Home > Authors Index > George William Curtis > Trumps: A Novel > This page
Trumps: A Novel, a novel by George William Curtis |
||
Chapter 87. A Long Journey |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER LXXXVII. A LONG JOURNEY Abel Newt ran to the ferry and crossed. Then he gained Broadway, and sauntered into one of the hells in Park Row. It was bright and full, and he saw many an old friend. They nodded to him, and said, "Ah! back again!" and he smiled, and said a man must not be too virtuous all at once. So he ventured a little, and won; ventured a little more, and lost. Ventured a little more, and won again; and lost again. Then came supper, and wine flowed freely. Old friends must pledge in bumpers. To work again, and the bells striking midnight. Win, lose; lose, win; win, win, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. Abel Newt smiled: his face was red, his eyes glaring. "I've played enough," he said; "the luck's against me!" He passed his hands rapidly through his hair. "Cash I can not pay," he said; "but here is my I O U, and a check of my Uncle Lawrence's in the morning; for I have no account, you know." His voice was rough. It was two o'clock in the morning; and the lonely woman he had left sat waiting and wondering: stealing to the front door and straining her eyes into the night: stealing softly back again to press her forehead against the window: and the quiet hopelessness of her face began to be pricked with terror. "Good-night, gentlemen," said Abel, huskily and savagely. There was a laugh around the table at which he had been playing. "Takes it hardly, now that he's got money," said one of his old cronies. "He's made up with Uncle Lawrence, I hear. Hope he'll come often, hey?" he said to the bank. The bank smiled vaguely, but did not reply. It was after two, and Abel burst into the street. He had been drinking brandy, and the fires were lighted within him. Pulling his hat heavily upon his head, he moved unsteadily along the street toward the ferry. The night was starry and still. There were few passers in the street; and no light but that which shone at some of the corners,-the bad, red eye that lures to death. The night air struck cool upon his face and into his lungs. His head was light.--He reeled. "Mus ha' some drink," he said, thickly. He stumbled, and staggered into the nearest shop. There was a counter, with large yellow barrels behind it; and a high blind, behind which two or three rough-looking men were drinking. In the window there was a sign, "Liquors, pure as imported." The place was dingy and cold. The floor was sanded. The two or three guests were huddled about a stove--one asleep upon a bench, the others smoking short pipes; and their hard, cadaverous faces and sullen eyes turned no welcome upon Abel when he entered, but they looked at him quickly, as if they suspected him to be a policeman or magistrate, and as if they had reason not to wish to see either. But in a moment they saw it was not a sober man, whoever he was. Abel tried to stand erect, to look dignified, to smooth himself into apparent sobriety. He vaguely hoped to give the impression that he was a gentleman belated upon his way home, and taking a simple glass for comfort. "Why, Dick, don't yer know him?" said one, in a low voice, to his neighbor. "No, d---- him! and don't want to." "I do, though," replied the first man, still watching the new-comer curiously. "Why, Jim, who in h---- is it?" asked Dick. "That air man's our representative. That ain't nobody else but Abel Newt." "Well," muttered Jim, sullenly, as he surveyed the general appearance of Abel while he stood drinking a glass of brandy--"pure as imported"--at the counter--"well, we've done lots for him: what's he going to do for us? We've put that man up tremendious high; d'ye think he's going to kick away the ladder?" He half grumbled to himself, half asked his neighbor Dick. They were both a little drunk, and very surly. "I dunno. But he's vastly high and mighty--that I know; and, by ----, I'll tell him so!" said Dick, energetically clasping his hands, bringing one of them down upon the bench on which he sat, and clenching every word with an oath. "Hallo, Jim! let's make him give us somethin' to drink!" The two constituents approached the representative whose election they had so ardently supported. "Well, Newt, how air ye?" Abel Newt was confounded at being accosted in such a place at such an hour. He raised his heavy eyes as he leaned unsteadily against the counter, and saw two beetle-browed, square-faced, disagreeable-looking men looking at him with half-drunken, sullen insolence. "Hallo, Newt! how air ye?" repeated Jim, as he confronted the representative. Abel looked at him with shaking head, indignant and scornful. "Who the devil are you?" he asked, at length, blurring the words as he spoke, and endeavoring to express supreme contempt. "We're the men that made yer!" retorted Dick, in a shrill, tipsy voice. The liquor-seller, who was leaning upon his counter, was instantly alarmed. He knew the signs of impending danger. He hurried round, and said, "Come, come; I'm going to shut up! Time to go home; time to go home!" The three men at the counter did not move. As they stood facing each other the brute fury kindled more and more fiercely in each one of them. "We're Jim and Dick, and Ned's asleep yonder on the bench; and we're come to drink a glass with yer, Honorable Abel Newt!" said Dick, in a sneering tone. "It's we what did your business for ye. What yer going to do for us?" There was a menacing air in his eye as he glanced at Abel, who felt himself quiver with impotent, blind rage. "I dun--dun--no ye!" he said, with maudlin dignity. The men pressed nearer. "Time to go home! Time to go home!" quavered the liquor-seller; and Ned opened his eyes, and slowly raised his huge frame from the bench. "What's the row?" asked he of his comrades. "The Honorable Abel Newt's the row," said Jim, pointing at him. There was something peculiarly irritating to Abel in the pointing finger. Holding by the counter, he raised his hand and struck at it. Ned rolled his body off the bench in a moment. "For God's sake!" gasped the little liquor-seller. Jim and Dick stood hesitatingly, glaring at Abel. Jim struck his teeth together. Ned joined them, and they surrounded Abel. "What in ---- do you mean by striking me, you drunken pig?" growled Jim, but not yet striking. Conscious of his strength, he had the instinctive forbearance of superiority, but it was fast mastered by the maddening liquor. "Time to go home! Time to go home!" cried the thin piping voice of the liquor-seller. "What the ---- do you mean by insulting my friend?" half hiccuped Dick, shaking his head threateningly, and stiffening his arm and fist at his side as he edged toward Abel. The hard black eyes of Abel Newt shot sullen fire; His rage half sobered him. He threw his head with the old defiant air, tossing the hair back. The old beauty flashed for an instant through the ruin that had been wrought in his face, and, kindling into a wild, glittering look of wrath, his eye swept them all as he struck heavily forward. "Time to go home! Time to go home!" came the cry again, unheeded, unheard. There was a sudden, fierce, brutal struggle. The men's faces were human no longer, but livid with bestial passion. The liquor-seller rushed into the street, and shouted aloud for help. The cry rang along the dark, still houses, and startled the drowsy, reluctant watchmen on their rounds. They sprang their rattles. "Murder! murder!" was the cry, which did not disturb the neighbors, who were heavy sleepers, and accustomed to noise and fighting. "Murder! murder!" It rang nearer and nearer as the watchmen hastened toward the corner. They found the little man standing at his door, bareheaded, and shouting, "My God! my God! they've killed a man--they've killed a man!" "Stop your noise, and let us in. What is it?" The little man pointed back into his dim shop. The watchmen saw only the great yellow round tanks of the liquor pure as imported, and pushed in behind the blind. There was no one there; a bench was overturned, and there were glasses upon the counter. No one there? One of the watchmen struck something with his foot, and, stooping, touched a human body. He started up. "There's a man here." He did not say dead, or drunk; but his tone said every thing. One of them ran to the next doctor, and returned with him after a little while. Meanwhile the others had raised the body. It was yet warm. They laid it upon the bench. "Warm still. Stunned, I reckon. I see no blood, except about the face. Well dressed. What's he doing here?" The doctor said so as he felt the pulse. He carefully turned the body over, examined it every where, looked earnestly at the face, around which the matted hair clustered heavily: "He has gone upon his long journey!" said the young doctor, in a low, solemn tone, still looking at the face with an emotion of sad sympathy, for it was a face that had been very handsome; and it was a young man, like himself. The city bells clanged three. "Who is it?" he asked. Nobody knew. "Look at his handkerchief." They found it, and handed it to the young doctor. He unrolled it, holding it smooth in his hands; suddenly his face turned pale; the tears burst into his eyes. A curious throng of recollections and emotions overpowered him. His heart ached as he leaned over the body; and laying the matted hair away, he looked long and earnestly into the face. In that dim moment in the liquor-shop, by that bruised body, how much he saw! A play-ground loud with boys--wide-branching elms--a country church--a placid pond. He heard voices, and summer hymns, and evening echoes; and all the images and sounds were soft, and pensive, and remote. The doctor's name was Greenidge--James Greenidge, and he had known Abel Newt at school. _ |
||