Part 7 (1/2)
He might have looked with it at a criminal, condemning him to death.
But he would have condemned him, and, if no hangman could be found, would have put the rope on with his own hands, and then most probably would have sat down pale and trembling, and a.n.a.lyzed his sensations on paper,--being sincere in all.
He sat down on the school-house step, which the boys had hacked and whittled rough, and waited; for he was there by appointment, to meet Dr. Knowles.
Knowles had gone out early in the morning to look at the ground he was going to buy for his Phalanstery, or whatever he chose to call it. He was to bring the deed of sale of the mill out with him for Holmes. The next day it was to be signed. Holmes saw him at last lumbering across the prairie, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. Summer or winter, he contrived to be always hot. There was a cart drawn by an old donkey coming along beside him. Knowles was talking to the driver.
The old man clapped his hands as stage-coachmen do, and drew in long draughts of air, as if there were keen life and promise in every breath. They came up at last, the cart empty, and drying for the day's work after its morning's scrubbing, Lois's pock-marked face all in a glow with trying to keep Barney awake. She grew quite red with pleasure at seeing Holmes, but went on quickly as the men began to talk. Tige followed her, of course; but when she had gone a little way across the prairie, they saw her stop, and presently the dog came back with something in his mouth, which he laid down beside his master, and bolted off. It was only a rough wicker-basket which she had filled with damp plushy moss, and half-buried in it cl.u.s.ters of plumy fern, delicate brown and ashen lichens, ma.s.ses of forest-leaves all shaded green with a few crimson tints. It had a clear woody smell, like far-off myrrh. The Doctor laughed as Holmes took it up.
”An artist's gift, if it is from a mulatto,” he said. ”A born colourist.”
The men were not at ease,--for some reason; they seized on every trifle to keep off the subject which had brought them together.
”That girl's artist-sense is pure, and her religion, down under the perversion and ignorance of her brain. Curious, eh?”
”Look at the top of her head, when you see her,” said Holmes. ”It is necessity for such brains to wors.h.i.+p. They let the fire lick their blood, if they happen to be born Pa.r.s.ees. This girl, if she had been a Jew when Christ was born, would have known him as Simeon did.”
Knowles said nothing,--only glanced at the ma.s.sive head of the speaker, with its overhanging brow, square development at the sides, and lowered crown, and smiled significantly.
”Exactly,” laughed Holmes, putting his hand on his head. ”Crippled there by my Yorks.h.i.+re blood,--my mother. Never mind; outside of this life, blood or circ.u.mstance matters nothing.”
They walked on slowly towards town. Surely there was nothing in the bill-of-sale which the old man had in his pocket but a mere matter of business; yet they were strangely silent about it, as if it brought shame to some one. There was an embarra.s.sed pause. The Doctor went back to Lois for relief.
”I think it is the pain and want of such as she that makes them susceptible to religion. The self in them is so starved and humbled that it cannot obscure their eyes; they see G.o.d clearly.”
”Say rather,” said Holmes, ”that the soul is so starved and blind that it cannot recognize itself as G.o.d.”
The Doctor's intolerant eye kindled.
”Humph! So that's your creed! Not Pantheism. Ego sum. Of course you go on with the conjugation: I have been, I shall be. I,--that covers the whole ground, creation, redemption, and commands the hereafter?”
”It does so,” said Holmes, coolly.
”And this wretched huckster carries her deity about her,--her self-existent soul? How, in G.o.d's name, is her life to set it free?”
Holmes said nothing. The coa.r.s.e sneer could not be answered. Men with pale faces and heavy jaws like his do not carry their religion on their tongue's end; their creeds leave them only in the slow oozing life-blood, false as the creeds may be.
Knowles went on hotly, half to himself, seizing on the new idea fiercely, as men and women do who are yet groping for the truth of life.
”What is it your Novalis says? 'The true Shechinah is man.' You know no higher G.o.d? Pooh! the idea is old enough; it began with Eve. It works slowly, Holmes. In six thousand years, taking humanity as one, this self-existent soul should have clothed itself with a freer, royaller garment than poor Lois's body,--or mine,” he added, bitterly.
”It works slowly,” said the other, quietly. ”Faster soon, in America.
There are yet many ills of life for the divinity within to conquer.”
”And Lois and the swarming ma.s.s yonder in those dens? It is late for them to begin the fight?”
”Endurance is enough for them here, and their religions teach them that. They could not bear the truth. One does not put a weapon into the hands of a man dying of the fetor and hunger of the siege.”
”But what will this life, or the lives to come, give to you, champions who know the truth?”
”Nothing but victory,” he said, in a low tone, looking away.
Knowles looked at the pale strength of the iron face.
”G.o.d help you, Stephen!” he broke out, his shallow jeering falling off.