Ras Michael

“ Hertha clasps her arms about the trunk, neither moaning nor weeping, but a tremor runs through her entire frame, and there is an icy pressure upon her temples. Her eyes are fixed upon the white gleaming peaks still glistening distinctly, and the old legend recurs to her. From those summits Saint Michael sweeps down at dawn the next day. Cannot the mighty patron saint of her race, the victorious leader of the heavenly host, to whom thousands will pray on the morrow, come to the rescue of a poor child of mortality whose warm young life shudders at the thought of the icy embrace of death? ”

“ Michael had sent out three invitations to commencement, one to Mr. Endicott, one to Starr, and one addressed to Buck, with the inner envelope bearing the words “For Buck and ‘the kids,’” but no response had come to any of them. He had received back the one addressed to Buck with “Not Called For” in big pink letters stamped across the corner. It had reached him that morning, just before he came on the platform. He wished it had not come till night; it gave him a lonely, almost forsaken feeling. He was “educated” now, at least enough to know what he did not know; and there was no one to care. ”

“ Mary had gone, and Lion held his tongue.
Old Mother Occleve sobbed; her white head hung
Over her sewing while the tears ran down
Her worn, blood-threaded cheeks and splashed upon her gown.
"Yes, it is true," said Lion, "she must go.
Michael is back. Michael was always first,
I did but take his place. You did not know.
Now it has happened, and you know the worst.
So passion makes the passionate soul accurst
And crucifies his darling. Michael comes
And the savage truth appears and rips my life to thrums." ”

“ Hertha interposed, reproachfully. "He cannot endure the thought that his son has painted a genuinely sacred picture; something Pagan and old German must be discovered in it. As if the people would see in Saint Michael only the avenger! Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his appearance, he will be in their minds all beneficence, as he sweeps down from the Eagle ridge; his sword of flame only ploughs the soil, and the sparks of light that stream from it bestow the vigour and life of spring upon the earth. I have been hearing the beautiful legend again today." ”

“ Michael was silent. He could not tell him.
“Who?” asked the insistent voice once more.
“The world!” evaded Michael.
“The world is brainless. You can make the world think what you like, son, remember that! Here we are. Would you like to come aboard?”
But Michael stood back.
“I think I will wait here,” he said gravely. It had come to him that Mrs. Endicott would be there. He must not intrude, not even to see Starr once more. Besides, she had made it a point of honor for him to keep away from her daughter. He had no choice but to obey. ”

“ Out of the darkness and murk of the slums the soul of Mikky had climbed high, and his ambitions reached up to the limitless blue above him. It had never occurred to him once that there might be an embargo put upon his upward movements. He had taken all others to be as free hearted and generous as himself. Heir of all things, he had breathed the atmosphere of culture as though it were his right. ”

“ Michael repeated.
Mike shook his head, as if a fly had landed on his face.
"Eh?" said Michael.
Mike looked down upon his stubby and sturdy compatriot as a Saint Bernard dog looks down on a snarling Pomeranian between its forepaws.
"I am a seaman," he replied at last.
"You're a liar!" said Michael, which in that stratum of society is no more considered, even by those who are not passivists, as a call for the mailed fist than, in another, is "Pardon me—have you verified that?" ”

“ On account of foot-and-mouth disease and of hog-cholera, strange dogs were taboo on the Kennan ranch. It did not take Michael long to learn this, and stray dogs got short shrift from him. With never a warning bark nor growl, in deadly silence, he rushed them, slashed and bit them, rolled them over and over in the dust, and drove them from the place. It was like nigger-chasing, a service to perform for the gods whom he loved and who willed such chasing.
No wild passion of love, such as he had had for Steward, did he bear Villa and Harley, but he did develop for them a great, sober love. ”

“ Michael had yet to meet Harris Collins, although, from a distance, often he heard his voice, not loud, but very imperative. That the owner of this voice was a high god, Michael knew from the first sound of it. Only a high god, a master over ordinary gods, could be so imperative. Will was in that voice, and accustomedness to command. Any dog would have so decided as quickly as Michael did. And any dog would have decided that there was no love nor lovableness in the god behind the voice, nothing to warm one's heart nor to adore. ”

“ I would rather marry Michael than any man I ever met, and I don’t care in the least whether he is a child of the slums or a child of a king. I know what he is, and he is a prince among men.”
“Oh, really! Has it come to this? Then you are in love with him already and my warning comes too late, does it? Answer me! Do you fancy yourself in love with him.”
“Aunt Frances, you have no right to ask me that question,” said Starr steadily, her cheeks very red and her eyes very bright. ”

“ It was roughness without hurt, assertion without threat, surety without seduction. To him it was the most natural thing in the world thus to be familiarly seized and shaken about by a total stranger, while a jovial voice muttered: “That’s right, dog. Stick around, stick around, and you’ll wear diamonds, maybe.”
Certainly, Michael had never met a man so immediately likable. Dag Daughtry knew, instinctively to be sure, how to get on with dogs. By nature there was no cruelty in him. He never exceeded in peremptoriness, nor in petting. He did not overbid for Michael’s friendliness. ”

“ Rassendyll here doesn’t know our pretty Michael. What think you, Fritz, has Michael no king ready? Has half Strelsau no other candidate? As God’s alive, man, the throne’s lost if the King show himself not in Strelsau today. I know Black Michael. ”

“ Surely he knows by now that 'Home' for me is just that particular bit of mud in Flanders in which his dear feet are embedded, and that any place without him is exile, that life, till he returns, is merely marking time. I don't care if I am talking like a little Bethel.... Ross thinks it's a topping idea. Even Nannie didn't help me. When I told her, all she said was, 'But of course you will if Master Michael wants you to.'
I felt, as I sometimes used to as a child, that 'every one's against me,' and I decided to walk my devils off. ”

“ Will you think he is kind to offer you a share in the inheritance of a nobody—a charity—dependent—a child of the slums? If you persist in your foolishness of staying here you will presently have all New York gossiping about you, and then when you are in disgrace—I suppose you will turn to me to help you out of it.”
“Stop!” cried Starr. “I will not listen to another word. What do you mean by disgrace? There could be no disgrace in marrying Michael. The girl who marries him will be the happiest woman in the whole world. He is good and true and unselfish to the heart’s core. ”

“ Like a flash Michael’s great arm went out and felled the man, and in the same breath, from the shadows behind there sprang out the slender, wiry figure of Sam and flung itself upon the man on the ground who with angry imprecations was trying to struggle to his feet. ”

“ He mingled with the slow pace of the men and women on the promenade. They were going backward and forward like flies, meeting for a moment in a quick buzz of colloquy and continuing after a momentary pause their impersonal and recurrent progress. Michael was absorbed in this ceaseless ebb and flow of motion where the sidelong glances of the women, as they brushed his elbow in the passing crowd, gave him no conviction of an individual gaze. ”

“ It isn't yourself or the misthress they'll folly; it's meself." He crept down the steps as deplorably as the Jackdaw of Rheims, "and it's what Michael's after telling me, they have it all through the country that I said you should throw Twohig in the ditch, and it was good enough for the likes of him, and I said to Michael 'twas a lie for them, and that we cared him as tender as if he was our mother itself, and we'd have given the night to him only for the misthress that was roaring on the car, and no blame to her; sure the world knows the mother o' children has no courage!" ”

“ If an angel had come straight down from heaven and interfered with their wedding they could not have been more astonished. For, as he stood beneath the many soft lights in front of the wall of living green and blossoms, with his white face and grave sweet dignity, they forgot for once to study the fashion of his coat, and sat awed before his beautiful face; for Michael wore tonight the look of transport with chin uplifted, glowing eyes, and countenance that showed the spirit shining through. ”

“ Up above, the snowy summits were bathed in crimson light; the eastern skies gleamed and flamed; there was a flash, as of the waving of a sword, and the sun rose slowly, red and glowing. Born of the tempest, the young day gave greeting to the earth. On the brilliant beams of the morning sun Saint Michael descended from the Eagle ridge.
The Countess Steinrück was indeed seriously ill, so seriously that by the advice of the physician she was kept in ignorance of the peril through which her daughter had passed. ”

“ Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man's arm.
"Hold him, sir," the steward said. "If that pawnbroker makes a move against Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite him, anything. I'll be back in a jiffy, sir, before he can hurt you and before the whale can hit us again. And let Killeny Boy make all the noise he wants. One hair of him's worth more than a world-full of skunks of money-lenders." ”

“ He understood.
“I’ll keep you informed about Lizzie,” went on Michael with delicate intuition, “and anyway you couldn’t see her for sometime, I think if you try you could help Buck as much as I. He needs to understand that breaking laws is all wrong. That it doesn’t pay in the end, and that there has got to be a penalty—you know. You can make him see things in a new way if you try. Are you willing to go, Sam?”
“I’ll go,” said Sam briefly, and Michael knew he would do his best. It might be that Sam’s change of viewpoint would have more effect upon Buck than anything Michael could say. ”

“ Michael was white and trembling when he had finished reading this account. And was this then to be the end of Buck. Must he die a death like that? Disgrace and sin and death, and no chance to make good? Michael groaned aloud and bowed his head upon the table before him, his heart too heavy even to try to think it out.
That evening a telegram reached him from Arkansas.
“A man named ‘Buck’ is dying here, and calls incessantly for you. If you wish to see him alive come at once.”
Michael took the midnight train. Starr had telegraphed her father she would reach Old Orchard in the morning. ”

“ In bed that night Michael thought what a beast he had made of himself that day, and flung the blankets feverishly away from his burnt-out self. Figures of well-loved people kept trooping through the darkness, and he longed to converse with them, inspired by the limitless eloquence of the night-time. All that he would say to Mr. Viner, to Mrs. Ross, to Alan, even to good old Chator, splashed the dark with fiery sentences. He longed to be with Stella in a cool woodland. ”

“ Michael started and gazed at her inquiringly. It was the first time that he had heard her speak in this tone which came from her very soul, and vibrated with passionate sympathy, as if she felt his torture in every fibre of her frame. It was like the first glimmer of a bliss of which he had indeed sometimes dreamed, but from which he had turned with all the pride of a man resolved never to be the sport of a caprice. ”

“ Then with his easy bow and touching his hat to her as though she had been a queen, Michael turned and walked away out of the alley.
Old Sal stood watching him, a kind of wistful wonder in her bleary eyes. No gentleman had ever tipped his hat to her, and no man had ever done her reverence. From her little childhood she had been brought up to forfeit the respect of men. ”

“ Memory and instinct combined to make this perfectly dear to Michael’s mind, and if he needed no other warning those words of the letter, “Don’t bring no one with you. If you do, I won’t be there,” were sufficient to make him wise.
Yet Michael never so much as thought of not keeping the appointment. His business was to find Sam, and it mattered as little to him now that danger stood in the way as it had the day when he flung his neglected little body in front of Starr Endicott and saved her from the assassin’s bullet. He would go, of course, and go alone. ”

“ But after all, Michael would turn from his house with an empty ache in his heart. What was it for? Not for him. It was not likely he would ever spend happy hours there. He was not like other men. He must take his happiness in making others happy.
But one day a new thought came to him, as he watched the laborers working out the plan, and bringing it ever nearer and nearer to the perfect whole. A great desire came to him to have Starr see it some day, to know what she would think about it, and if she would like it. ”