Margret Howth: A Story of To-day

are dead. We can bear the pain in silence, if our hearts are strong enough, while the nations of the earth stand afar off. I have no word of this To-Day to speak. I write from the border of the b

m has borne, the enduring morning evolved of the true world and the true man. It is not clear to us. Hands wet with a brother's blood for the Right, a slavery of intolerance, the hackneyed cant of men, or the blood-thirstiness of women, utter no prophecy to us of the great To-Morrow of content and right that holds the world. Yet the To-Morrow is there; if God lives, it is there. The voice of the meek Nazarene, w

hills trampled down by armed men, the yellow clay is quick with pulsing fibres, hints of the great heart of life and love throbbing within; slanted sunlight would show me, in these sullen smoke-clouds from the camp, walls of amethyst and jasper, outer ramparts of the Promised Land. Do not call us traitors, then, who choose to be cool and silent through the fever of the hour,-who choose to search in common things for auguries of the hopeful, helpful calm to come, finding even in these poor sweet-peas, thrusting their tendrils through the br

d plebeian, for I know the glimpses of life it pleases you best to find; idyls delicately tinted; passion-veined hearts, cut bare for curious eyes; prophetic utterances, concrete and clear; or some word of pathos or fun from the old friends who have endenizened themselves in everybody's home.

down into this common, every-day drudgery, and consider if there might not be in it also a great warfare. Not a serfish war; not altogether ignoble, though even its only end may appear to be your daily food. A great warfare, I think, wit

is who falls foremost in the breach. Your enemy, Self, goes with you from the cradle to the coffin; it is a hand-to-hand struggle all the sad, slow way, fought in solitude,-a battle that began with the first heart-beat, a

y conquered or were worsted in the fight. Very common lives, I know,-such as a

g this story to tell

e woollen manufacturers: supplied the home market in Indiana for several years. This ledger, you see by the writing, has been kept by a woman. That is not unusual in Western trading towns, e

writing, her dress, her face,-kept it locked up instead, intact; that her words and looks, like her writing, were most likely simple, mere absorbents by which she drew what she needed of the outer world to her, not flaunting helps to fling herself, or the tragedy or comedy that lay within, before careless passers-by. The first page has the d

on the desk for her. As soon as he was gone, she shut the door, listening until his heavy boots had thumped creaking down the rickety ladder leading to the frame-rooms. Then she climbed up on the high office-stool (climbed, I said, for she was a little, lithe thing) and went to work, opening the books, and copying from one to the other as steadily, monotonously, as if she had been used to it all her life. Here are the first pages: see how sharp the angles are of the blue and black lines, how even the long columns: one would not think

desk covered with dust; a raisin-box, with P. Teagarden done on the lid in bas-relief, half full of ends of cigars, a pack of cards, and a rotten apple. That was all, except an impalpable sense of dust and worn-outness pervading the whole. One thing more, odd enough there: a wire cage, hung on the wall, and in it a miserable pecking chicken, peering dolefully with suspicious eyes out at her, and t

he currant-bushes at home when she was a child, and the plans she laid for herself, when she should be a woman, sitting there,-how she would dig down into the middle of the world, and find the kingdom of the griffins, or would go after Mercy and Christiana in their pilgrimage. It was only a little while ago since these things were more alive to her than anything else in the world. The seat was under the currant-bushes still. Very little time ago; but she was a

ded shortly to her, and, going to the desk, turned over the books, peering suspiciously at her work

morrow you must wait for the bell to ri

er face like a shadow; but she s

s not blush to go down into the slime

was a baby, so was cool under it always. The face watching her was one that repelled most men: dominant, restless, flushing into red gusts of passion, a small, intolerant e

and fastened her shawl

done? Women go through life as babies learn to walk,-a mouthful of pap every step, on

y brushing her shawl. "The

d to the books. He thought she had gone, but, hearing a slight click

e out, sharply. "Where

smell the green fields, Doctor. Ledgers and copperas a

type of yourself, eh? It has another work to do

ened t

I will

Margret," pushing his stubby finger between the tin bars "do you think

ious tremour in his flabby fac

won't have been lost. Not

slowly, refastening th

t, c

ed furtiv

orld where such a thing

s lip curl bitterly, and then, amused, went d

s piled up to the dark ceilings. There was a crowd of porters and draymen cracking their whips, and lounging on the trucks by the door, waiting for loads, talking politics, and smoking. The smell of tobacco, copperas, and burning logwood was heavy to clamminess here. She stopped, uncertain. One of the porters, a short, sickly man, who stood aloof from the rest, pushed open a door for her with his staff. Margret had a quick memory for faces; she thought she had seen this one before as she passed,-a dark face, sullen, heavy-lipped, the hair cut convict-fashion, close to the head. She thought too, one of the men muttered "jail-bird," jeering him for his forwardness. "Load for Clinton! Western Railroad!" sung out a sharp voice behind her, and, as she went into the street, a train o

ts face better. It was a large trading city, compactly built, shut in by hills. It had an anxious, harassed look, like a speculator concluding a keen bargain; the very dwelling-houses smelt of trade, having shops in the lower stories; in the outskirts, where there are cottages in other cities, there were mills here; the trees, which some deluded dreamer had planted on the flat pavements, had all grown up into abrupt Lombardy poplars, knowing their best policy was to keep out of the way; the boys, playing marbles under them, played sharply "for keeps;" the bony old dray-horses, plodding through the dusty crowds, had speculative eyes, that measured their oats at night with a

overed at their bases with dingy stubble-fields. In the sides bordering the road gaped the black mouths of the coal-pits that burrowed under the hills, under the town. Trade everywhere,-on the earth and under it. No wonder the girl called it a hard, scraping world. But when th

self. For this reason he tried to fancy how her new life would seem to her. It should be hard enough, her work,-he was determined on that; her strength and endurance must be tested to the uttermost. He must know what stuff was in the weapon before he used it. He had been reading the slow, cold thing for years,-had not got into its secret yet. But there was power there, and it was the power he wanted. Her history was simple enough: she was going into the mill to support a helpless father and mother; it was a common story; she had given up much for them;-other women did the same. He gave her scanty praise. Two years ago (he had keen, watchful eyes, this man) he had fancied that the homely girl had a dream, as most women have,

he quiet was so deep, the free air, the heavy trees, the sunshine, all so full and certain and fixed, one could be sure of finding them the same a hundred years from now. Nobody ever was in a hurry. The brown bees came along there, when their work was over, and hummed into the great purple thistles on the road-side in a voluptuous stupor of delight. The cows sauntered through the clover by the fences, until they wound up by lying down in it and sleepi

a duskier brown, deepening every moment. Margret turned from the road, and went down the fields. One did not wonder, feeling the silence of these hills

ithe under it, soften it as she would. It was nothing to her, he knew. So he waited. After a while he heard the old man's laugh, like that of a pleased child, and then went in and took her place beside him. She went out, but came back presently, every grain of dust gone, in her clear dress of pearl gray. The neutral tint suited her well. As she stood by the window, listening gravely to them, the homely face and waiting figure came into full relief. Nature had made the woman in a freak of rare sincerity. There were no reflected lights about her; no gloss on her skin, no

ere fixedness of purpose to make use of her some day. He talked, meanwhile, glancing at her now and then, as if the subject they discussed were indirectly linked with his plan for her. If it were, she was unconscious of it

l fail,

r father

er the French nor German Socialists attempted to ba

. "That accounts for t

plan practically," eag

haps he did not regard the poor old school-master as a practical judge of

lan, Phalanstery or Community, call it what you please, founded

d to push the thin gray hairs out of his eyes in a groping way.

a sham next!" said the D

ing the battle near at hand. "There never was a thinner-crusted Devil'

ave," said the

her placid, creamy way. "It is in the blood, I think,

r waited until h

aid, with a grave smile. Then

irteenth century, when the anarchic element sprang full-grown into the history of h

he new-born earth,"

with nervous eagerness,-"granite, not the slime of yest

s which the old man hurled at him were some old worn-out song. Seeing, however, that the school-mas

of the human soul are the slime of yesterday, how shall we f

that of newly enfranchised ser

ctor l

ve made? You would have had such a winning

laid down h

d, timidly, "I thi

without the glimmer of a covert smile at her simplicity. She was a

' better if they had said. Look at her, in the warm vigour of her youth, most vigorous in decay! Look at the germs and dregs of nations, creeds, religions, ferment

im than the downfall of the Republic. What help did he seek in

-"we left Order back there in the ages you call dark,

growled t

cane beat an angry t

ping eye ever given to man, he had no more? It was to show how far fle

eyes were as strong as a man's could be. It was ten years after I wore spectacl

harp eyes darted from one to the other; then, with a smothered growl, he shook himself, and rushed headlong into the old battle which he and the school-master had been waging now, off and on, some six years. That was

f) went tranquilly back to her knitting, wondering why Dr. Knowles should come ten times now where he used to come once, to provoke Samuel into these wearisome arguments. Ever since their misfortune came on them, he had been there every night, always at it. She should think he might be a little more considerate. Mr. Howth surely had enough to think of, what with his-his misfortune, and the starvation waiting for them, and poor Margret's degradation, (she sighed here,) without bothering his head about the theocratic principle, or the Battle of Armageddon. She had hinted as much to Dr. Knowles one day, and he

deepens,-o

gradually, or out,-for, as I told you, they dug into the very heart of the matter at first,-they came out gradually to modern times. Things began to assume a more familiar aspect. Spinoza, Fichte, Saint Simon,-one heard about them now. If you could but have heard the school-master deal with these his enemies! With what tender charity for the man, what relentless vengeance for the belief, he pounced on them, dragging the soul out of their systems, holding it up for slow slaughter! As for Humanity, (how Knowles lingered on that word, with a tenderness curious in so uncouth a mass of flesh!)-as for Humanity, it was a study to see it stripped and flouted and thrown out of doors like a filthy rag by this poor old Howth, a man too child-hearted to kill a spider. It was pleasanter to hear him when he defended the great Past in which his ideal truth had been faintly shadowed. How he caught the salient tints of the feudal life! How the fine womanly nature of th

-placed even in the shabby, scuffed coat. A scholar, a gentleman, though in patched shoes and trousers a world too short. Old and gaunt, hunger-bitten even it may be, with loose-jointed, bony limbs, and yellow face; clinging, loyal and

chivalry, dead long ago. The master's voice grew low and lingering now. It was a labour of love, this. Oh, it is so easy to go back out of the broil of dust and meanness and barter into the clear shadow of that old life where love and bravery stand eternal verities,-never to be bought

ir conflict over Self? These women, content to live in solitude forever because they once had loved, could any man understand that? Or the dead queen, dead that the man she loved might be free and happy,-why, this WAS life,-this death! But did pain, and martyrdom, and victory lie back in

o-day more noble than any of your piping troubadours. W

drew himself

d vile. It is a good word. That was a better which

ion. Men have had worse. Perhaps the Doctor thought this; for he

n this child's mind. You make her despi

ll the great old dreams are dead. Your own phantom, your Republic, your ex

aning flashed in his eye and trembled on his lip; but he kept it back. His face glowed

s cant, and bigotry, and weight of uncomprehended fact. Bargain and sale,-it taints our religion, our brains, our flags,-yours and mine, Knowles, with the res

s silent. There was a smothered look of pain on the coarse fac

ng his quotation, "'io non averei credut

ow-stepping music of the Florentine could not calm. She had learned that long ago, and used

e said, after a pause. "It is a

gone from the old master's countenance; it was bent with its usual wistful

o his forehead in a military fashion. "Where is my cane, Margret? T

e sweet-brier, he bent the branches aside, that they might not touch his face. Slow, childish tears came into her eyes as she saw it; for the school-master was blind. This had been their regular walk every evening, since it grew too cold for them to go down under the lindens. The Doctor had not missed a night since her father gave up the school, a month ago: at first, under pretence

oing placidly about the house in her gray dress and Quaker cap, as if there were no such things in the world as debt or blindness. But Margret knew, though she said nothing. When her mother came in from those wonderful foraging expeditions in search of late pease or corn, she could see the swollen circle round the eyes, and hear her breath like that of a child which has sobbed itself tired. Then, one night, when she had gone into her mother's room, after she was in bed, the blue eyes were set in a wild, hopeless way, as if staring down into years of starvation and misery. The fire on the hearth burned low and clear; the old worn furniture stood out cheerfully in the red glow, and threw a maze of twisted shadow on the floor. But the glow was all that was cheerful. To-morrow, when th

ster had gathered about their home. Gone now. But it should return. It was well, perhaps, that he was blind, he knew so little of what had come on them. There, where the black marks were on the wall, there had hung

tures to-day, Margret.

o had tucked them under his arm, and flung them i

something gone,-something that should return. She willed that, that evening, standing by the dim fi

id it need the sand waste of Palestine or a tournament to call it into life? Down in that trading town, in the thick of its mills and drays, it could live, she thought. That very night, perhaps, in some of those fetid cellars

n the gray hair under the cap, "shall

his woman's was,-seldom h

nt of the stable, appeared at the door. Margret looked at him as if he were an accusing spirit,-coming down,

nced, flinging in the inform

o, Joel," sa

he resume of her experience in the combat that had devoured half her life, like that of other American house-keepers. "Be gentle, but l

Joel," with a

nder the brush of red hair,-pr

f the enemy and bore off the newspaper, going before Margret, as she went to

slow spelling, and face knitted up into savage sternness, especially now, when, as he gravely explained to Margret, "in HIS o

e, "The Daily Gazette" of Towbridge. The school-master need not have grumbled for the old time: feodali

tly in compassion to the ignorance of women in political economics, he thre

of the President." Besides, (Joel was a good-natured man, too, merciful to his beast,) Nero-like, he wished, with the tiger drop of blood that lies hid in everybody's heart, that

to her father-"thrown on his hands; he couldn't use it,-product of slave-labour!-never, Sir!") the delicate brown fish that Joel had caught, the bread her mother had made, the golden butter,-all of them touched her nerves with a quick sense of beauty and pleasure. And more, the gaunt face of the blind old man, his bony hand trembling as he raised the cup to his lips, her mother and the Doctor managing silently to place everything he liked best near his plate. Wasn't it all part of the fresh, hopeful glow burning in her consciousness? It brightened and deepened. It blotted out the hard, dusty path of the future, and showed warm and clear the success at the end. Not much to show, you think. Only the old home as it once was, full of quiet laughter and content; only her mother's eyes clear shining again; only that gaunt old head raised proudly, owing no man anything but courtesy. The glow deepened, as

beneath, dark and cold. It was only for that end he cared for her. Through what cold depths of solitude her soul breathed faintly mattered little. Yet an idle fancy touched him, what a triumph the man had gained, whoever he might be, who had held the mast