Dirk Peters

“ These arrangements were scarcely completed when Dirk Peters came below, very drunk, but in excellent humour, and bringing with him my friend's allowance of provision for the day. This consisted of a dozen large Irish potatoes roasted, and a pitcher of water. He sat for some time on a chest by the berth, and talked freely about the mate and the general concerns of the brig. His demeanour was exceedingly capricious, and even grotesque. At one time Augustus was much alarmed by odd conduct. At last, however, he went on deck, muttering a promise to bring his prisoner a good dinner on the morrow. ”

“ All sail was now put upon the brig, and she continued her original course to the southwest—the mutineers being bent upon some piratical expedition, in which, from all that could be understood, a ship was to be intercepted on her way from the Cape Verd Islands to Porto Rico. No attention was paid to Augustus, who was untied and suffered to go about anywhere forward of the cabin companion-way. Dirk Peters treated him with some degree of kindness, and on one occasion saved him from the brutality of the cook. ”

“ The singers cast curious glances at him as he passed, and when he reached the door he heard a patter of feet behind him and turned to see Dirk at his elbow.
"I have done with it," he said hoarsely.
Dirk's eyes were flaming. "Do you want to make public confession?" he demanded, breathing hard. "Remember, it is our lives to pay, if they discover."
Theirry shuddered. "I cannot pray. I cannot stay in the church. For days I have felt the blessing scorch me."
"Come upstairs," said Dirk.
As they went down the long hall they met one who was a friend of Joris of Thuringia. Dirk stopped. ”

“ When everything was tidy Peters sat down and drank his tea, and thought about his ambitions.
Now, Mr Peters, as will have been gathered, was as ignorant as a child of the manner in which promotion takes place in a solicitor's office, and of the fact that he had no chance whatever. He was conscientious and patient, and could do mechanical work; he was quite regular. Some men can do a thing one day which they cannot do on the next, but Peters was never unexpected. ”

“ Do they push back the earth from their sunken eyes, raising themselves on their elbows to listen? Dick Dirk is there by now—he who returned ahead of time from Blighty because he wanted to “go straight for her.” His house underground is newer than the others. Does he wish us luck, or does he pay us no attention?———No, they do not stir. They lie heedless and silent. ”

“ The form is that of Peters—the only man who could be in such a situation yet live on. One of those invincible arms is thrown upon the surface above the chasm, and those long fingers fasten upon the immovable lava. And now the madman sees the danger that menaces his design—but too late, for Peters the unconquerable stands erect between him and the chasm. Then Ahpilus quickly sets on the ground his living burden; and Peters, the human bird of passage, risks again his life. ”

“ Partly by accident, partly by design, he came to the little place of graves in the frozen sand, and there found the funeral party from the fish-huts just gathering about the shallow resting-place which had been scooped for Dirk's treasure. The huddling crowd of poorly-clad men and women respectfully made way for him, and Dirk looked unutterable thanks for what he considered a great honor. Without a prayer, without a word of consolation, the little one was lowered into the earth amid the wailing of the women, and the shrill and lonely screaming of the fierce and bitter wind. ”

“ He was a young fellow of prepossessing appearance, dressed in plain, coarse loathing, and having the elastic movement and grace of the better classes. Peters observed, when only the width of the chasm separated the two, that the young Hili-lite had a laughing eye, full of latent mischief, but also of intelligence.
"He was known to Diregus, and the two began a conversation. He was one of the exiles, by name Medosus. Diregus soon ascertained that the exiles had long known Ahpilus to be insane ”

“ But Dirk was elate with success. "Ye are mad," he retorted. "The spell works bravely."
On the end of his words came a sound that caused both to wince; even in the lurid light Dirk saw his companion pale. It was the bell of the college chapel ringing the students to the vespers.
"I had forgotten," muttered Dirk. "We must go—it would be noticed."
"We cannot put the fire out," cried Theirry.
"Nay, we must leave it—it must burn out," answered Dirk hurriedly.
The creature, after rushing round the circle in an attempt to escape had fallen, as if exhausted with its agony, and lay quivering. ”

“ But, for a man like Peters, such a contest was scarcely a risk. Had Ahpilus been less savage in his baffled rage, Peters would have spared the madman; but it was not to be. There was scarcely a man in all Hili-li that could physically cope with Ahpilus ”

“ Ah, here's Peters," he added as the hermit entered through the dining-room door at the side of the stairs.
"All finished, gentlemen?" he asked, coming forward. "Now, this is solid comfort, ain't it? I reckon when you get a few days of this, you'll all become hermits, and build yourselves shacks on the mountain. Solid comfort. No woman to make you put on overshoes when you go out, or lecture you about the effects of alcohol on the stomach. Heaven, I call it."
"Peters," said Mr. Magee, "we have been wondering if you will stay on here and cook for us. We need you. ”

“ An examination of the career and the writings of Peters shows him to have been an honest, upright, and genial man, whose defects of taste and judgment explain much of the odium which he incurred, but do not justify it. ”

“ Peters realized at last the darling wish of his heart, and stood in the very room in which the murder had been committed. Gus looked round, went to the window, opened the shutters to the widest extent, and the afternoon sunshine streamed full into the room, lighting every crevice, revealing every speck of dust on the moth-eaten damask bed-curtains—every crack and stain on the worm-eaten flooring.
To see Mr. Darley look round the room, and to see Mr. Peters look round it, is to see two things as utterly wide apart as it is possible for one look to be from another. ”

“ It seemed that Peters, in a few hours, had penetrated the barrier outside which he, after months, still remained. With him she was always shyly silent. On the few rare occasions in Paris and in London when he had found himself alone with her she had shrunk into herself and avoided addressing him; and he had wondered, irritably, how much was natural diffidence and how much due to convent training. But he had made no effort at further understanding, for the past was always present dominating inclinations and impulses—perpetual memory, jogging at his elbow. ”

“ The country boy sold all his possessions for a few hundred dollars and came to New York. His friend was very kind in his manner and prolific of advice, but, unfortunately, he had no room in his own office for a junior or even an errand-boy. So Peters, for that was the young man's name, dragged himself up and down the city trying to find an opening, no matter how small. He was too old to begin as a clerk and too much of a bumpkin for anything else, and he found that nobody had any use for a young man of his particular type and training. ”

“ And in those fleeting moments the face of a young girl would pass through every stage from youth to extreme age, and then sink down in death. As the aged mystic whispered to Pym, the young man's face turned ghastly, then worked convulsively, then settled into firm resolve. And Peters never again saw on the face of the youth whom he loved with the love of a mother and of a father in one—never again saw the old, careless, boyish smile. Did the old man—shall we call him a man?—did the old man whisper into Pym's ear the secret of eternity? ”

“ A minute after, the pursuers bearing lights, and half delirious with wrath and terror, surged out of the college doors. Theirry caught Dirk's arm and they ran; across the thick grass, crashing through the bushes, trampling down the roses, blindly through the dark till the shouts and the lights grew fainter behind them and they could feel the trunks of trees impeding them and so knew that they must have reached the forest. Then Theirry let go of Dirk, who sank down by his side and lay sobbing in the grass. ”

“ It was apparently at the same instant of time that the sight of Pym and Peters fell upon an object so awesome that their hearts almost ceased to beat, and then bounded on with throbs that sent the cold blood leaping down their spines and to their scalps in chilling waves that ceased only when their terror reached the numbing stage. There before them, not six feet away, among great cubes of crystal, and vast retorts, and enormous vase-like objects on the floor, stood an aged man. ”

“ Peters had slipped and slammed around on the course like a crazy curling stone, finally cutting the feet out from under a fat spectator, who called him Saphead right to his face! Ah, what a wind-up for a sorry afternoon! Peters clenched his hands in his bearskin gloves and crouched down on the rear seat in a fruitless effort to efface himself.
[72]
He was nineteen, and Porter Markham was twenty. They both worked for Uncle Silas Goddard, who had a ranch in Montana, and made a business of sending range horses into North Dakota to be halter broken and sold to the settlers. ”

“ It was a bare room where Dirk's treasure was sleeping,—not a thing in it save the two wooden stools and rough board which upheld their still little burden. Pure and white the child lay,—a fair, delicate flower when compared with the dinginess and squalor of everything about it; and something of this contrast seemed to glimmer upon Dirk's rough perceptions, for he said to Noll,—
"Ye wouldn't think she could be mine, lad! Ye don't wonder the little gal couldn't come up like the rest o' the young uns?" ”

“ Dirk's household improved somewhat. Dirk was the most intelligent of the fishermen, and began to dimly perceive that it was much better and pleasanter to live cleanly and neatly than to pattern his household arrangements after the beasts of the field. He was, moreover, strongly actuated to reform his way of living by his deep, strong sense of gratitude to Noll, which led him to endeavor to accomplish whatever the boy suggested. ”

“ He 's a heap too good for Twin River."
"How 'll you rope him?"
"I got a bait—best kind. They allus fall for a woman." Dave's sneering tones, as he broke open the pack, sorely taxed his companion's self-control. "What'll we play?" he continued. "Better make it 'stud.' Th' gamer a man is th' quicker he goes broke at stud an' Peters is game enough."
Tex dropped back into position and took his hands from his pockets. "I shine at stud," he remarked softly, taking the deck Dave offered him. ”

“ Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. Still, it wouldn't do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken. ”

“ And he had a pension. And Mrs Marks congratulated him, and said that he deserved his luck. And finally Peters broke down and wept.
Peters spent most of his days, doing absolutely nothing, stretched on the grass under the plane tree. He had grown rather queer in one or two points. Mrs Marks could not make him believe that the strip of land was to be built over, and that the tree would have to come down. He did not argue about it. He merely said, "They shall not cut that tree down. I shall see about it."
"Now that is silly, Mr Peters. The tree will come down before they begin to build." ”

“ He studied his book, without entirely understanding it, by the light of an evil- [Pg 193] smelling lamp in the long evenings. When his disappointment had finally dawned upon him, he took the book back to the second-hand bookseller and tried to get him to purchase it again; but that was of no use. It had taken the second-hand man some years to sell that book once, and he did not feel inclined to recommence the struggle. So Peters put it up on a shelf and did his best to forget it. Now he read Mrs Marks's newspaper (she obliged him with the loan of it) in the evening. ”

“ Pete Peters happened to come out to the shed to cool off about this time, and as he almost brushed her shoulder, it was as little as Lily could do to address a remark to him, and then, of course, he stopped and chatted awhile; and, after what appeared a reasonable interval, long enough for it not to seem that she was too much elated over it, she remarked, "An', by-de-way, Mr. Peters, I must tell you what a lovely Christmas gif' I have just received by de hand of Mr. Pier. He has jest presented me with his yaller-wheeled buggy, an' I sho' is proud of it." ”

“ She had quite forgotten about it, but one must verbally humour lodgers. Besides, she had an apposite observation to make. "I've often remarked," she said, "that if we could all have everything we wanted, there wouldn't be enough to go round."
Peters felt a little lonely. One day was very much like another. He always went to bed at the same time, and always rose at the same time. ”

“ Peters. Of course if we'd known—" Priscilla shut the door softly, and retired around the corner to await Peters's departure.
"How in the world did you manage him?" she asked, bursting in as soon as the sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor. "I expected to sing a requiem over your remains, and I found Peters on his knees, engaged in amicable conversation."
Patty smiled inscrutably. "You must remember," she said, "that Peters is not only a janitor: he is also a man." ”