Harrington

“ She sleeps, my noble-hearted Muriel—she who, misled by my proud, spleenful folly, thinks I have given my heart to Harrington. And he! oh, how can he forgive me when I tell him—but he will—that noble nature cannot scorn me; he will understand and pity and pardon. Let me only tell him frankly—let me atone for all my wrong by humbling myself before him; let me crave his compassion and forgiveness, and so be fitter to go from earth to my Savior’s rest. To-morrow I will depart from hence, and before I go I will see Harrington and Muriel, and make my peace with them. ”

“ The blood of Harrington seemed turned to ice as he gazed, and his hair rose.
“In the name of God,” he gasped, “what manner of man are you?”
The figure did not answer, but stared at him and trembled.
Harrington’s heart was stout, and conquering at once his affright and the sickening disgust which the stench gave him, he made one stride nearer to the figure.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?” he demanded. ”

“ Harrington put forth a series of similes that should make any dead orator turn in his grave. The nation was successively held up to our admiration in the guise of a sick man, a cripple, a banker, a theatrical company, and a peddler of tape and buttons. We were bankrupt, diseased; and our bones, like those of the Psalmist, were all out of joint; and if our hearts did not become like melting wax in the midst of our bodies, it was not the fault of Mr. John Harrington, but rather was it due to the hardening of those organs against the voice of the charmer. ”

“ The long blackness of their frock-coats and the sable accompaniment of their silk hats, gloves, and ties appealed to the observant faculties of Harrington as in harmony both with the high social position of the parties and the peculiar sadness of the occasion. That a young man and woman, on the eve of matrimony, and with everything to live for, should be hurled into eternity (a Harringtonian figure of speech) by a railroad train at a rustic crossing, while driving, was certainly an affair heartrending enough to invite every habiliment of woe. ”

“ Harrington, astonished beyond measure, sat in silence, wondering what object Muriel could have in telling him this, all his being, meanwhile, one burning flush of grief and pain.
“To which,” pursued Muriel, “Monsieur Bagasse replied in his French patois to this effect: ‘Why is it odd that a rich and beautiful lady should love Mr. Harrington. Is it odd because he wears an old coat? Ah, Mr. Witherlee, there are duchesses that love the old coat because it covers the nobility of heart they also love! ”

“ A Harrington is anything but a coward. I did go and because I am devoted to your interests. That very morning, I saw announced in the paper, just beneath poor Andrew’s hand, as he held it up at the breakfast-table, reading it, I saw among the deaths, Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay, Baronet, of quinsy! Twice that good man has come to my rescue! Oh! I welcomed him as a piece of Providence! I turned and said to Harriet, ‘I see they have put poor Papa in the paper.’ Harriet was staggered. I took the paper from Andrew, and pointed it to her. She has no readiness. ”

“ Emily listened, with a countenance deathly pale.
“I declare, Harrington,” she said, “when I read that letter I felt as if the earth had cracked and shown me a glimpse of hell. Is it possible that there can be such men as this? Are there many of them at the South?”
Harrington did not reply for a moment, and sat sadly looking into vacancy.
“It is not Southern nature,” he said, at length, “it is human nature. It is human nature depraved by a tyranny, and licensed, practically licensed, even in its wildest excesses, by a tyrant code. ”

“ The negro still fumbling at the blanket, without undoing it, and sighing piteously, Harrington laid his watch on the table, and stepping forward, unwound the wrappage from his neck, fold after fold, pulled it off, and disclosed an iron collar with a prong, and the letters distinct upon it—Lafitte Brothers, New Orleans. ”

“ Let me at him, till I cut his heart out!”
“Listen to me, Brown,” said Harrington, in a solemn and majestic voice, fronting the roused passion of the negro with his soul divinely splendid in his eyes. “You are a brave man and the son of the brave. Your father fought in the black corps with Jackson, at New Orleans. Face to face with the foe, in honorable war. You yourself, walked from slavery in Louisiana to freedom in Massachusetts, knife in hand, through a land of enemies. You slew the hounds that followed you. You struck dead the armed hunters that opposed you. ”

“ Spurred by his fear of being retaken, the fugitive ran by Harrington’s side as fast as he did. Had he fallen behind, the young man would instantly have caught him up, and ran with him, but he did not. Together they reached the steep sloping edge of the island and plunged furiously down. But to the sudden horror of Harrington, Antony, impelled by some strange confusion of fear, instead of heading down with him to the left toward the boat, swerved in his descent obliquely away to the right and sped at a frantic pace in that direction toward the water. ”

“ Once I have saved you—twice I will not. Go in peace—but come here again on such an errand, and I will slay you with my own hand, for, by the Eternal God, never while I live, shall you nor any one make Boston a hunting-ground for men!”
Lafitte, with his ghastly visage bowed, shook like a leaf while Harrington, with a white face and flaming eyes, and with stem determination in every tone, uttered an admonition which rose to the dignity of the great issue between Liberty and Slavery. ”

“ Harrington proceeded. "He had left the good old country, meaning England, ten years ago, to seek his fortune. No need to speak of his ups and downs, of which he had many. He was a man of few friends; he had left nothing behind him in England but one little girl, of whom he was exceedingly fond. This little girl was delicate and needed more than the man could send her. He worked very hard for her, he led a clean life for her sake. and after many adventures he reached California, and there, together with a partner called Challis, be struck a rich placer of gold. ”

“ I’m sorry if you blame me, Harrington, but there’s a happy man up-stairs to balance my side of the ledger.”
“I am not your conscience, Richard,” said Harrington, simply. “There are some truths that come from hell, and there are some lies that savor of heaven. ”

“ It is a lover’s quarrel. To vex Wentworth, she paid court to Harrington. It was on Richard’s account that she was jealous of me. And that is why Richard was so devoted to me—yes, to vex her. And I who patronized him, that she and Harrington might be together—ah, that made Harrington think I loved Richard. I see it—I see it! That is what he meant when he asked me to tell him who my fairy prince was! Oh, noble heart, you hid your pain—you sacrificed your love—you tried to be happy in the happiness you dreamed for me! ”

“ Harrington,” continued Mrs. Atkins, after much eulogium of the Southern gentleman who had done us the honor [253] of dining with us to-day, “if you could only meet Mr. Lafitte, you would have such different ideas of the Southern gentlemen.”
“Indeed, madam,” replied Harrington, courteously, “I should be sorry to have my ideas of Southern gentlemen changed, for I credit them with many fine and high qualities. Don’t think that I imagine Northerners and Southerners in the absolute colors of good and evil—black and white; all the white on our side, and all the black on theirs.” ”

“ Harrington laughed, and advancing, took up a bit of chalk from the floor, and marked a line on the post, as much above his own head as the notch had been above the fencing-master’s. Then poising a second, he threw up his leg, and brought away chalk on his boot. There was a general burst of acclamation.
“Ah, ha! it is grand—it is superb!” cried Monsieur Bagasse. “Missr Harrin’ton, he can keek wis me, he can fence wis me, he can shoot wis me, he can engage wis me in ze broadsword—ze single-steek, he can do everysing so I can. It is his talent. Sacrebleu! He is for-r-mi-dabble.” ”

“ Harrington was a new man and he came from the Virginia mountains, and was most obliging and altogether engaging. This was all the information acquired even by the indefatigable Miss Mollie Merk, whose success in extracting from individuals information it was their dearest desire to conceal had made her a star member of the Searchlight's staff. It was to Miss Merk, however, that Harrington announced his first important discovery. Leaning across her desk one evening after his successor had taken the "car," the new elevator man touched a subject much upon his mind. ”

“ There was a long silence.
“Do you understand, Antony?” said Harrington.
[524]
“No, Marster.”
“It will be made clear to you,” answered Harrington, after a pause. “When you are dying it will begin to be made clear to you. It will grow clearer and clearer as you leave the world, and when you are dead you will understand.”
The voice was thrilling, tender and low. Awed by its hollow music, the fugitive sat silently revolving the strange words in his simple mind. ”

“ The army that swore terribly in Flanders, never swore worse than he in his wrath. Lafitte, Atkins, Boston, Boston merchants, kidnappers, slaveholders, and slavery in the abstract and in the concrete, did he shower with curses. Never had the Captain such a backsliding before. Harrington, who perhaps thought of Sterne’s Recording Angel, with his disposition to blot out with tears the record of what Muriel called good sins, let him rip away till, as the man in the play says, he got all the bad stuff out of him, and tumbled into his seat exhausted with his rage. ”

“ A surge of emotion overswept them all, and for a minute there was no sound but the thick sobs of Witherlee.
“Fernando,” said Harrington, solemnly, clasping his hand, and putting his arm tenderly around him, “let the past be with the past, and live nobler for the future. See: your repentance cancels all, and lifts you into better life. You are not friendless—not forsaken. We are your friends, all of us, and we will stand by you. ”

“ Lafitte was silent. Even in his humiliation, his rank and insolent Southern arrogance would not suffer him to make any acknowledgments to a negro, though it was a negro who had preserved him.
“Mr. Harrington,” he said after a pause, “I drew my knife on you to-day, and you made a generous return for the injury I tried to do you. Indeed, sir, I am aware that you saved my life.”
Harrington’s blue eyes flashed fire, and his nostrils lifted.
“Listen to me, sir,” he said, with stern solemnity. “The life you live is not human. Nothing is human that forgets the kindness man owes to man. ”

“ Driscoll had slunk away into the outer office as Harrington left the counting-room, and the young man passed down into the street without seeing him, and crossed to where Wentworth was standing. The young artist gazed with a shocked expression into his colorless face as he approached him.
“Heavens! Harrington, how white you are!” he murmured.
“I have failed, Richard,” returned Harrington in a deep and quiet voice. “He has no heart, no reason even. Trade has eaten the one and the other out of him. ”

“ The negro stood touched, but irresolute. Harrington saw that the crisis had come, and that a feather either way would turn the scale. A desperate inspiration came to him, and with a bound he tore open the door of the inner room, and dragged Lafitte front to front with the negro.
“Look at him!” he cried. “Helpless, miserable, merciless wretch, I cast him on your mercy! Show him what it is to be a man. Teach him the lesson that he never learned—how the brave can spare; and let him crawl home with the shame upon him that he owes his life to the compassion of the people he would destroy!” ”

“ Wait a little, and you shall hear the leap of the live thunder. In the meantime, as the knight Durindarte said to the weeping queen Belerma, ‘patience, and shuffle the cards.’”
“You are right, Muriel,” returned Harrington, with a faint smile, “we talk of his silence now, but we shall yet talk of his speech. Yes, the heart lives that shook Faneuil Hall for liberty, and we must not be impatient. But sometimes I despond, for it seems the destiny of our best men to lose power and purpose when they get into Congress.” ”

“ Harrington before we had the honor of his friendship, and let me further say to you that while the choice of my daughter’s heart, be he rich or poor, shall be my choice also, I should esteem it the best hour of my life which gave me assurance that she would wed a man worthier of her than any man I know, and dear to me as my own son! Take that home with you, sir, and do us the honor to believe that in this house we value gentlemen for what they are, and not for what they own. ”

“ It was inculcated to him by his dame—that he must look upon himself as the reverse of a woman in every thing, and not hold—that whoever "deliberates is lost."
Lord Harrington was a boy of much natural spirit. In the great rebellion, under Forster, when all the boys threw their books into the Thames, and marched to Salt Hill, he was amongst the foremost. ”

“ You remember what one of our leading Whigs said in convention many years ago—in the time, when to be a Whig was not to be a Webster Whig, with a fine speech for kidnapping. ‘Why, sir,’ foamed a slaveholder, ‘if your doctrines obtain, our slaves would cut our throats for us.’ ‘And in God’s name,’ said our Whig friend, tossing the words over his shoulder—‘in God’s name, why shouldn’t they!’”
“Oh, Harrington, Harrington,” said Emily, shaking her head, “is this you? I did not think John Harrington had the heart to hate any man—not even Lafitte—much less kill him, or see him killed.” ”