by Howard Pyle
The De Witts had been building a country-house some little distance out of the city and not far from the water. The architects and builders and landscape gardeners had been at work upon it for over a year. It was now about completed, and it was the intention of the family to open the house in May. It was not even yet quite furnished, but it was so nearly so that it was practically inhabitable. The stables had been filled, and a corps of servants had been sent down under Mrs. Lukens the housekeeper and Dolan the head-groom. Halliday, the gardener, already had the green-houses and the palm-house looking as though they had been in operation for twenty years. The grounds, under the direction of Mr. Blumenthal, had been laid out in a rather elaborate imitation of a foreign park. He had planted clumps of oak-trees nearly full-grown, which he had transplanted at an enormous cost of money and labor. The arrangement of the clumps of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs was, indeed, a work of art. The great park, together with the paddock and the kitchen-garden, occupied nearly a mile square of ground that had become very valuable as suburban property. The estate included several acres of ground in the northwestern suburb of the neighboring town.
There was very delightful society in the neighborhood: the Laceys, the Morgans and the Ap-Johns all had country-houses in the immediate neighborhood.
The De Witts were going down to Brookfield for a last look at the house before its completion. They had asked Gilderman to go along. He was not especially interested in the new house; indeed, he had become rather bored by all the talk and discussion concerning it in the De Witt household for a year past. He had at first declined to go, and then had accepted, having nothing else that morning especially to interest or to occupy him. The party who went down consisted of Tom De Witt and his mother and two sisters and Sam Tilghman. Tilghman was engaged to be married to Bertha De Witt, the younger daughter.
Nearly all the trains stopped at Brookfield Junction, so that one had practically the choice of any time to reach there. It was this accessibility to the metropolis that made the place so valuable for suburban-residence purposes. The party went down on the eleven o’clock express. De Witt had engaged the whole forward section of the parlor-car, and they were entirely secluded from all the rest of the train. They saw nobody at all but themselves, excepting the negro porter; for the conductor collected the tickets of the party from De Witt’s man outside.
Almost as soon as they were safely ensconced in their compartment, Tom De Witt frankly took out a newspaper from his overcoat pocket and began to skim through it. He glanced up from it as the train began moving out of the station, and then instantly resumed his perusal. It took twenty minutes or more to run down to Brookfield, and De Witt read his paper nearly all the while. The rest of the party talked together in a dropping, intermittent sort of a fashion. The De Witt girls had a bored, tired expression that was habitual with them, and which was due, perhaps, to the heavy droop of their eyelids and the slight parting of their lips. They looked very much alike, and were both handsome after a certain fashion.
The train made no stop short of Brookfield Junction. As it whirled swiftly and tumultuously past the several stations nearer and nearer to Brookfield, Gilderman, looking out of the broad plate-glass windows, could see that the platforms were nearly all more or less crowded with people.
“I wonder what all the people are waiting for?” he said, at last. “Do you suppose it has anything to do with that Man they are making such a stir about?”
“I suppose so,” said Tilghman.
“Isn’t it dreadful?” said Clara De Witt. “There’s Brookfield, such a nice, quiet place, and now it is all full of these dreadful crowds who come just to see the Man and to hear Him preach. I think it’s perfectly dreadful. It ought to be stopped; indeed, it ought.”
“How the deuce would you stop it, Clara?” said De Witt, looking around the edge of his newspaper. “The people have a right to go where they please, so long as they behave themselves.”
“I don’t care,” said Miss De Witt. “If I were in Pilate’s place I wouldn’t let these wretched people come crowding after that Man the way they do. It’s dreadful; that’s what it is.”
Sam Tilghman burst out laughing. “Well, Clara,” he said, “we’ll put you up for nomination next time. If we only had you now in the place of poor old Herod, you’d make things hum, and no mistake, and you’d be ever so much more proper.”
Gilderman listened to the silly, vapid words as though they were removed from him. He was thinking about the Man himself. How very interesting it would be if he could really see Him and hear Him speak. If he chose to go to see Him he might perhaps behold one of those miraculous cures, and could know for himself whether they were real or whether they were false.
“Hullo, Henry!” said Tom De Witt, suddenly. “Here’s an editorial about that blind man you were telling us about the other day–that fellow they turned out of the Church.”
“What does it say?” said Gilderman.
De Witt did not offer the paper to Gilderman. He ran his eye down the editorial. “It doesn’t seem to be very complimentary to the bishop,” he said. “The editor fellow seems to think it was no fault of the fellow’s own that he was cured, and that they oughtn’t to have turned him out of the Church just because he got his eyesight back again.”
“That wasn’t the reason,” said Gilderman.
“It’s a deuced pretty state of affairs, anyhow,” said Tilghman, “if the bishop isn’t fit to decide who’s fit to belong to the Church and who’s not fit. If the bishop isn’t able to decide, who is able to decide? Ain’t that so, Gildy?”
“I don’t know,” said Gilderman.
They were coming nearer and nearer to Brookfield. The scattered frame houses, some of them pretentiously villa-like, grew more and more frequent. Here and there were newly projected streets sliced out across the fields.
“You get the first view of the house just beyond here,” said Mrs. De Witt.
Gilderman leaned forward to look out of the window in the direction she had indicated. The train was passing through a railroad cut through the side of a little hill. As it swept rapidly out from the cut Gilderman saw the distant slope of the hill, scattered over with clumps of trees and bushes. In a thicker cluster of trees at the top of the rise he could see the white gables and the long façade of the house, with a glimpse of the conservatories behind it. As he stooped forward, looking, a thicker cluster of frame houses arose and shut out the view.
The engine whistled hoarsely. Tom De Witt was folding up his newspaper. The train began to slacken its speed and there was a general bustle of preparation. De Witt’s man came in the car and held his top-coat for him while he slipped into it. Then he helped Gilderman and then Sam Tilghman. As Gilderman settled himself into his overcoat and took out his gloves, he could see through the window the quick-passing glimpse of streets and thicker and thicker cluster of houses. Now there would be an open field-like lot and then more houses. There were everywhere groups of people. They looked up at the train as it rushed past with a gradually decreasing speed. There was a shrieking of the brakes and a shuddering of the train as it rapidly approached the station.
“This is Brookfield,” said the negro porter, as he flung open the door with a crash.
With a final shudder and strain, the train stopped in front of a somewhat elaborately artistic station, the platform of which was filled with a restless throng of people.
“Oh, what a horrid crowd!” said Bertha De Witt.
“I suppose it’s got something to do with that Man we hear so much about,” said Miss De Witt.
“You can’t help that,” said Tom De Witt. “They have a right to go where they please, and to crowd as they choose, and so you must just put up with it.”
The colored porter placed a carpet-covered step for them, and helped the ladies officiously down to the platform. He touched his hat and bowed elaborately as Gilderman gave him a dollar. The crowd stared at them as the party descended from the coach. De Witt’s ma
n made a way for them through the throng, and they followed after him across the platform and through the station and out upon another covered platform beyond.
“Fetch up the traps as quick as you can, Simpkins,” said Tom De Witt.
“Yes, sir,” said the man, tipping his hat.
There were a number of hacks and wagons and ‘busses occupying the space in front of the platform. De Witt’s landau and dog-cart stood on the other side of the station in front of a greenstone building that seemed to be a drug-store and grocery-store combined. De Witt’s man bustled about urging the drivers of the hacks and ‘busses to move them out of the way to make room by the side of the platform. The De Witt party stood in a little group crowded close together. They talked with one another in low tones, and the people stood about staring remotely at them. Mrs. De Witt put up her lorgnette to her eyes and stared back sweepingly at the crowd. Presently the landau drew up to the platform with a jingle and clinking of polished chains and bits, a pawing of hoofs, and a switching of cropped tails. The footman, with breeches so tight to his legs that they fairly seemed to crack, jumped down and opened the door.
“You’ll go over with the ladies, Sam,” said Tom De Witt to Tilghman. “I’ll drive Gilderman myself in the dog-cart.”
“All right,” said Tilghman, and he stepped briskly in after Bertha De Witt. The door closed with a crash, the footman jumped up in his place, and the coach swung out of the way with another jingle of chains to make room for the dog-cart.
They were all perfectly oblivious of the surrounding crowd, who stood looking on.
The groom stood at the horse’s head while Gilderman stepped into the cart. De Witt followed him; he swung the horse’s head around, and the groom ran and scrambled up behind into the cart as it rattled away. The train had begun to draw off from the station. The horse pulled strongly at the reins, and De Witt drew him in with a flush of red in his thin cheeks. Gilderman looked back at the station. It appeared flat and low from the distance, its platform crowded with people. As the train moved more and more swiftly, the horse began prancing. “Whoa!” said De Witt. He gave the animal a sharp cut with the whip that made it spring with a jerk. Then they rattled away briskly and steadily.
From the suburbs you could just catch a glimpse of the ell of the house. It was surrounded by trees, which were intended in the summertime to shut out the view of the town entirely. The house looked out upon the open country and across the low hills towards the wide water.
“That’s the Ap-Johns’ place,” said De Witt, pointing with his whip. Gilderman could see a brown villa in the extreme distance.
Then they rattled down the hill and through the great park gates. Two large linden-trees, which Mr. Blumenthal had had transplanted, stood on either side of the great gateway and shaded the two gate-houses. There was a transplanted hedge and a bit of an old wall with carved stone copings. Mr. Blumenthal had made the gate and the surroundings look as though they had been standing for a hundred and fifty years.
“How do you like it?” said De Witt.
“Stunning!” said Gilderman.
Tilghman and the ladies were just getting out of the landau as the dog-cart rattled up to the portico of the main front. Gilderman jumped out and stood looking about him. The view was beautiful. He had not seen it since the summer before. He was surprised at the change. When he had last been there he had looked out upon a rather garish, sloping meadow open to the sky. There had been a great deal of lumber scattered about, and the earth was trampled naked and bare. There had been a mortar-bed, and beyond, down the slope, there had been a fence and a field, shaggy with long, rusty, feathery grass. Now everything was trim and neat. A long gravel roadway circled in a great sweep around a wide spread of lawn, framed in by clumps and clusters of trees and rhododendron bushes. You got a glimpse of the stream at the bottom of the slope and a fringe of willows; beyond that a strip of lawnlike paddock, another hill, and then, far away, a thread of the broad stretch of water.
The trees were bare of leaves as yet, but Gilderman could see that it would all be very beautiful in the later spring and summer. They stood for a while enjoying the view. Then they all went into the house. Marcy, who was the architect, met them in the hall. With fine tact, he had not intruded his presence upon them until now. He was a soft, refined, gentle-spoken man, with a delicate, sensitive, almost effeminate face. His hair was parted in the middle, and his beard trimmed to a point. “Well, Mr. De Witt,” he said, “I hope you are satisfied with the final result.”
“Yes, indeed, Marcy,” said De Witt.
“You have done admirably, Mr. Marcy,” said Mrs. De Witt, in her stateliest manner. Mr. Marcy smiled indefinitely, with another flash of his white teeth under his brown mustache.
“This hall is stunning,” said Gilderman, looking about him.
Marcy turned towards him. “I’m glad you like it, Mr. Gilderman,” he said. “It’ll be very much improved when the paintings are hung. I think the stairway and the landing above is rather a happy inspiration, if I may say so.”
“Stunning!” said Tilghman.
“Where did you get those chairs, De Witt?” said Gilderman.
“Inkerman picked them up for me at the Conti sale. They came from the Pinazi Palace, you know. Good, ain’t they?” and De Witt passed his hand over the tapestried upholstery almost affectionately.
Just then the housekeeper appeared and dropped a courtesy as she came in at the library doorway.
“Oh, Mrs. Lukens,” said Mrs. De Witt, “I wish you’d have luncheon promptly at one o’clock. Mr. Gilderman wants to go back to town on the half-past two o’clock train.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Lukens, dropping another courtesy, and again Mr. Marcy smiled with a flash of his beautiful white teeth.
“I’d like to begin by taking you up-stairs, Mr. De Witt,” he said.
“Very well,” said De Witt. And then the whole party moved across the hall to begin the inspection of the house.
Gilderman rode back to the station behind the same smart horse, and with the same groom that had brought him over. The groom drove the horse very much faster than Tom De Witt had done. As they spun along the level stretch of road, Gilderman put up his hand, holding his hat against the wind, the smoke from his cigar blowing back in his eyes.
The groom checked the horse to a walk as they ascended the steep hill beyond which lay the town. “By-the-way, John,” said Gilderman, suddenly, “there seems to be a good deal of interest hereabouts about that Man they’re talking so much of just now.”
The groom glanced quickly, almost suspiciously, at Gilderman, and then back at the horse again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “They do be running after Him a lot, one way and another, about here.”
“What do you think about Him yourself, John?” said Gilderman, curiously.
The man was plainly disinclined to talk. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. “I don’t know that I think anything at all about Him. It ain’t no concern of mine, sir.”
“Then you don’t believe in Him?” said Gilderman. “I’d really like to know.”
Again the man glanced swiftly at Gilderman. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. And then, after a pause, somewhat cautiously: “He have done some mighty strange things, sir.”
“What do you mean?” said Gilderman, forbearing to look at him.
“Oh, I don’t know; but He have been doing some strange things, sir. There was a man down here a week ago last Sunday as was blind. He just rubbed some dirt over his eyes, and they do say it cured him.”
Gilderman did not say anything as to his knowledge of Tom Kettle.
Presently the groom continued: “There was a man down here was a great friend of His’n. He died last Tuesday, and they say he wouldn’t have died if He had been here. But He was away and the man died kind of sudden like. He had been sick, but nobody knowed he was that sick. They do say the Man could bring him back to life if He chose. I don’t believe in it myself, sir; but that’s what they do sa
y. They’ve got the dead man in a vault over at the cemetery, and they won’t bury him till the Other has seen him.”
“Oh, then He isn’t hereabouts?” said Gilderman.
“He was here,” said the man; “but He went away last Sunday. They say He’s going down to the city some day soon, and He’s making His plans for it. He was to come back here by noon to-day.”
“Oh, then that’s why all those crowds were waiting at the stations, I suppose,” said Gilderman.
“Yes, sir,” said the groom. “They was waiting to see Him.”
“Who was the man who died?” said Gilderman, after a little pause.
“Why, sir, to tell you the honest truth,” said the groom, “I’ve often seen him, but I don’t know much about him. He lived down in yon part of the village”–pointing with his whip–”with his two sisters. One of the women appears to be good enough, and nobody says anything against her, but the other–well, sir, she’s been a pretty bad lot, and that’s the truth. They tell me they used to do all they could to keep her to home, but she wouldn’t stay. She’s at home now, but she was down in the city nigh all last winter. Her brother didn’t try to make her stay at home, and he couldn’t make her stay if he tried–she’s just a bad lot, and that’s all there is of it. They do say she’s different now, but you know what that amounts to with that kind.”
Gilderman laughed. The man, now that he was started, was disposed to be loquacious. The groom shot a quick look at him. They had already reached the top of the hill. The declivity upon the side stretched away down to the town, and in the extreme distance Gilderman could see the low, flat roof of the station. He looked at his watch; it was twenty-seven minutes past two.
“I’ll get you there in good time, sir,” said the groom. Then he chirruped to the horse. The animal gathered itself up with a start and then sped away down the road past the scattered houses and the embryo streets staked out across the open fields.
