the young lady was much applauded. colonel livingstone looked into stafford's eyes, and was hesitant. yet he still had something of the old masterly way about him, and he spoke out openly and very frankly. there is something about the united states army officer that is worth while. he rose to the occasion. the manner in which he rose to it was worthy of his occupation and rank. he said:
"you have done things, my boy. you have bossed this train. you have brought to us a great engineering and overbearing quality."
and the colonel almost blushed in an affectionate sort of lapse. "and yet it may be that you expect to get away from me, mr. stafford. you have got to tell your own story before we escape from here through this soon to be open road that you have largely made for us. tell us the story, mr. stafford."
there are times when a strong man may be crushed, but it is rarely, save by thought of a[364] a woman. stafford looked slantwise up the aisle, and then with a look that was tell-tale in his eyes as he cast them toward her, where she was sitting three or four seats away. he told the story of
the pale peacock and the purple herring
this is not really more the story of the pale peacock and the purple herring than it is of john and agnes, but that does not matter much, for the first account encompasses the second, in a way. what is chiefly curious is the difference, in point of view, between the peacock and herring, and the other two.
once there was a peacock. never before was so beautiful a peacock as she. she was snow-white except as to her head and tail. her appearance was something wonderful. from her head down to her shoulders the hues blended and flashed in iridescent green. whenever she moved herself in the slightest degree there appeared a lighting in color passionately vivid. from about her neck and breast there shone what is known as a lambent flame which at times became tempestuous. so the neck and shoulders melted into the snow-white of the body, a restless glimmering ebbing into a milky way. it was just so with the tail.[365]
well, this peacock was unlike other peacocks. she was not—eh?—she was not morbid, but she was solitary and reflective and intensely emotional and sentimental. of course she had two feet and had a voice, but the less said of them the better. she would wander up and down by the lakeside and think of all that might be. she scarcely dreamed that there was to come to her what was her secret heart's desire, but in time it came. she met the purple herring. with each of them it was a case of infatuation at first sight.
now the purple herring was almost as much of an exceptional case as the pale peacock. he was the only purple herring in all the great lakes, and was practically the king of the herrings, and was respected as such. personally, he had in his nature many of the traits of the pale peacock. he, too, was emotional, faithful, and impassioned. they loved.
here was a most unfortunate situation. naturally, the purple herring could not get along very well upon the land, and, naturally too, the peacock could not flourish in the water. it was not exactly a case of platonic love; it was a case of hopeless love, in a way, and yet, not altogether hopeless, for they were happy. it[366] came to this, that they made the best of things, and that the peacock, day after day, would wander along upon the sands which the water lapped, while the herring would swim along beside her, and they would exchange tender confidences, and that, to amuse her, he would tell her tales, many tales, of the wonders of the vasty deep of the lake. he told her why the fish flies came in autumn and smeared the windows and made slippery the sidewalks of the great city; of how they lay in the mud at the bottom of the lake, like little short sticks, and then finally burst open and came to the surface and floated away into town. he told her of his talk with mrs. whitefish, and of how she did not think the spawn was getting along as well as usual. he told her of a thousand things, and they were happy.
they often talked too, this united yet effectually separated pair, of what they saw upon the shores of the placid lake, whose creamy sands, outside the city, sloped down to the water's edge from green fields and waving groves.
many people walked along the sands, and children played and romped there all day. at sunset the purple herring began to look with special interest for the lovers who came in pairs[367] and sat until late, talking, and sometimes in blissful silence while they listened to the soft lapping of the waves upon the shore.
one day the purple herring told the pale peacock about one of these pairs of lovers, the only pair, he said, which were not happy.
"and i can't imagine why they are not, either," said the purple herring.
"nor can i, although i have not yet heard all you know about them," said the pale peacock. "how two lovers who may live together forever, who are not kept from each other by such a fate as separates you and me—how men and women who love each other can be unhappy, is more than i can conjure up by any stretch of fancy!"
"her name is agnes," began the purple herring, "and when i first saw her she was walking slowly along the shore, back and forth, on a stretch of beach bordering the great park at the head of the lake. the sky was red after sunset, and in the southwest hung the new moon, with a great star over it. she was a beautiful lady, but she looked perplexed and a little sad even on that first evening. i did not notice the perplexity and sorrow on her sweet face at the time, but afterward i remembered it.
"suddenly her face was all lighted up by[368] some light that was not of the western sky, nor of the little bent moon, nor the great star. her eyes shone, her cheeks became pink like the inside of a pink shell, and i looked where her eyes were turned. i saw a man walking rapidly toward her, and i thought, 'only another pair of lovers!'
"but this was no common pair; i could not leave them, they were so strangely attractive. their voices thrilled me as i heard them. i could feel all around the vibrations of deep emotion, electrical, disturbing, and enchanting. the lady began their conversation:
"'the day has been so long!' she said. 'and our time together is so short!' the man replied.
"they did not touch each other. they did not even take each other's hands. they only walked slowly along the shore, side by side, yet i and all the world had but to see them to know that they were lovers.
"'agnes,' the man said, 'how happy the men and women are who have a home together! i would not care how humble the roof was that sheltered you and me. how glad i would be to work for you, to plan, and in every way live for you—even now i live only for you!—but what a joy it would be if it could all be with you!'[369]
"'do not speak of it, john,' the woman said, and her voice trembled.
"'how many there are,' the man continued, passionately, 'how many there are who are chained together, straining both at the chain! they would be free, and cannot. their dwelling-place is no home. they fret and sting each other, while you and i—"
"'john!' the lady interrupted him.
"'forgive me!' he said, his tone suddenly changing. 'i can see you but for a few minutes, and i proceed to make you miserable! forgive me! tell me about yourself—what you are thinking, what you are reading. has the white rose blossomed in your garden? how is my friend rex, and why didn't you bring him with you?'
"she answered first about the dog, rex, and then their talk grew uninteresting, or it grew late, so that i became sleepy; i don't know which, but soon they parted, and, would you believe it? the man didn't even kiss her once, nor touch her hand!
"i saw this strange couple many times again during that clear bright june weather, and sometimes i heard their talk. there was always something about it that made me think of heat-[370]lightning, with a mystery of earnestness even in their light banter and play of talk.
"you must have observed that these human creatures often mean things they do not say, and yet contrive that the sense shall show through their misleading words. these two often talked lightly and laughed together, but there was ever an undercurrent of feeling of such deepness and power as i could not comprehend; its mystery almost irritated me.
"one day—it was at night—not a living soul was to be seen on the sands as the two came walking toward me. they came swiftly as if they would walk into the water, but stopped there at its edge—and i listened, fascinated by their tense faces, and deep low voices.
"'we must do what is right,' the man was saying. 'honor binds you, and it binds me. we must not play with fire. i have taken the step which parts us.'
"'so soon!' said she.
"'none too soon!' the man protested. then he burst out, as if he could not keep what came like a torrent from his lips.
"'help me! help me! we must decide and act together! i cannot leave you without your help!'[371]
"the lady turned her face from him for a moment. she looked away across the water, and the tears which had started to her eyes seemed as if commanded not to fall. pale she was, pale was her face, and with the look of ice with snow upon it. her voice, when she turned to him again, did not seem like her voice—the sound of it made him start.
"'you are right,' she said, 'good-bye. god bless you!'
"'agnes!' the man cried, as she turned away.
"'go,' she answered.
"the man looked at her as if to fix her image upon his soul forever, and said, repeating her words: 'good-bye, god bless you!'
"then he walked quickly off into the park, and away, never looking back. the lady sank down on a seat by the water's edge. for a long time i watched her, and she did not move. when, finally, she arose and walked away, i felt that i was seeing her, and i also had seen the man, for the last time. and so it was. i have watched for them in vain. the man has gone to the ends of the earth. that i know by the look on his face and hers. she will never see him again, nor will she walk by these waters where she used to[372] walk with him. but why? that is what puzzles me!"
"what fools these mortals be!" said the pale peacock, without the least idea that any one else had ever before made that remark.
pale death with even tread knocks at the threshold of rich and poor. "pallida mors æquam pulsat," etc. one day the purple herring died, and the pale peacock suffered as suffer those who love and are bereaved. little cared she for longer life, and she wanted to pine away. she went to a policeman on the corner, and said: "tell me how to pine."
"what now! what now!" said the policeman and he gave her no assistance.
but she must pine. she wanted to pine away. she wandered on and met the cream-colored cat, and to her she told her tale. now, the cream-colored cat had herself learned to pine, having lost her loving mistress, and, being of an affable and affectionate nature, she at once revealed the secret of pining to the pale peacock, and they joined forces and pined together. and they pined, and they pined, and they pined. they pined until they became a sublimated substance—(just what a sublimated substance is does not matter in this[373] story)—and they pined along until they became something so intangible they were almost like a little fog; that is, they were like a young fog, for as a fog gets older and begins to dissipate, it gets thinner, so that the younger a fog is, the thicker it is. finally it becomes a vapor. and they became what may be called an evanescent vapor, until all was lost in the empyrean. and the souls of the pale peacock and the purple herring were at last commingled.
perhaps it was so in the end with the souls of john and agnes.
