Ellery H. Clark

“And broader and brighter
The Gleam flying onward,
Wed to the melody,
Sang thro’ the world;

***

After it, follow it,
Follow the Gleam.”

Tennyson.

It was nine o’clock on a cold, bleak evening in late December. A bitter, stinging, northwest wind raged unopposed up and down the length of the passive, shivering, all but deserted Avenue; buffeting the few unfortunate stragglers still out-of-doors, making shrill music among the chimney-tops, shouting and storming at fast-closed doors, and tracing every moment deeper and deeper its bold, yet delicate design on rattling window and frost-embroidered pane.A pleasant thing, indeed, on this wild night, to turn indoors to some place where comfort lay; and for a moment to glance at the little room where Professor Emerson sat alone among his books, reading peacefully, and with such absorption, that to the tumult without he paid no heed. His venerable, white-bearded figure lay for the greater part almost wholly in shadow, and the light of the study lamp, shining full upon his features, brought out in vivid contrast the strong and well-etched outline of his face. It was a face noble and sensitive, with a certain clear-cut delicacy of line; pale as if hewn from the very marble, and yet as if lighted by the cold, clear fire of the spirit within, so fine, so keen, so intellectual still, that one must needs peer more closely to discover the network of tiny, almost imperceptible wrinkles; one must needs note more carefully the trembling of the thin, blue-veined hand that held the book, to realize that the professor, alert and active for so many long years, was but a professor emeritus now; and that one was gazing on a man feeble, infirm and old.

Peacefully he sat there, and indeed, in that quiet room, on an ear far quicker and readier than his own the fury of the gale would scarce have struck disturbingly. Blow the wind as it might around the casement, rug and curtain and tapestry laughed it to scorn; whistle as it would down the chimney, the mounting warmth of the crackling flame met and repulsed it at every turn. Verily the little room, restful and serene, the scholar’s orderly abode, seemed a sanctuary alike from the storms of nature and from the storms of the world.

Presently, through the stillness of the house, a bell pealed sharply. To the old man, however, it must have sounded but faintly, for at once, with but a momentary half glance upward from his book, he fell to reading again. Nor was his servant’s knock on the study door enough. It was only when he had entered the room, and had approached respectfully almost to within arm’s length, that the professor at last gave heed. “Mr. Vaughan, sir,” said the man, “wishes to know if you could see him for a little while.”

At once the old scholar seemed to rouse himself. Closing his book, he laid it aside. “Mr. Vaughan,” he repeated, “why, yes indeed. Ask him to step right up, please,” and a moment later footsteps sounded in the hall outside, and Arthur Vaughan came quickly into the room.

Greetings exchanged, the old man beamed benevolently across the fire at his former pupil. “This is very kind of you, Arthur,” he said, “I’m always glad to see any of my old boys; and I don’t get the chance so often now. And what is it to-night? Something you wished to ask me about, or did you just drop in for a chat?”

Vaughan hesitated for a moment before replying. “A little of both, Professor,” he said at length. “I wanted to see how you were, for one thing; and for another, I had something on my mind that I wanted to get your opinion on. I always used to come to you in college, when things bothered me, and I thought I’d do the same now. This is a hypothetical case—a question of conduct—and one of the puzzling ones that seem to have right on both sides.”

Instantly the old man’s interest was awakened. “A question of conduct,” he repeated, “by all means let me hear it, Arthur. There’s nothing more interesting than that, ever. Matthew Arnold, you know—‘conduct three-fourths of life.’ Very likely so, of course, and yet I always wondered just how he fixed it with such exactness. Why not five-eighths, I used to wonder, or seven-eighths; why just the seventy-five per cent. He thought himself, as I remember it, that he’d pitched it low, and Stevenson, on the other hand, considered it high. Well, that was Arnold, all over. A little arbitrary in such things; a little given to catch-words, perhaps; black letter, you know; and yet, for all that, a great critic, a great debater, and to my thinking, a great poet as well. Well, well, there I go rambling again. This old head-piece, I’m beginning to think, Arthur, is getting pretty shaky now. Well, to come back to the point. A question of conduct; that’s it, isn’t it?”

Vaughan smiled. “To tell the truth, Professor,” he answered, “if I were to consult my own pleasure, I’d rather try to keep you rambling, as you call it, than to come down to any dry question of right and wrong. But as long as I have this on my mind, I suppose I’d better get down to business, and save the ramble for another time. This is the case, Professor. Suppose a man has a friend—not a mere acquaintance, you understand—but one of those rare things, a real friend, for whom he would do almost anything under heaven, if it would help him in any way. And then suppose that suddenly, absolutely by chance, he comes upon the knowledge that this friend has committed a crime—a crime so dastardly that he can atone for it only with his life. No one else in the whole world—” for just an instant he stopped, then with a shrug of his shoulders, went on. “Yes, we’ll let it go at that, I think. No one else in the whole world knows the facts. He holds his friend’s life practically in his hands. And so—the question comes. Shall he turn informer? What is his duty? Shall he treat his friend as if he were some ordinary criminal whom he had never seen—should be at all eagerness to drag him before the bar of justice, and have him pay the penalty of his crime? Or has friendship some claim? Has he the right to stand aside, shoulders shrugged, mouth tightly closed? Has he the right to say, ‘No business of mine. Let the man settle it with his conscience and his God?’ Has he a choice? Or is he bound to step forward? Is he dragged into the cursed business against his will? Can he keep silence, or must he speak?”

He stopped abruptly. There was a silence, a silence so long that Vaughan was beginning to wonder whether or not the old man’s brain had fully grasped his words. But when at last the professor spoke, it was evident that the pause had been given only to careful thought; that no detail of the problem had been lost on him. “Is any one else, Arthur,” he asked, “supposed to be involved? Or is it simply the case of the man himself? Are there others to be considered, or does he stand alone, confronted with the deed he has done?”

Vaughan’s answering laugh had nothing of mirth in it. “Any one else,” he echoed, “I should say so. Relatives; friends; a woman’s heart, perhaps, to be broken. And the man who is confronted with the problem—it may mean loss of his own happiness as well. And a name, too; a family name that’s been maintained with honor for centuries, almost, one might say. That’s to be dragged in the dust, if it all becomes known. Is any one else involved?” He laughed again.

There was a pause before the professor spoke, and then, “Could the man make atonement, Arthur?” he asked.

Vaughan’s tone, when he answered, was low and sad. “Never,” he replied, “never in a million years. It is a crime where mankind seek to do justice, but where really there is no possible atonement. The crime is the taking of the life of a fellow-man.”

The old man slowly nodded. “And he refuses to come forward?” he asked.

“He refuses to come forward,” Vaughan answered, “though of his motives, perhaps it is hardly fair to pretend to judge. Still, strictly speaking, I suppose that scarcely alters the case. Whatever his idea in keeping silent, in any event he does so.”

“And of his guilt,” said the professor, “I understand you to make no question. That, as I understand it, is one of the fixed hypotheses of the problem, and not open to discussion.”

Vaughan inclined his head. “Exactly,” he returned. “Of his guilt, unfortunately, there is no question. That we may regard as fixed.”

Long and earnestly the old man pondered. “There is a difficulty, of course,” he said, at length. “Under ordinary circumstances, or rather, perhaps, I should say, under extraordinary circumstances, under the hypothesis, I mean, that there existed in all the world only the murdered man, the criminal, yourself, and the tribunal of justice, then I suppose the case would be tolerably clear. I suppose no sophistry could convince us that the incidental fact of a personal friendship should in reality make the slightest difference as to what your duty would be. But then there enters the complication of which you speak—the rights of the other parties involved. As to whether there were others concerned, my question was almost a needless precaution. Of course there are. No man, even the lowest, ever lives to himself alone. Consciously or unconsciously, he has to influence some one about him, for good or evil, as the case may be. But considering everything, even the sorrow and misfortune that must result from it, I am of opinion, Arthur, that the man should speak. It would be hard, of course; terribly hard; but life is hard. And of the ultimate standard of right and wrong, we may scarcely hope to judge. All that we may hope to do is to act up to the truth as we see it. And here, Arthur, I believe the duty is plain. To what the man has seen he must bear witness, at whatever cost. That way lies right, and to follow the easier, the more human course, and to keep silence, that way lies wrong.”

Vaughan had sat listening with downcast eyes. In spite of himself, he could not raise them to meet the professor’s glance, though within him his mind, mutinous, rebelled. “But doesn’t friendship count?” he said at last. “Doesn’t loyalty go for anything? Can a man play the traitor, as you would have him do, and not be branded false for all eternity?”

The professor’s gaze, serene and calm, never for an instant faltered. “Arthur,” he said, “you don’t believe that—not a word of it. You’re trying to make good soldiers enlist in a bad cause. Friendship, loyalty; yes, they are fine things; scarce anything finer, perhaps; but where the true allegiance of these fine things belongs—that it is the truth that transcends all else—that, Arthur, you know, in your inmost heart, as well as I.”

Vaughan sat silent, with clouded brow. And then, as the pause lengthened, he made another effort still. “But, Professor, even if the individual amounts to little, isn’t there the further question of the other matter of which I have spoken—the question of an honored family name. That, at least, Professor, is no small thing. To bring a stain upon it, without the most absolute necessity for so doing, doesn’t it seem, in a way, like seeking to debase the currency? A name, graced by generations of those who have borne it worthily, passes always current for patriotism, integrity, honesty; the name becomes of itself a force for the public good. And now, suddenly debase that name—smirch and mar it—and you have struck a blow at the very foundation of things; you shake the confidence of the people at large in something which they had come to regard as one of the unquestioned bulwarks of the city and the state. Isn’t that something to be well considered? Should not the man see to it, that in righting, or trying to right, a wrong for which he is not responsible, he does not go too far, and instead of reparation, leave behind him, in its place, a scar—a blot—that even time can not erase. Isn’t that the solution, sir? Should not the man keep still?”

For a time the old man sat silent, weighing Vaughan’s words well, before he at length made answer. “That is an argument, Arthur,” he replied, “a plausible argument; yet hardly, I should say, sound. Debasing the currency is an excellent figure, yet there is a currency as much higher than that of family names, as gold outvalues copper. And to seek to keep the copper inviolate, while at the same time forced to debase the real currency—the standard gold—would that be the path of wisdom? Names, you say; great names; but they seem such a small thing in the wide universe itself; a name; a great name; a generation of great names; all but the tiniest dust motes shimmering across the sunbeam which gives them all the luster they may claim. Is the dust speck of reputation worth saving, if its rescue means the shutting out of the sunbeam—Truth?”

In his turn Vaughan sat silent, seeking vainly for words—thoughts—arguments—that would not come. At length he rose, his hands clenched, the struggle going on within him showing in every line of his sensitive face. “I don’t know; I don’t know;” he cried, “I have to think it out myself. But I thank you, Professor, for your kindness; I hope I haven’t tired you,” and taking the old man’s hand in farewell, he made his way hurriedly out of the room.