Holcomb

“ At first he frowned; then came a look of incredulity; his chin dropped and he rose in his chair.
“My God,” he exclaimed, “the man’s living! It--he--”
But Hobart and I had crowded over. The doctor held the ring so we could see it. Inside the stone was Dr. Holcomb!
It was a strenuous moment, and the most incredible. We all of us knew the doctor. It was not a photograph, nor a likeness; but the man himself. It was beyond all reason that he could be in the jewel; indeed there was only the head visible; one could catch the expression of life, the movements of the eyelids. ”

“ Not one of them knew what it was; they obeyed by impulse--it was their destiny; the Chosen, and the queens.
The light stopped at the foot of Dr. Holcomb. Then the strangest thing happened.
Out of the light--or rather, from where it bathed the snowstone--came a man; a man much like Holcomb, bearded and short and kindly.
He was the real Jarados!
Unhesitatingly the professor stepped up beside him. Then followed Hobart and the Aradna, Harry and the Nervina, and lastly, from the crowd of Bars, MacPherson. The whole concourse in the temple stopped in awe and terror. ”

“ When he overtook Holcomb later on he related the incident, at which Holcomb's eyes filled. "It is the Margaret in her," Billy had said to himself. Perhaps, after all, he had misjudged her. The butler said nothing of what he had seen and heard behind the pantry door. She had confirmed his diagnosis made to Holcomb that day in the woods—"She's a fool but I don't think she's crooked." Better let well enough alone. ”

“ Holcomb!”
We all of us started. We had every one given the doctor up as dead. The very presence of Watson was tragedy. We did not doubt that he had been through some terrible experience. There are things in the world that may not be unriddled. Some power, some sinister thing was reaching for his vitality. What did he know about the professor? Dr. Holcomb had been a long time dead. ”

“ Alice and Margaret appeared on the veranda.
"Good morning, Mr. Holcomb," said Alice, nodding pleasantly. "You see," she added with her most captivating smile, "you must show me this wonderful little pond my daughter has told me about, too. May I come?"
Holcomb lifted his slouch hat from his head.
"Why, certainly, Mrs. Thayor. We can make it there and back by noon," and his eyes wandered over the trim and graceful figure accentuated so charmingly by her short skirt.
Margaret had also followed the lines of the costume. "You must always wear a short skirt, mother—it is most becoming." ”

“ Holcomb, during the past year, the committee look forward, with confident expectation, to the not far distant period, when, should his health be spared, the country will be in possession of a twenty feet reflector, of native workmanship, rivalling the best European instruments, and that, too, without the patronage of any corporate institution, should all of them be willing to waive the opportunity of sharing with him the merit of such an enterprise. ”

“ With the quickness of a cat the man caught the woman in his arms, groped his way to the open, laid her prostrate body on the charred grass—sprang back into the swirl and choke of the deadly gas and smoke, and the next instant reappeared with the stunned and half-conscious Holcomb on his back, his hair singed, his clothes on fire ”

“ I hope you will forgive me. I am not usually late, I assure you, gentlemen. This for me?" and he picked up his waiting cocktail.
Holcomb, although his eyes had not wavered from Thayor, had not yet greeted him. That a man so quiet and unostentatious belonged to the favoured rich was a new experience to him. He was also waiting for some sign of recognition from the financial potentate, the democracy of the woods being in his blood.
Randall waited an instant and seeing Thayor's lack of recognition blurted out in his hearty way:
"Why, it's Holcomb, Sam; Billy Holcomb of Moose River." ”

“ It's my creed, Billy—'Be tolerant of others, even of those who at times seem intolerable to you.'"
Holcomb was not the man to censure another without the strength of his conviction. He had been frank in giving his opinion of Bergstein, since Thayor had put the question point blank to him. Their talk before the fire had been a genial one, save for this somewhat unpleasant subject, yet despite Thayor's kindly optimism in regard to Bergstein, owing purely to his excellent recommendation, Holcomb felt a distrust of the mysterious stranger who had wormed his way into Big Shanty. ”

“ Mis' Holcomb went on; "your soul's like yourself in the glass: they ain't anything there."
"I donno," Calliope said again; "some mornin's when I wake up with the sun shinin' in, I can feel my soul in me just as plain as plain."
Mis' Holcomb sighed.
"Life looks dreadful footless to me," she said.
"Well," said Calliope, "sometimes life is some like hearin' firecrackers go off when you don't feel up to shootin' 'em yourself. When I'm like that, I always think if I'd go out an' buy a bunch or two, an' get somebody to give me a match, I could see more sense to things. ”

“ The result of this bargain Holcomb learned from the girl herself as she sat in his cabin, the glow of a swinging lamp lighting up her face.
On Saturday night, as usual, so Belle said, the Clown, his wages in his pocket, had sat in one corner of Morrison's bar-room, the heels of his red-socked feet clutched in the rung of his chair. A moment before there had been a good-natured, rough-and-tumble wrestle as he and another lumber jack grappled. The Clown had thrown his antagonist fairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with a whack that made things jingle. ”

“ To those who wish to look it up it will be spoken of as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the century. A crime that leads two ways, one into murder--sordid, cold and calculating; and the other into the nebulous screen that thwarts us from the occult.
Perhaps it is the character of Dr. Holcomb that gives the latter. He was a great man and a splendid thinker. That he should have been led into a maze of cheap necromancy is, on the face, improbable. He had a wonderful mind. For years he had been battering down the scepticism that had bulwarked itself in the material. ”

“ Holcomb for a moment did not reply. Then suddenly he looked straight into the eyes of his employer.
"I know a man may sometimes be wrong in sizing up another," he began, "but Bergstein seems to me to have considerable of the peddler in him."
"And yet you say, Billy, the horses he sent were sound, and the price fair." ”

“ Holcomb replied; "Freme will take us out to the railroad with a team from Morrison's. We can send your telegram there."
"Good!" cried Thayor, brightening. "And, Mr. Holt—isn't he coming too?"
"I'm afraid not; he said to me before lunch that he and the dog were going to stay on for a spell."
"What—not alone! Oh, Billy, I wouldn't want to leave him here alone. He's an old man, you know, even if he is tough as a pine knot. Can't we persuade him to go with us? He's been so loyal and lovable I hate to leave him." ”

“ It was while studying to qualify that I first ran into philosophy. I was a lad to enjoy quick, pithy, epigrammatic statements. I have always favoured a man who hits from the shoulder. Professor Holcomb was a man of terse, heavy thinking ”

“ Most of them do as they please if they've enough money."
"Blakeman," exclaimed Holcomb, unable to contain himself longer, "the man whom you and I serve is my friend. Sam Thayor never did a mean thing in his life—he's not that kind. It's his daughter, too, whom I am thinking about. You've known them both as well as I do—longer in fact—"
"And far better," added Blakeman. "It is a pleasure to serve a master like Mr. Thayor, and Miss Margaret is as good as gold." ”

“ Her personal friend and companion is Miss Aqua, a spirited young lady, who says that she will not tamely submit to see Miss Holcomb cheated out of $100 of her salary, and that she will whip O. D. Taylor if it is the last act of her life. The sympathy of the crowd was with the young lady, and if she had horse-whipped the reverend gentleman the fine would have been subscribed within five minutes. Miss Holcomb is a scholarly and highly accomplished young lady, and is held in high estimation in this community. Miss Aqua is very much attached to her, and her friendship amounts to adoration. ”

“ But a man with cheeks ruddy from the sting and lift of the morning air; all the worn, haggard look gone from his face.
"Wall, I swan!" shouted the trapper to Holcomb, as he came near enough to shake his hand, "you warn't perticler 'bout the way you come, Billy. If your friend ain't dead beat it ain't your fault."
"I hadn't any choice, Hite," laughed Holcomb. "You fellows must have been drowned out last night; the log over the South Branch is gone in the freshet; we had to get round the best way we could. Step up, Freme," he said. "I want you to know Mr. Thayor. This is Freme Skinner, Mr. ”

“ Lake three or four summers ago."
"Oh! a short, thick-set man, with grayish hair?" replied Holcomb in his low, well-modulated voice—the voice of a man used to the silence of the big woods. "Let's see," he mused—"wasn't it he that cut himself so badly with an axe over at Otter Pond? Yes, I remember."
"So does Thayor, Billy, and it'll be a good many years before he forgets it," declared Jack. "You saved his life, he says. That's one thing he wants to see you for, and another is that he's played out and needs a rest." ”

“ Calliope warned me, as we closed Mis' Holcomb's gate behind us; "she's dreadful diff'r'nt an' bitter since Abigail was married last month. She's got hold o' some kind of a Persian book, in a decorated cover, from the City; an' now she says your soul is like when you look in a lookin'-glass—that there ain't really nothin' there. An' that the world's some wind an' the rest water, an' they ain't no God only your own breath—oh, poor Mis' Holcomb!" said Calliope. "I guess she ain't rill balanced. But we ought to go to see her. We always consult Mis' Holcomb about everything." ”

“ As the last note died away a crackling in the brush behind the lean-to was heard. The two woodsmen sprang instantly to their feet; Annette screamed. The drums of Alice's ears were thumping with the beating of her heart. Holcomb reached for his rifle laying between his own and the Clown's pack, and hurriedly cocked it. The old dog had already plunged ahead into the underbrush with a low growl.
"Hold on, Billy," came a thin voice out of the blackness beyond and to the left of the lean-to. "Don't shoot!" ”

“ Our hero next proceeded to Ypsilanti to see Martin, the Butcher Boy, making the trip one of pleasure rather than of business. He happened to fall in with Mixer, and was induced to become the latter’s trainer for his match with Holcomb. This match came off in the Grand Rapids Opera House, and was a most stubbornly contested [Pg 199] battle, lasting fully five hours. Holcomb was the winner, but it should be said that Ben had Mixer in hand only about a week, and previous to that time the man had little or no attention. ”

“ Poor Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss! I can see her now in her comfortable dining room, where she sat cleaning her old silver, her thin, veined hands as fragile as her grandmother's spoons.
"Of course, you don't know," she said, when Calliope had unfolded her plans, "how useless it all seems to me. What's the use—I keep sayin' to myself now'-days; what's the use? You put so much pains on somethin', an' then it goes off an' leaves you. Mebbe it dies, an' everything's all wasted. There ain't anything to tie to. It's like lookin' in a glass all the while. It's seemin', it ain't bein'. ”

“ The New York doctor possessed none of these qualities; moreover, he was pitifully unadaptable outside of the artificial world in which he posed. So much so that at first sight of the trapper and the Clown—two men whom Thayor had pointed out to him as being his most reliable assistants next to Holcomb—his only thought had been how Sam Thayor could have such eccentric boors on the place. He noticed, too, with irritation and astonishment, that none of the men raised their hats until Alice and Margaret arrived on the scene; then not a man among them remained covered. ”

“ Carroll, turning his wine-glass slowly between his fingers, raised his eyes to catch Holcombe's, and winked at him from behind the curtain of the smoke of his cigar, and Holcombe smiled grimly, and winked back, with the result that Meakim, who had intercepted the signalling, choked on his champagne, and had to be pounded violently on the back. Holcombe's breakfast established him as a man of means and one who could entertain properly, and after that his society was counted upon for every hour of the day. ”

“ All this, had she but known it, had happened to the three men sleeping in the lean-to: the trapper, when he was eighteen, found barely breathing after twelve days of torture, the dog chain which he had wrapped round his waist after starting a deer, having deflected the needle of his compass; Holcomb, picking his way out along the shores of a chain of lakes, with no matches and but a handful of cartridges; and the Clown, blind drunk on Jamaica ginger and peppermint essence, in a country whose unfamiliarity nearly caused his death. A man without his stomach and physique would have died ”