Waldo

“ In his bitterness Waldo laughed low:
Ah, he had long ceased to hearken to the hellish voice.
But yet another speaks.
“You shall see her again,” said the nineteenth-century Christian, deep into whose soul modern unbelief and thought have crept, though he knows it not. He it is who uses his Bible as the pearl-fishers use their shells, sorting out gems from refuse; he sets his pearls after his own fashion, and he sets them well. “Do not fear,” he says; “hell and judgment are not. God is love. I know that beyond this blue sky above us is a love as wide-spreading over all. ”

“ The tidings of Waldo's grievous lot travelled far and wide through the German land, and thenceforth when his songs were sung many a true man's heart was heavy and many a good woman's eyes were filled with tears as they bethought them of the poor singer in his hut among the hills. Kindly souls brought alms and provisions and laid them on his boulder by the brook, and oftentimes as they came and went they sang some hymn or song he had composed, for they said, "So best can we let him know that we remember him and love him." ”

“ Waldo looked at him. Was his delightful one ridiculing him? Here, with this brown earth and these low hills, while the rare wonderful world lay all beyond. Fortunate to be here?
The stranger read his glance.
“Yes,” he said; “here with the karoo-bushes and red sand. Do you wonder what I mean? To all who have been born in the old faith there comes a time of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet planted our feet on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still small voice of reason is not yet heard. ”

“ All that is buried is not dead.
Waldo poured the warm milk over the little swollen foot; Doss lay very quiet, with tears in his eyes. Then there was a tap at the door. In an instant Doss looked wide awake, and winked the tears out from between his little lids.
“Come in,” said Waldo, intent on his work; and slowly and cautiously the door opened.
“Good evening, Waldo, my boy,” said Bonaparte Blenkins in a mild voice, not venturing more than his nose within the door. “How are you this evening?” ”

“ When Waldo had lived there alone among the hills for the space of two years and more, and his malady had grown exceeding hard to bear, he was seized with a woeful longing—such a longing as comes upon a little child for its mother when it has been left all alone in the house, and has gone seeking her in all the chambers, and finds she is not there. ”

“ In spite of that awful vision so perilously close before them, and the natural uncertainty which attended such a reckless venture, Waldo could not repress a chuckle at that comical conclusion, so frequently used towards himself when their uncle was coaxing them to pose before his pet camera.
“Is it—surely this is not safe, uncle Phaeton?” ventured Bruno, as another retrograde gust of air smote their apparently frail conveyance with sudden force. ”

“ He removed the saddle and Waldo led the animal away to the dam. When he returned, the stranger had settled himself under the trees, with his back against the saddle. The boy offered him of the cakes. He declined, but took a draught from the jug; and Waldo lay down not far off and fell to work again. It mattered nothing if cold eyes saw it. It was not his sheep-shearing machine. With material loves, as with human, we go mad once, love out, and have done. We never get up the true enthusiasm a second time. ”

“ Professor Featherwit thoroughly appreciated the interruption which came through Waldo's lips just at that moment.
“Oh, I say,—uncle Phaeton!”
“What is it, lad? Don't meddle with what doesn't—”
“Looking can't hurt, can it? And to think people ever got along with such things as these!” ”

“ Waldo took greater pleasure in viewing the mountain lion towards whose destruction he had so liberally contributed, but when he spoke of removing the skin, Bruno objected.
“Why take so much trouble for nothing, Waldo? Even if we could stow the pelts away on board, they would make a far from agreeable burden. And if what I fancy lies before us is to come true, the more lightly we are weighted, the more likely we are to come safely to—well, call it civilisation, just for a change.”
“Then you believe that uncle Phaeton is really in earnest about exploring this region, Bruno?” ”

“ Like all bold, free-hearted lads, Waldo ever sympathised with the weaker, and now, unable to hold his feelings in check, he gave a short cry, levelling his Winchester and opening fire upon the grizzly, just as it won fairly clear of the water.
Stung to fury by those pellets, the brute reared up with a horrid roar, turning as though to charge this new enemy; but ere he could do more, the professor's gun spoke, and as the dynamite shell exploded, bruin fell back a writhing mass, his head literally smashed to pieces. ”

“ He had been reared among surroundings of culture plus and ultra-intellectuality in the exclusive Back Bay home of his ancestors.
He had been taught to look with contempt upon all that savored of muscular superiority—such things were gross, brutal, primitive.
It had been a giant intellect only that he had craved—he and a fond mother—and their wishes had been fulfilled. At twenty-one Waldo was an animated encyclopedia—and about as muscular as a real one.
Now he slunk shivering with fright at the very edge of the beach, as far from the grim forest as he could get. ”

“ Waldo was tugging at the grapnel and long drag-rope. Bruno was quick to divine his intention, and lent a deft hand, while the professor manipulated the helm so adroitly as to keep the flying-machine hovering directly above yonder imperilled stranger, leaning far over the hand-rail to shout downward:
“Have courage, sir, and stand ready to help yourself! We will rescue you if it lies within the possibilities of—we WILL save you!” ”

“ Waldo became the victim of a number of unpleasant emotions—mortification for this suddenly developed moral turpitude; apprehension for the future, when the girl might discover him in his true colors; fear, consuming, terrible fear, that she might insist upon his going forth at once to slay Nagoola. ”

“ She did not seem pained at his refusal, but swung her foot to and fro, the little old wrinkled forehead more wrinkled up than ever.
“Why is it always so, Waldo, always so?” she said; “we long for things, and long for them, and pray for them; we would give all we have to come near to them, but we never reach them. Then at last, too late, just when we don’t want them any more, when all the sweetness is taken out of them, then they come. ”

“ It seemed a thing utterly out of my power; but I waited, I watched, I collected clothes, I wrote, took my place at the school; when all was ready I bore with my full force on the Boer-woman, and she sent me at last. It was a small thing; but life is made up of small things, as a body is built up of cells. What has been done in small things can be done in large. Shall be,” she said softly.
Waldo listened. ”

“ We are not to study law, nor science, nor art, so we study you. There is never a nerve or fibre in a man’s nature but we know it. We keep six of you dancing in the palm of one little hand,” she said, balancing her outstretched arm gracefully, as though tiny beings disported themselves in its palm. “There, we throw you away, and you sink to the devil,” she said, folding her arms composedly. “There was never a man who said one word for woman but he said two for man, and three for the whole human race.”
She watched the bird pecking up the last yellow grains; but Waldo looked only at her. ”

“ He was carried clear of the tree, and partly submerged in the water as his added weight brought the flying-machine so much lower.
“Up, up, uncle Phaeton!” fairly howled Waldo, at the same time tugging at the now taut rope, in which he was ably seconded by his brother. “For love of—higher, uncle!”
Then the noble machine responded to the touch of its builder, lifting the dripping stranger clear of the whirling currents, swinging him away towards yonder higher level, where a fall would not prove so quickly fatal. ”

“ Waldo paced on, moaning in agony and longing.
He heard the Transcendentalist’s high answer.
“What have you to do with flesh, the gross and miserable garment in which spirit hides itself? You shall see her again. But the hand, the foot, the forehead you loved, you shall see no more. The loves, the fears, the frailties that are born with the flesh, with the flesh they shall die. Let them die! There is that in man that cannot die—a seed, a germ an embryo, a spiritual essence. Higher than she was on earth, as the tree is higher than the seed, the man than the embryo, so shall you behold her ”

“ But all the while I was drifting yonder, around and around, with each circuit drawing closer to the awful end, I could not help picturing to myself how the canoe must have plunged down, and down, and—burr-r-r!”
A shuddering shiver which was more eloquent than words; but Waldo was not yet wholly content, finding an absorbing interest in that particular subject.
“You call it a river: how do you know it's a river?” ”

“ Waldo had come back with the determination that while there was life there should be hope. He had until this time regarded Bulchester's marked attentions with the amusement that the nobleman's unattractive exterior was likely to meet with in a rival. Added to that was Waldo's conceit, which made him look through the large end of the telescope in viewing others. But now he had heard Katie's dallying—why hadn't she finished the fellow up quickly?—he had read the determination in Bulchester's face, and had remembered his title. ”

“ Ralph Waldo is death and an entire stud of pale horses on flowery expressions and japonica-domish flubdubs. He revels in all those knock-kneed, antique, or crooked and twisted words we used all of us to puzzle our brains over in the days of our youth, and grammar lessons and rhetoric exercises. He has a penchant as strong as cheap boarding-house butter, for mystification, and a free delivery of hard words, perfectly and unequivocally wonderful. ”

“ Christian Waldo is really he whom you are seeking. He is handsome and well-made; his description corresponds exactly with the appearance of the false Christian Waldo. The Italian does not know anything about the man with the birth-mark.
“The famous proof, which I procure you gratis, was hidden between two stones, behind the hogar, in a very well-chosen place, which I will show you. I went to get it myself, and I send it to you without knowing what its value may be. You can judge about that. I have sent M. Italian some breakfast; his real name is Guido Massarelli. ”

“ Not yet. The Italian has still too much strength. Christian Waldo is decidedly absent. I went into the famous bear-room, and found the lawyer at work. He says that he don’t know where the man [Pg 399] with the marionettes has gone. I saw the baggage of the latter. He is not far.
“Eleven o’clock.—I have unearthed Christian Waldo’s valet in the stables of the new chateau, and have made him talk. He knows his master’s real name: Dulac. He must be French, then, and not Italian. A more interesting discovery due to this Puffo is, that there are two Waldos here instead of one. ”

“ Scared of a runty horse so badly that they prayed to 'em as they did to their own gods!” sniffed Waldo, betraying a lore for which he did not ordinarily receive fair credit. “Why, uncle Phaeton, let you just slam one o' those dynamite shells inside a chief—”
“Nay, Waldo, must I repeat, we are not here for the purpose of conquest, unless by purely amicable methods. There must be no fighting, for or against. Savages though most people would be inclined to pronounce yonder race, they are human, with souls and—”
“But I always thought they were heathens, uncle Phaeton?” ”

“ The writer has known him ten years, and still from time to time detects new virtues in his character to excite our admira- tion and esteem. Mr. Waldo is neither graceful nor handsome. In fact he prides himself on being peculiar in his personal appearance; but he is the very soul of integrity, and none know him but to esteem and respect him He is a perfect storehouse of information, having read exteiisively and being endowed with a retentive memory. His word is as good as his bond, and his standing among his fellow men is exceeded by none. ”

“ I have always been careful to surround Waldo with only the nicest people, and if any vulgarizing influences have been brought to bear upon him since he has been beyond my mature guidance I wish to know it, that I may determine how to combat their results. ”

“ The boy had felt himself highly honored by the attention, yet when the time of parting came, it was with no such stricture about his throat as had taken him at unawares in the early morning, that he watched the tall form disappearing among the pine-trees. There was a certain self-sufficiency about the "old man,"—aged forty-five,—that precluded any embarrassing tenderness in one's relations with him.
Waldo was thinking of his father as he strode down the pass with that welt on his cheek. ”

“ While these things were happening, came from Three Fountains the lay-brother who brought Waldo his provisions. Crossing the brook to set his budget on the boulder, he saw the poor recluse lying in the lee of the hut, and Dorothy leaning over him. Wherefore he hastened across the wood-lawn, but in an instant the fair woman vanished before his eyes, and when he came to the hut he saw that Waldo was dead. He carried the basket of flowers and fruit to the Priory, and told what he had seen; and the Prior, marvelling greatly, came to the place and gave the poor leper brother a blessed burial. ”