameter, and closed at each end by massive doors swinging inward toward the shore line, so that the amazing and powerful pressure of air constantly forced outward from the shore by huge engines could not force them open. It was only by the same delicate system which causes water locks to open and close that they could be opened at all. That is, workingmen coming down into the shaft and desiring to pass into the head of the tunnel beyond the lock, would have to first enter one of these locks, which would then gradually be filled with air compressed up to the same pressure as that maintained in the main portion of the tunnel farther in. When this pressure had been reached they could easily open the inward swinging door and pass into the tunnel proper. Here, provided that so much had been completed, they might walk, say, so much as a hundred or more feet, when they would encounter another lock. The pressure in the lock, according to who had last used it, would be either that of the section of the tunnel toward the shore, or of the section beyond, toward the centre of the river. At first, bell cords, later telephones, and then electric signals controlled this—that is, the lowering or raising of the pressure of air in the locks so that one door or the other might be opened. If the pressure in the lock was different from that in your section, and you could not open the door (which you could not), you pulled the cord or pushed the button so many times, according to your position, and the air in the lock was adjusted to the section of the tunnel in which you stood. Then you could open the door. Once in, as in a water lock, the air was raised or lowered, according to your signal, and you could enter the next section outward or inward. All these things had been adjusted to a nicety even in those days, which was years ago.
The digging of this particular tunnel seemed safe enough—for McGlathery at least, once he began working here. It moved at the rate of two and even three feet a day, when things were going well, only there were days and days when, owing to the need of shoring and timbering and plate setting, to say nothing of the accidental encountering of rock in front which had to be drilled away, the men with picks and shovels had to be given a rest, or better yet, set to helping the joiners in erecting those cross beams and supports which made the walls safe. It was so that Dennis learned much about joining and even drilling.
Nevertheless, in spite of the increased pay, this matter of working under the river was a constant source of fear to him. The earth in which he worked was so uncertain. One day it would be hard black mud, another soft, another silt, another sand, according as the tunnel sloped further and further under the bed. In addition, at times great masses of it fell, not enough to make a hole in the roof above, but enough, had it chanced to fall on one of the workers, to break his back or half bury him in mud. Usually it was broken by the beams overhead. Only one day, some seven months after he had begun and when he was becoming fairly accustomed to the idea of working here, and when his skill had increased to such an extent that he was considered one of the most competent workers in his limited field, the unexpected happened.
He had come down one morning at eight with the rest of his gang and was working about the base of two new supports which had just been put in place, when he noticed, or thought he did, that the earth seemed wetter than usual, sticky, watery, and hard to manage. It could not have been much worse had a subterranean spring been encountered. Besides, one of the gasoline lamps having been brought forward and hung close by, he noticed by its light that the ceiling seemed to look silvery gray and beady. He spoke of it to Cavanaugh, who stood by.
“Yis,” said his foreman dubiously, staring upward, “’tis wet. Maybe the air pumps is not workin’ right. I’ll just make sure,” and he sent word to the engineer.
The shaft superintendent himself appeared.
“Everything’s all right up above,” he said. “Two thousand pounds to the square inch. I’ll just put on a little more, if you say so.”
“Ye’d better,” replied Cavanaugh. “The roof’s not actin’ right. And if ye see Mr. Henderson, send him down. I’d like to talk to him.”
“All right,” and off he went.
McGlathery and the others, at first nervous, but now slightly reassured, worked on. But the ground under their feet became sloppy, and some of the silvery frosting on the roof began to drop and even trickle as water. Then a mass of sloppy mud fell.
“Back, men!”
It was the voice of Cavanaugh, but not quicker than the scampering of the men who, always keenly alive to the danger of a situation, had taken note of the dripping water and the first flop of earth. At the same time, an ominous creak from one of the beams overhead gave warning of the imminence of a catastrophe. A pell-mell rush for the lock some sixty feet away ensued. Tools were dropped, precedence disregarded. They fell and stumbled over the beams and between, pushing each other out of the way into the water and mud as they ran, McGlathery a fair second to none.
“Open the door! Open the door!” was the cry as they reached the lock, for some one had just entered from the other side—the engineer. “For Christ’s sake, open the door!” But that could not be done so quickly. A few moments at least had to elapse.
“It’s breakin’ in!” cried some one in a panicky voice, an ironworker.
“Great God, it’s comin down!” this from one of the masons, as three lamps in the distance were put out by the mud.
McGlathery was almost dying of fear. He was sweating a cold sweat. Five dollars a day indeed! He should stay away from water, once and for all. Didn’t he know that? It was always bad luck to him.
“What’s the trouble? What’s the trouble?” called the amazed engineer as, unconscious of what was happening outside, he pushed open the door.
“Git out of the way!”
“Fer God’s sake, let us in!”
“Shut the door!” this from a half dozen who had already reached safety assuming that the door could be instantly closed.
“Wait! Cavanaugh’s outside!” This from some one—not McGlathery, you may be sure, who was cowering in a corner. He was so fearful that he was entirely unconscious of his superior’s fate.
“To hell with Cavanaugh! Shut the door!” screamed another, a great ironworker, savage with fear.
“Let Cavanaugh in, I say!” this from the engineer.
At this point McGlathery, for the first time on this or any other job, awoke to a sense of duty, but not much at that. He was too fearful. This was what he got for coming down here at all. He knew Cavanaugh—Cavanaugh was his friend, indeed. Had he not secured him this and other jobs? Surely. But then Cavanaugh had persuaded him to come down here, which was wrong. He ought not to have done it. Still, even in his fear he had manhood enough to feel that it was not quite right to shut Cavanaugh out. Still, what could he do—he was but one. But even as he thought, and others were springing forward to shut Cavanaugh out, so eager were they to save themselves, they faced a gleaming revolver in the steady hand of the big foreman.
“I’ll shoot down the first damned man that tries to shut the door before me and Kelly are in,” the big foreman was calling, the while he was pulling this same Kelly from the mud and slime outside. Then fairly throwing him into the lock, and leaping after him, he turned and quietly helped closed the door.
McGlathery was amazed at this show of courage. To stop and help another man like that in the face of so much danger! Cavanaugh was even a better and kinder man than he had thought—really a great man—no coward like himself. But why had Cavanaugh persuaded him to come down here when he knew that he was afraid of water! And now this had happened. Inside as they cowered—all but Cavanaugh—they could hear the sound of crushing timber and grinding brick outside, which made it quite plain that where a few moments before had been beams and steel and a prospective passageway for men, was now darkness and water and the might of the river, as it had been since the beginning.
McGlathery, seeing this, awoke to the conviction that in the first place he was a great coward, and in the second that the tunnel digging was no job for him. He was by no means fitted for it, he told himself. “’Tis the last,” he commented, as he climbed safely out with the others after a distressing wait of ten minutes at the inward lock. “Begob, I thought we was all lost. ’Twas a close shave. But I’ll go no more below. I’ve had enough.” He was thinking of a small bank account—six hundred dollars in all—which he had saved, and of a girl in Brooklyn who was about to marry him. “No more!”
But, at that, as it stood, there was no immediate danger of work being offered. The cave-in had cost the contractors thousands and in addition had taught them that mere air pressure and bracing as heretofore followed were not sufficient for successful tunneling. Some new system would have to be devised. Work on both halves of the tunnel was suspended for over a year and a half, during which time McGlathery married, a baby was born to him, and his six hundred had long since diminished to nothing. The difference between two and five dollars a day is considerable. Incidentally, he had not gone near his old foreman in all this time, being somehow ashamed of himself, and in consequence he had not fared so well. Previously Cavanaugh had kept him almost constantly employed, finding him faithful and hard-working, but now owing to stranger associates there were weeks when he had no work at all and others when he had to work for as little as one-fifty a day. It was not so pleasant. Besides, he had a sneaking feeling that if he had behaved a little more courageously at that time, gone and talked to his old foreman afterward or at the time, he might now be working for good pay. Alas, he had not done so, and if he went now Cavanaugh would be sure to want to know why he had disappeared so utterly. Then, in spite of his marital happiness, poverty began to press him so. A second and a third child were born—only they were twins.
In the meantime, Henderson, the engineer whom Cavanaugh had wanted to consult with at the time, had devised a new system of tunneling, namely, what subsequently came to be known as the pilot tunnel. This was an iron tube ten feet in length and fifteen feet in diameter—the width of the tunnel, which was carried forward on a line with the axis of the tunnel into the ground ahead. When it was driven in far enough to be completely concealed by the earth about, then the earth within was removed. The space so cleared was then used exactly as a hub is used on a wagon wheel. Beams like spokes were radiated from its sides to its centre, and the surrounding earth sustained by heavy iron plates. On this plan the old company had decided to undertake the work again.
One evening, sitting in his doorway thumbing his way through an evening paper which he could barely read, McGlathery had made all this out. Mr. Henderson was to be in charge as before. Incidentally it was stated that Thomas Cavanaugh was going to return as one of the two chief foremen. Work was to be started at once. In spite of himself, McGlathery was impressed. If Cavanaugh would only take him back! To be sure, he had come very near losing his life, as he thought, but then he had not. No one had, not a soul. Why should he be so fearful if Cavanaugh could take such chances as he had? Where else could he make five dollars a day? Still, there was this haunting sensation that the sea and all of its arms and branches, wherever situated, were inimical to him and that one day one of them would surely do him a great injury—kill him, perhaps. He had a recurring sensation of being drawn up into water or down, he could not tell which, and of being submerged in ooze and choking slowly. It was horrible.
But five dollars a day as against one-fifty or two or none at all (seven, once he became very proficient) and an assured future as a tunnel worker, a “sand-hog,” as he had now learned such men as himself were called, was a luring as well as a disturbing thought. After all, he had no trade other than this he had begun to learn under Cavanaugh. Worse he was not a union man, and the money he had once saved was gone, and he had a wife and three children. With the former he had various and sundry talks. To be sure, tunneling was dangerous, but still! She agreed with him that he had better not, but—after all, the difference that five, maybe seven, instead of two a day would make in their living expenses was in both their minds. McGlathery saw it. He decided after a long period of hesitation that perhaps he had best return. After all, nothing had happened to him that other time, and might it ever again, really? He meditated.
As has been indicated, a prominent element in McGlathery’s nature was superstition. While he believed in the inimical nature of water to him, he also believed in the power of various saints, male and female, to help or hinder. In the Catholic Church of St. Columba of South Brooklyn, at which McGlathery and his young wife were faithful attendants, there was a plaster statue of a saint of this same name, a co-worker with St. Patrick in Ireland, it appears, who in McGlathery’s native town of Kilrush, County of Clare, on the water’s edge of Shannon, had been worshipped for centuries past, or at least highly esteemed, as having some merit in protecting people at sea, or in adventures connected with water. This was due, perhaps, to the fact that Kilrush was directly on the water and had to have a saint of that kind. At any rate, among other things, he had occasionally been implored for protection in that realm when McGlathery was a boy. On his setting out for America, for instance, some few years before at the suggestion of his mother, he had made a novena before this very saint, craving of him a safe conduct in crossing the sea, as well as prosperity once he had arrived in America. Well, he had crossed in safety, and prospered well enough, he thought. At least he had not been killed in any tunnel. In consequence, on bended knees, two blessed candles burning before him in the rack, a half dollar deposited in the box labeled “St. Columba’s Orphans,” he finally asked of this saint whether, in case he returned to this underground tunnel work, seeing that necessity was driving him, would he be so kind as to protect him? He felt sure that Cavanaugh, once he applied to him, and seeing that he had been a favorite worker, would not begrudge him a place if he had one. In fact he knew that Cavanaugh had always favored him as a good useful helper.
After seven “Our Fathers” and seven “Hail Marys,” said on his knees, and a litany of the Blessed Virgin for good measure, he crossed himself and arose greatly refreshed. There was a pleasant conviction in his mind now, newly come there before this image, that he would never come to real harm by any power of water. It was a revelation—a direct communication, perhaps. At any rate, something told him to go and see Cavanaugh at once, before the work was well under way, and not be afraid, as no harm would come to him, and besides, he might not get anything even though he desired it so much if he delayed. He bustled out of the church and over to the waterfront where the deserted shaft was still standing, and sure enough, there was Cavanaugh, conversing with Mr. Henderson.
“Yis—an’ what arr ye here fer?” he now demanded to know of McGlathery rather amusedly, for he had sensed the cause of his desertion.
“I was readin’ that ye was about to start work on the tunnel again.”
“An’ so we arr. What av it?”
“I was thinkin’ maybe ye’d have a place fer me. I’m married now an’ have three children.”
“An’ ye’re thinkin’ that’s a reason fer givin’ ye something, is it?” demanded the big foreman rather cynically, with a trace of amusement. “I thought ye said ye was shut av the sea—that ye was through now, once an’ fer all?”
“So I did, but I’ve changed me mind. It’s needin’ the work I am.”
“Very well, then,” said Cavanaugh. “We’re beginnin’ in the mornin’. See that ye’re here at seven sharp. An’ mind ye, no worryin’ or lookin’ around. We’ve a safe way now. It’s different. There’s no danger.”
McGlathery gratefully eyed his old superior, then departed, only to return the next morning a little dubious but willing. St. Columba had certainly indicated that all would be well with him—but still— A man is entitled to a few doubts even when under the protection of the best of saints. He went down with the rest of the men and began cleaning out that nearest section of the tunnel where first water and then earth had finally oozed and caked. That done he helped install the new pilot tunnel which was obviously a great improvement over the old system. It seemed decidedly safe. McGlathery attempted to explain its merits to his wife, who was greatly concerned for him, and incidentally each morning and evening on his way to and from his task he dropped in at St. Columba’s to offer up a short silent prayer. In spite of his novena and understanding with the saint he was still suspicious of this dread river above him, and of what might happen to him in spite of St. Columba. The good saint, due to some error on the part of McGlathery, might change his mind.
Nothing happened, of course, for days and weeks and months. Under Cavanaugh’s direction the work progressed swiftly, and McGlathery and he, in due time, became once more good friends, and the former an expert bracer or timberer, one of the best, and worth seven a day really, which he did not get. Incidentally, they were all shifted from day to night work, which somehow was considered more important. There were long conversations now and again between Cavanaugh and Henderson, and Cavanaugh and other officials of the company who came down to see, which enlightened McGlathery considerably as to the nature and danger of the work. Just the same, overhead was still the heavy river—he could feel it pushing at him at times, pushing at the thick layer of mud and silt above him and below which with the aid of this new pilot shield they were burrowing.
Yet nothing happened for months and months. They cleared a thousand feet without a hitch. McGlathery began to feel rather comfortable about it all. It certainly seemed reasonably safe under the new system. Every night he went down and every morning came up, as hale and healthy as ever, and every second week, on a Tuesday, a pay envelope containing the handsome sum of seventy-two dollars was handed him. Think of it! Seventy-two dollars! Naturally, as a token of gratitude to St. Columba, he contributed liberally to his Orphans’ Home, a dollar a month, say, lit a fresh candle before his shrine every Sunday morning after high mass, and bought two lots out on the Goose Creek waterfront—on time—on which some day, God willing, he proposed to build a model summer and winter cottage. And then—! Well, perhaps, as he thought afterward, it might have been due to the fact that his prosperity had made him a little more lax than he should have been, or proud, or not quite as thoughtful of the saint as was his due. At any rate, one night, in spite of St. Columba—or could it have been with his aid and consent in order to show McGlathery his power?—the wretched sneaky river did him another bad turn, a terrible turn, really.
It was this way. While they were working at midnight under the new form of bracing, based on the pilot tunnel, and with an air pressure of two thousand pounds to the square inch which had so far sufficed to support the iron roof plates which were being put in place behind the pilot tunnel day after day, as fast as space permitted, and with the concrete men following to put in a form of arch which no river weight could break, the very worst happened. For it was just at this point where the iron roof and the mud of the river bottom came in contact behind the pilot tunnel that there was a danger spot ever since the new work began. Cavanaugh had always been hovering about that, watching it, urging others to be careful—“taking no chances with it,” as he said.
“Don’t be long, men!” was his constant urge. “Up with it now! Up with it! In with the bolts! Quick, now, with yer riveter—quick! quick!”
And the men! How they worked there under the river whenever there was sufficient space to allow a new steel band to be segmentally set! For at that point it was, of course, that the river might break through. How they tugged, sweated, grunted, cursed, in this dark muddy hole, lit by a few glittering electric arcs—the latest thing in tunnel work! Stripped to the waist, in mud-soaked trousers and boots, their arms and backs and breasts mud-smeared and wet, their hair tousled, their eyes bleary—an artist’s dream of bedlam, a heavenly inferno of toil—so they labored. And overhead was the great river, Atlantic liners resting upon it, thirty or fifteen or ten feet of soil only, sometimes, between them and this thin strip of mud sustained, supposedly, by two thousand pounds of air pressure to the square inch—all they had to keep the river from bleeding water down on them and drowning them like rats!
“Up with it! Up with it! Up with it! Now the bolts! Now the riveter! That’s it! In with it, Johnny! Once more now!”
Cavanaugh’s voice urging them so was like music to them, their gift of energy, their labor song, their power to do, their Ei Uchnam.
But there were times also, hours really, when the slow forward movement of the pilot tunnel, encountering difficult earth before it, left this small danger section unduly exposed to the rotary action of the water overhead which was constantly operating in the bed of the river. Leaks had been discovered from time to time, small tricklings and droppings of earth, which brought Cavanaugh and Henderson to the spot and caused the greatest tension until they had been done away with. The air had a tendency to bore holes upward through the mud. But these were invariably stanched with clay, or, if growing serious, bags of shavings or waste, the air pressure blowing outward from below being sufficient to hold these in place, provided the breach was not too wide. Even when “all hands” were working directly under a segment wide enough for a ring of plates, one man was told off to “kape an eye on it.”
On the evening in question, however, after twenty-eight men, including Cavanaugh and McGlathery, had entered at six and worked until midnight, pushing the work as vigorously as usual, seven of the men (they were told off in lots of seven to do this) were allowed to go up to the mouth of the tunnel to a nearby all-night saloon for a drink and a bite of food. A half hour to each lot was allowed, when another group would depart. There was always a disturbing transition period every half hour between twelve and two, during which one group was going and another coming, which resulted at times in a dangerous indifference which Cavanaugh had come to expect at just about this time and in consequence he was usually watching for it.
On the other hand, John Dowd, ditcher, told off to keep an eye on the breach at this time, was replaced on this particular night by Patrick Murtha, fresh from the corner saloon, a glass of beer and the free lunch counter still in his mind. He was supposed to watch closely, but having had four glasses in rapid succession and meditating on their excellence as well as that of the hot frankfurters, the while he was jesting with the men who were making ready to leave, he forgot about it. What now—was a man always to keep his eye on the blanked thing! What was going to happen anyway? What could happen? Nothing, of course. What had ever happened in the last eight months?
“Sssst!”
What was that? A sound like the blowing off of steam. All at once Cavanaugh, who was just outside the pilot tunnel indicating to McGlathery and another just where certain braces were to be put, in order that the pilot tunnel might be pushed forward a few inches for the purpose of inserting a new ring of plates, heard it. At a bound he was back through the pilot hub, his face aflame with fear and rage. Who had neglected the narrow breach?
“Come now! What the hell is this?” he was about to exclaim, but seeing a wide breach suddenly open and water pour down in a swift volume, his spirit sank and fear overcame him.
“Back, men! Stop the leak!”
It was the cry of a frightened and yet courageous man at bay. There was not only fear, but disappointment, in it. He had certainly hoped to obviate anything like this this time. But where a moment before had been a hole that might have been stopped with a bag of sawdust (and Patrick Murtha was there attempting to do it) was now a rapidly widening gap through which was pouring a small niagara of foul river water, ooze and slime. As Cavanaugh reached it and seized a bag to stay it, another mass of muddy earth fell, striking both him and Murtha, and half blinding them both. Murtha scrambled away for his life. McGlathery, who had been out in the front of the fatal tunnel with others, now came staggering back horribly frightened, scarcely knowing what to do.
“Quick, Dennis! Into the lock!” Cavanaugh called to him, while he himself held his ground. “Hurry!” and realizing the hopelessness of it and his own danger, Dennis thought to run past, but was stopped by the downpour of water and mud.
“Quick! Quick! Into the lock! For Christ’s sake, can’t ye see what’s happenin’? Through with ye!”
McGlathery, hesitating by his chief’s side, fearful to move lest he be killed, uncertain this time whether to leave his chief or not, was seized by Cavanaugh and literally thrown through, as were others after him, the blinding ooze and water choking them, but placing them within range of safety. When the last man was through Cavanaugh himself plunged after, wading knee-deep in mud and water.
“Quick! Quick! Into the lock!” he called, and then seeing McGlathery, who was now near it but waiting for him, added, “In, in!” There was a mad scramble about the door, floating timbers and bags interfering with many, and then, just as it seemed as if all would reach safety, an iron roof plate overhead, loosened by the breaking of plates beyond, gave way, felling one man in the half-open doorway of the lock and blocking and pinning it in such a way that it could be neither opened nor closed. Cavanaugh and others who came up after were shut out. McGlathery, who had just entered and saw it, could do nothing. But in this emergency, and unlike his previous attitude, he and several others on the inside seized upon the dead man and tried to draw him in, at the same time calling to Cavanaugh to know what to do. The latter, dumbfounded, was helpless. He saw very clearly and sadly that very little if anything could be done. The plate across the dead man was too heavy, and besides, the ooze was already pouring over him into the lock. At the same time the men in the lock, conscious that although they were partially on the road to safety they were still in danger of losing their lives, were frantic with fear.
Actually there were animal roars of terror. At the same time McGlathery, once more realizing that his Nemesis, water, had overtaken him and was likely to slay him at last, was completely paralyzed with fear. St. Columba had promised him, to be sure, but was not this that same vision that he had had in his dreams, that awful sense of encroaching ooze and mud? Was he not now to die this way, after all? Was not his patron saint truly deserting him? It certainly appeared so.
“Holy Mary! Holy St. Columba!” he began to pray, “what shall I do now? Mother of God! Our Father, who art in Heaven! Bejasus, it’s a tight place I’m in now! I’ll never get out of this! Tower of Ivory! House of Gold! Can’t we git him in, boys? Ark of the Covenant! Gate of Heaven!”
As he gibbered and chattered, the others screaming about him, some pulling at the dead man, others pulling at the other door, the still eye of Cavanaugh outside the lock waist-deep in mud and water was surveying it all.
“Listen to me, men!” came his voice in rich, heavy, guttural tones. “You, McGlathery! Dennis!! Arr ye all crazy! Take aaf yer clothes and stop up the doorway! It’s yer only chance! Aaf with yer clothes, quick! And those planks there—stand them up! Never mind us. Save yerselves first. Maybe ye can do something for us afterwards.”
As he argued, if only the gap in the door could be closed and the compressed air pushing from the tunnel outward toward the river allowed to fill the chamber, it would be possible to open the other door which gave into the next section shoreward, and so they could all run to safety.
His voice, commanding, never quavering, even in the face of death, subsided. About and behind him were a dozen men huddled like sheep, waist-deep in mud and water, praying and crying. They had got as close to him as might be, still trying to draw upon the sustaining force of his courage, but moaning and praying just the same and looking at the lock.
“Yis! Yis!” exclaimed McGlathery of a sudden, awakening at last to a sense of duty and that something better in conduct and thought which he had repeatedly promised himself and his saint that he would achieve. He had been forgetting. But now it seemed to him once more that he had been guilty of that same great wrong to his foreman which had marked his attitude on the previous occasion—that is, he had not helped him or any one but himself. He was a horrible coward. But what could he do? he asked himself. What could he do? Tearing off his coat and vest and shirt as commanded, he began pushing them into the opening, calling to the others to do the same. In a twinkling, bundles were made of all as well as of the sticks and beams afloat in the lock, and with these the gap in the door was stuffed, sufficiently to prevent the air from escaping, but shutting out the foreman and his men completely.
“It’s awful. I don’t like to do it,” McGlathery kept crying to his foreman but the latter was not so easily shaken.
“It’s all right, boys,” he kept saying. “Have ye no courage at aal?” And then to the others outside with him, “Can’t ye stand still and wait? They may be comin’ back in time. Kape still. Say yer prayers if ye know any, and don’t be afraid.”
But, although the air pressing outward toward Cavanaugh held the bundles in place, still this was not sufficient to keep all the air in or all the water out. It poured about the dead man and between the chinks, rising inside to their waists also. Once more it threatened their lives and now their one hope was to pull open the shoreward door and so release themselves into the chamber beyond, but this was not to be done unless the escaping air was completely blocked or some other method devised.
Cavanaugh, on the outside, his whole mind still riveted on the men whom he was thus aiding to escape, was the only one who realized what was to be done. In the panel of the door which confronted him, and the other, which they were trying to break open, were thick glass plates, or what were known as bull’s eyes, through which one could see, and it was through the one at his end that Cavanaugh was peering. When it became apparent to him that the men were not going to be able to open the farthest door, a new thought occurred to him. Then it was that his voice was heard above the tumult, shouting:
“Break open the outside bull’s eye! Listen to me, Dennis! Listen to me! Break open the outside bull’s eye!”
Why did he call to Dennis, the latter often asked himself afterwards. And why did Dennis hear him so clearly? Through a bedlam of cries within, he heard, but also realized that if he or they knocked out the bull’s eye in the other door, and the air escaped through it inward, the chances of their opening it would be improved, but the life of Cavanaugh and his helpless companions would certainly be destroyed. The water would rush inward from the river, filling up this chamber and the space in which stood Cavanaugh. Should he? So he hesitated.
“Knock it out!” came the muffled voice of his foreman from within where he was eyeing him calmly. “Knock it out, Dennis! It’s yer only chance! Knock it out!” And then, for the first time in all the years he had been working for him, McGlathery heard the voice of his superior waver slightly: “If ye’re saved,” it said, “try and do what ye can fer the rest av us.”
In that moment McGlathery was reborn spiritually. Although he could have wept, something broke in him—fear. He was not afraid now for himself. He ceased to tremble, almost to hurry and awoke to a new idea, one of undying, unfaltering courage. What! There was Cavanaugh outside there, unafraid, and here was he, Dennis McGlathery, scrambling about like a hare for his life! He wanted to go back, to do something, but what could he? It was useless. Instead, he assumed partial command in here. The spirit of Cavanaugh seemed to come over to him and possess him. He looked about, saw a great stave, and seized it.
“Here, men!” he called with an air of command. “Help knock it out!” and with a will born of terror and death a dozen brawny hands were laid on it. With a mighty burst of energy they assaulted the thick plate and burst it through. Air rushed in, and at the same time the door gave way before them, causing them to be swept outward by the accumulated water like straws. Then, scrambling to their feet, they tumbled into the next lock, closing the door behind them. Once in, they heaved a tremendous sigh of relief, for here they were safe enough—for the time being anyhow. McGlathery, the new spirit of Cavanaugh in him, even turned and looked back through the bull’s eye into the chamber they had just left. Even as they waited for the pressure here to lower sufficiently to permit them to open the inner door he saw this last chamber they had left his foreman and a dozen fellow workers buried beyond. But what could he do? Only God, only St. Columba, could tell him, perhaps, and St. Columba had saved him—or had he?—him and fifteen other men, the while he had chosen to allow Cavanaugh and twelve men to perish! Had St. Columba done that—or God—or who?
“’Tis the will av God,” he murmured humbly—but why had God done that?
But somehow, the river was not done with him yet, and that, seemingly, in spite of himself. Although he prayed constantly for the repose of the soul of Thomas Cavanaugh and his men, and avoided the water, until five years later, still there was a sequel. By now McGlathery was the father of eight children and as poor as any average laborer. With the death of Cavanaugh and this accident, as has been said, he had forsworn the sea—or water—and all its works. Ordinary house shoring and timbering were good enough for him, only—only—it was so hard to get enough of this at good pay. He was never faring as well as he should. And then one day when he was about as hard up as ever and as earnest, from somewhere was wafted a new scheme in connection with this same old tunnel.
A celebrated engineer of another country—England, no less—had appeared on the scene with a new device, according to the papers. Greathead was his name, and he had invented what was known as “The Greathead Shield,” which finally, with a few changes and adaptations, was to rid tunnel work of all its dangers. McGlathery, sitting outside the door of his cottage overlooking Bergen Bay, read it all in the Evening Clarion, and wondered whether it could be true. He did not understand very much about this new shield idea even now, but even so, and in spite of himself, some of the old zest for tunneling came back to him. What times he had had, to be sure! What a life it had been, if a dog’s one—and Cavanaugh—what a foreman! And his body was still down there entombed—erect, no doubt, as he was left. He wondered. It would be only fair to dig him out and honor his memory with a decent grave if it could be done. His wife and children were still living in Flatbush. It stirred up all the memories, old fears, old enthusiasms, but no particular desire to return. Still, here he was now, a man with a wife and eight children, earning three a day, or less—mostly less—whereas tunneling paid seven and eight to such as himself, and he kept thinking that if this should start up again and men were advertised for, why shouldn’t he go? His life had been almost miraculously saved these two times—but would it be again?—that was the great question. Almost unceasingly he referred the matter to his saint on Sundays in his church, but receiving no definite advice as yet and there being no work doing on the tunnel, he did nothing.
But then one day the following spring the papers were full of the fact that work would soon actually be resumed, and shortly thereafter, to his utter amazement, McGlathery received a note from that same Mr. Henderson under whom Cavanaugh had worked, asking him to call and see him. Feeling sure that it was the river that was calling him, he went over to St. Columba’s and prayed before his saint, putting a dollar in his Orphans’ box and a candle on his shrine, and then arising greatly refreshed and reassured, and after consulting with his wife, journeyed over to the river, where he found the old supervisor as before in a shed outside, considering one important matter and another.
What he wanted to know was this—did McGlathery want to take an assistant-foremanship under a new foreman who was going to be in charge of the day work here, one Michael Laverty by name, an excellent man, at seven dollars a day, seeing that he had worked here before and understood the difficulties, etc.? McGlathery stared in amazement. He an assistant-foreman in charge of timbering! And at seven dollars a day! He!
Mr. Henderson neglected to say that because there had been so much trouble with the tunnel and the difficulties so widely advertised, it was rather difficult to get just the right sort of men at first, although McGlathery was good enough any time. But the new shield made everything safe, he said. There could be no calamity this time. The work would be pushed right through. Mr. Henderson even went so far as to explain the new shield to him, its excellent points.
But McGlathery, listening, was dubious, and yet he was not thinking of the shield exactly now, nor of the extra pay he would receive, although that played a big enough part in his calculations, but of one Thomas Cavanaugh, mason foreman, and his twelve men, buried down below there in the ooze, and how he had left him, and how it would only be fair to take his bones out, his and the others’, if they could be found, and give them a decent Christian burial. For by now he was a better Catholic than ever, and he owed that much to Cavanaugh, for certainly Cavanaugh had been very good to him—and anyhow, had not St. Columba protected him so far? And might he not in the future, seeing the position he was in? Wasn’t this a call, really? He felt that it was.
Just the same, he was nervous and troubled, and went home and consulted with his wife again, and thought of the river and went over and prayed in front of the shrine of St. Columba. Then, once more spiritualized and strengthened, he returned and told Mr. Henderson that he would come back. Yes, he would come.
He felt actually free of fear, as though he had a mission, and the next day began by assisting Michael Laverty to get out the solid mass of earth which filled the tunnel from the second lock outward. It was slow work, well into the middle of the summer before the old or completed portion was cleared and the bones of Cavanaugh and his men reached. That was a great if solemn occasion—the finding of Cavanaugh and his men. They could recognize him by his big boots, his revolver, his watch, and a bunch of keys, all in position near his bones. These same bones and boots were then reverently lifted and transferred to a cemetery in Brooklyn, McGlathery and a dozen workers accompanying them, after which everything went smoothly. The new shield worked like a charm. It made eight feet a day in soft mud, and although McGlathery, despite his revived courage, was intensely suspicious of the river, he was really no longer afraid of it in the old way. Something kept telling him that from now on he would be all right—not to fear. The river could never hurt him any more, really.
But just the same, a few months later—eight, to be exact—the river did take one last slap at him, but not so fatally as might have appeared on the surface, although in a very peculiar way, and whether with or without St. Columba’s aid or consent, he never could make out. The circumstances were so very odd. This new cutting shield, as it turned out, was a cylinder thirteen feet long, twenty feet in diameter, and with a hardened steel cutting edge out on front, an apron, fifteen inches in length and three inches thick at the cutting edge. Behind this came what was known as an “outside diaphragm,” which had several openings to let in the mud displaced by the shield’s advance.
Back of these openings were chambers four feet in length, one chamber for each opening, through which the mud was passed. These chambers in turn had hinged doors, which regulated the quantity of mud admitted, and were water tight and easily closed. It was all very shipshape.
Behind these little chambers, again, were many steel jacks, fifteen to thirty, according to the size of the shield, driven by an air pressure of five thousand pounds to the square inch, which were used to push the shield forward. Back of them came what was known as the tail end of the shield, which reached back into the completed tunnel and was designed to protect the men who were at work putting in the new plates (at that danger point which had killed Cavanaugh) whenever the shield had been driven sufficiently forward to permit of a new ring of them.
The only danger involved in this part of the work lay in the fact that between this lining and the tail end of the shield was always a space of an inch to an inch and a half which was left unprotected. This small opening would, under ordinary circumstances, be insignificant, but in some instances where the mud covering at the top was very soft and not very thick, there was danger of the compressed air from within, pushing at the rate of several thousand pounds to the square inch, blowing it away and leaving the aperture open to the direct action of the water above. This was not anticipated, of course, not even thought of. The shield was going rapidly forward and it was predicted by Henderson and Laverty at intervals that the tunnel would surely go through within the year.
Some time the following winter, however, when the shield was doing such excellent work, it encountered a rock which turned its cutting edge and, in addition, necessitated the drilling out of the rock in front. A bulkhead had to be built, once sufficient stone had been cut away, to permit the repairing of the edge. This took exactly fifteen days. In the meantime, at the back of the shield, at the little crevice described, compressed air, two thousand pounds to the square inch, was pushing away at the mud outside, gradually hollowing out a cup-like depression eighty-five feet long (Mr. Henderson had soundings taken afterwards), which extended backward along the top of the completed tunnel toward the shore. There was then nothing but water overhead.
It was at this time that the engineers, listening to the river, which, raked by the outpouring of air from below, was rolling gravel and stones above the tunnel top and pounding on it like a drum, learned that such was the case. It was easy enough to fix it temporarily by stuffing the crevice with bags, but one of these days when the shield was repaired it would have to be moved forward to permit the insertion of a new ring of plates, and then, what?
At once McGlathery scented trouble. It was the wretched river again (water), up to its old tricks with him. He was seriously disturbed, and went to pray before St. Columba, but incidentally, when he was on duty, he hovered about this particular opening like a wasp. He wanted to know what was doing there every three minutes in the day, and he talked to the night foreman about it, as well as Laverty and Mr. Henderson. Mr. Henderson, at Laverty’s and McGlathery’s request, came down and surveyed it and meditated upon it.
“When the time comes to move the shield,” he said, “you’ll just have to keep plenty of bags stuffed around that opening, everywhere, except where the men are putting in the plates. We’ll have extra air pressure that day, all we can stand, and I think that’ll fix everything all right. Have plenty of men here to keep those bags in position, but don’t let ’em know there’s anything wrong, and we’ll be all right. Let me know when you’re ready to start, and I’ll come down.”
When the shield was eventually repaired and the order given to drive it just twenty-five inches ahead in order to permit the insertion of a new ring of plates, Mr. Henderson was there, as well as Laverty and McGlathery. Indeed, McGlathery was in charge of the men who were to stuff the bags and keep out the water. If you have ever seen a medium-sized red-headed Irishman when he is excited and determined, you have a good picture of McGlathery. He was seemingly in fifteen places at once, commanding, exhorting, persuading, rarely ever soothing—and worried. Yes, he was worried, in spite of St. Columba.
The shield started. The extra air pressure was put on, the water began to pour through the crevice, and then the bags were put in place and stopped most of it, only where the ironworkers were riveting on the plates it poured, poured so heavily at times that the workers became frightened.
“Come now! What’s the matter wid ye! What arr ye standin’ there fer? What arr ye afraid av? Give me that bag! Up with it! That’s the idea! Do ye think ye’re goin’ to be runnin’ away now?”
It was McGlathery’s voice, if you please, commanding!—McGlathery, after his two previous experiences! Yet in his vitals he was really afraid of the river at this very moment.
What was it that happened? For weeks after, he himself, writhing with “bends” in a hospital, was unable to get it straight. For four of the bags of sawdust burst and blew through, he remembered that—it was a mistake to have sawdust bags at all. And then (he remembered that well enough), in stuffing others in, they found that they were a bag short, and until something was secured to put in its place, for the water was streaming in like a waterfall and causing a flood about their ankles, he, McGlathery, defiant to the core, not to be outdone by the river this time, commanded the great thing to be done.
“Here!” he shouted, “the three av ye,” to three gaping men near at hand, “up with me! Put me there! I’m as good as a bag of sawdust any day. Up with me!”
Astonished, admiring, heartened, the three of them jumped forward and lifted him. Against the small breach, through which the water was pouring, they held him, while others ran off for more bags. Henderson and Laverty and the ironworkers, amazed and amused and made braver themselves because of this very thing—filled with admiration, indeed, by the sheer resourcefulness of it, stood by to help. But then, if you will believe it, while they were holding him there, and because now there was nothing but water above it, one end of the shield itself—yes, that great iron invention—was lifted by the tremendous air pressure below—eleven or thirteen or fourteen inches, whatever space you can imagine a medium sized man being forced through—and out he went, McGlathery, and all the bags, up into the river above, the while the water poured down, and the men fled for their lives.
A terrific moment, as you can well imagine, not long in duration, but just long enough to swallow up McGlathery, and then the shield, having responded at first to too much air pressure, now responding to too little (the air pressure having been lessened by the escape), shut down like a safety valve, shutting off most of the water and leaving the tunnel as it was before.
But McGlathery!
Yes, what of him?
Reader—a miracle!
A passing tug captain, steaming down the Hudson at three one bright December afternoon was suddenly astonished to see a small geyser of water lift its head some thirty feet from his boat, and at the top of it, as it were lying on it, a black object which at first he took to be a bag or a log. Later he made it out well enough, for it plunged and bellowed.
“Fer the love av God! Will no one take me out av this? Git me out av this! Oh! Oh! Oh!”
It was McGlathery right enough, alive and howling lustily and no worse for his blow-out save that he was suffering from a fair case of the “bends” and suffering mightily. He was able to scream, though, and was trying to swim. That old haunting sensation!—he had had it this time, sure enough. For some thirty or forty seconds or more he had been eddied swiftly along the top of the tunnel at the bottom of the river, and then coming to where the air richocheted upward had been hustled upward like a cork and literally blown through the air at the top of the great volume of water, out into space. The sudden shift from two thousand pounds of air pressure to none at all, or nearly none, had brought him down again, and in addition induced the severe case of “bends” from which he was now suffering. But St. Columba had not forgotten him entirely. Although he was suffering horribly, and was convinced that he was a dead man, still the good saint must have placed the tug conveniently near, and into this he was now speedily lifted.
“Well, of all things!” exclaimed Captain Hiram Knox, seeing him thoroughly alive, if not well, and eyeing him in astonishment. “Where do you come from?”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” bawled McGlathery. “Me arms! Me ribs! Oh! Oh! Oh! The tunnel! The tunnel below, av course! Quick! Quick! It’s dyin’ av the bends I am! Git me to a hospital, quick!”
The captain, truly moved and frightened by his groans, did as requested. He made for the nearest dock. It took him but a few moments to call an ambulance, and but a few more before McGlathery was carried into the nearest hospital.
The house physician, having seen a case of this same disease two years before, and having meditated on it, had decided that the hair of the dog must be good for the bite. In consequence of this McGlathery was once more speedily carted off to one of the locks of this very tunnel, to the amazement of all who had known of him (his disappearance having aroused general excitement), and he was stared at as one who had risen from the grave. But, what was better yet, under the pressure of two thousand pounds now applied he recovered himself sufficiently to be host here and tell his story—another trick of his guardian saint, no doubt—and one rather flattering to his vanity, for he was now in no least danger of dying.
The whole city, if not the whole country, indeed, was astounded by the accident, and he was a true nine days’ wonder, for the papers were full of the strange adventure. And with large pictures of McGlathery ascending heavenward, at the top of a geyser of water. And long and intelligent explanations as to the way and the why of it all.
But, better yet, four of the happiest weeks of his life were subsequently spent in that same hospital to which he had first been taken relating to all and sundry his amazing adventure, he being interviewed by no less than five representatives of Sunday editors and eleven reporters for city dailies, all anxious to discover just how it was that he had been blown through water and air up through so great a thing as a river, and how he felt while en route. A triumph.
Rivers may be smart, but saints are smarter, thanks be.
And, to top it all, seeing that his right hand and arm might possibly be crippled for life, or at least an indefinite period (the doctors did not know), and in grateful appreciation of the fact that he had refused to deal with various wolfish lawyers who had now descended on him and urged him to sue for a large sum, he was offered a substantial pension by the company, or its equivalent, work with the company, no less, at good pay for the rest of his life, and a cash bonus into the bargain, a thing which seemed to solve his very uncertain future for him and put him at his ease. Once more the hand of the saint, you will certainly admit.
But, lastly, there was the peculiar spiritual consolation that comes with the feeling that you have done your duty and that a great saint is on your side. For if all these things did not prove that the good St. Columba had kept faith with him, what could? To be sure the river had attempted to do its worst, and had caused him considerable fear and pain, and perhaps St. Columba did not have as much control over the river as he should or as he might like to have, or—and this was far more likely—it was entirely possible that he (McGlathery) had not at all times deserved the good saint’s support. But none the less, in the final extremity, had he not acted? And if not, how would you explain the fact that the tug Mary Baker was just at hand as he arose out of the water two thousand feet from shore? And why was it, if the saint had not been trying to help him, that the hospital doctor had seen to it that he was hustled off to a lock just in time—had seen, indeed, just such a case as this before, and known how to handle it? Incontrovertible facts all, aren’t they?—or if not, why not?
At any rate McGlathery thought so, and on Sundays and holidays, whether there was or was not anything of importance being celebrated in his church, he might have been seen there kneeling before his favorite saint and occasionally eyeing him with both reverence and admiration. For, “Glory be,” as he frequently exclaimed in narrating the wonderful event afterward, “I wasn’t stuck between the shield and the tunnel, as I might ’a’ been, and killed entirely, and sure, I’ve aaften thought ’tis a miracle that not enough water come in, just then, to drown ’em aal. It lifted up just enough to let me go out like a cork, and up I went, and then, God be praised, it shut down again. But, glory be, here I am, and I’m no worse fer it, though it do be that me hand wrenches me now and then.”
And as for the good St. Columba—
Well, what about the good St. Columba?