_Oph._--What means this, my lord?
_Ham._--Marry, this is the miching mallecho; it means mischief."
--HAMLET.
A ride in the Central Park is an every-day matter to most people. Itsignifies an indolent bowling over a smooth road all alive with theglitter of passing equipages, waving ribbons and fluttering plumes, andbrightened now and then by the sight of a well known face amid thegeneral rush of old and young, plain and handsome, sad and gaycountenances that flash by you in one long and brilliant procession.
But to Paula and her friend Miss Stuyvesant starting out in the earlyfreshness of a fair April morning, it meant new life, reawakening joy,the sparkle of young leaves just loosed from the bonds of winter, thesweetness and promise of spring airs, and all the budding glory of a newyear with its summer of countless roses and its autumn of incalculableglories. Not the twitter of a bird was lost to them, not the smile of anopening flower, not the welcome of a waving branch. Youth, joy, andinnocence lived in their hearts and showed them nothing in the mirror ofnature that was not equally young, joyous and innocent. Then they werealone, or sufficiently so. The stray wanderers whom they met sittingunder the flowering trees, were equally with themselves lovers of natureor they would not be seated in converse with it at this early hour;while the laugh of little children startled from their play by theprance of their high-stepping horses, was only another expression of thesweet but unexpressed delight that breathed in all the radiantatmosphere.
"We are two birds who have escaped thralldom and are taking our firstflight into our natural ether," cried Miss Stuyvesant gaily.
"We are two pioneers lit by the spirit of adventure, who have left thecosy hearth of wintry-fires to explore the domains of the frost king,and lo, we have come upon a Paradise of bloom and color!" responded theringing voice of Paula.
"I feel as if I could mount that little white cloud we see over there,"continued Cicely with a quick lively wave of her whip. "I wonder howDandy would enjoy an empyrean journey?"
"From the haughty bend of his neck I should say he was quite satisfiedwith his present condition. But perhaps his chief pride is due to themistress he carries."
"Are you attempting to vie with Mr. Williams, Paula?"
Mr. Williams was the meek-eyed, fair complexioned gentleman, whosepredilection for compliment was just then a subject of talk infashionable circles.
"Only so far as my admiration goes of the most charming lady I see thismorning. But who is this?"
Miss Stuyvesant looked up. "Ah, that is some one with whom there is verylittle danger of your falling in love."
Paula blushed. The gentleman approaching them upon horseback wasconspicuous for long side whiskers of a decidedly auburn tinge.
"His name is--" But she had not time to finish, for the gentleman with aglance of astonished delight at Paula, bowed to the speaker with aliveliness and grace that demanded some recognition.
Instantly he drew rein. "Do I behold Miss Stuyvesant among the nymphs!"cried he, in those ringing pleasant tones that at once predispose youtowards their possessor.
"If you allude to my friend Miss Fairchild, you certainly do, Mr.Ensign," the wicked little lady rejoined with a waiving of her usualceremony that astonished Paula.
Mr. Ensign bestowed upon them his most courtly bow, but the flush thatmounted to his brow--making his face one red, as certain of his friendswere malicious enough to observe on similar occasions--indicated that hehad been taken a little more at his word than perhaps suited even one ofhis easy and proverbially careless temperament. "Miss Fairchild willunderstand that I am not a Harvey Williams--at least before anintroduction," said he with something like seriousness.
But at this allusion to the gentleman whose name had been upon theirlips but a moment before, both ladies laughed outright.
"I have just been accused of attempting the role of that gentlemanmyself," exclaimed Paula. "If the fresh morning air will persist inpainting such roses on ladies' cheeks," continued she, with a lovinglook at her pretty companion "what can one be expected to do?"
"Admire," quoth the red bannered cavalier with a glance, however, at thebeautiful speaker instead of the demure little Cicely at her side.
Miss Stuyvesant perceived this look and a curious smile disturbed thecorners of her rosy lips. "What a fortunate man to be able to do theright thing at the right time," laughed she, gaily touching up her horsethat was beginning to show symptoms of restlessness.
"If Miss Stuyvesant will put that in the future tense and then assure usshe has been among the prophets, I should be singularly obliged," saidhe with a touch of his hat and a smiling look at Paula that was at oncemanly and gentle, careless and yet respectful.
"Ah, life is too bright for prophesies this morning. The moment isenough."
"Is it Miss Fairchild?" queried Mr. Ensign looking back over hisshoulder.
She turned just a bit of her cheek towards him. "What Miss Stuyvesantdeclares to be true, that am I bound to believe," said she, and with theleast little ripple of a laugh, rode on.
"It is a pity you have such a dislike for whiskers," Cicely presentlyremarked with an air of great gravity.
Paula gave a start and cast a glance of reproach at her companion. "Idid not notice his whiskers after the first word or two," said she,fixing her eyes on a turn of the road before them. "Such cheerfulness isinfectious. I was merry before, but now I feel as if I had been bathedin sunshine."
Cicely's eyes flashed wide with surprise and her face grew serious inearnest. "Mr. Ensign is a delightful companion," observed she; "a roomis always brighter for his entrance; and with all that, he is the onlyyoung man I know, who having come into a large fortune, feels any of theresponsibilities of his position. The sunshine is the result of a goodheart and pure living, and that is what makes it infectious, I suppose."
"Let us canter," said Paula. And so the glad young things swept on, lifebreaking in bubbles around them and rippling away into unfathomablewells of feeling in one of their pure hearts at least. Suddenly a handseemed to swoop from heaven and dash them both back in dismay. They hadreached one of those places where the foot path crosses the equestrianand they had run over and thrown down a little child.
"O heaven!" cried Paula leaping from her horse, "I had rather beenkilled myself." The groom rode up and she bent anxiously over the child.
It was a boy of some seven or eight years, whose misfortune--he waslame, as the little crutch fallen at his side sufficiently denoted--madeappear much younger. He had been struck on his arm and was moaning withpain, but did not seem to be otherwise hurt. "Are you alone?" criedPaula, lifting his head on her arm and glancing hurriedly about.
The little fellow raised his heavy lids and for a moment stared into herface with eyes so deeply blue and beautiful they almost startled her,then with an effort pointed down the path, saying,
"Dad's over there in the long tunnel talking to some one. Tell him I gothurt. I want Dad."
She gently lifted him to his feet and led him out of the road into theapparently deserted path where she made him sit down. "I am going tofind his father," said Paula to Cicely, "I will be back in a moment."
"But wait; you shall not go alone," authoritatively exclaimed thatlittle damsel, leaping in her turn to the ground. "Where does he say hisfather is?"
"In the tunnel, by which I suppose he means that long passage under thebridge over there."
Holding up the skirts of their riding-habits in their trembling righthands, they hurried forward. Suddenly they both paused. A woman hadcrossed their path; a woman whom to look at but once was to rememberwith ghastly shrinking for a lifetime. She was wrapped in a long andragged cloak, and her eyes, startling in their blackness, were fixedupon the pain-drawn countenance of the poor little hurt boy behind them,with a gleam whose feverish hatred and deep malignant enjoyment of hisvery evident sufferings, was like a revelation from the lowest pit tothe two innocent-minded girls hastening forward on their errand ofmercy.
&n
bsp; "Is he much hurt?" gasped the woman in an ineffectual effort to concealthe evil nature of her interest. "Do you think he will die?" with ashrill lingering emphasis on the last word as if she longed to roll itlike a sweet morsel under her tongue.
"Who are you?" asked Cicely, shrinking to one side with dilated eyesfixed on the woman's hardened countenance and the white, too white handwith which she had pointed as she spoke of the child.
"Are you his mother?" queried Paula, paling at the thought but keepingher ground with an air of unconscious authority.
"His mother!" shrieked the woman, hugging herself in her long cloak andlaughing with fiendish sarcasm: "I look like his mother, don't I? Hiseyes--did you notice his eyes? they are just like mine, aren't they? andhis body, poor weazen little thing, looks as if it had drawn sustenancefrom mine, don't it? His mother! O heaven!"
Nothing like the suppressed force of this invocation seething as it waswith the worst passions of a depraved human nature, had ever startledthose ears before. Clasping Cicely by the hand, she called out to thegroom behind them, "Guard that child as you would your life!" and thenflashing upon the wretched creature before her with all the force of heraroused nature, she exclaimed, "If you are not his mother, move asideand let us pass, we are in search of assistance."
For an instant the woman stood awe-struck before this vision of maidenlybeauty and indignation, then she laughed and cried out with shrillemphasis:
"When next you look like that, go to your mirror, and when you see theimage it reflects, say to yourself, 'So once looked the woman who defiedme in the Park!'"
With a quick shudder and a feeling as if the noisome cloak of thisdegraded being had somehow been dropped upon her own fair and spotlessshoulders, Paula clasped the hand of Cicely more tightly in her own, andrushed with her down the steps that led into the underground passagetowards which they had been directed.
There were but two persons in it when they entered. A short thickset manand another man of a slighter and more gentlemanly build. They wereengaged in talking, and the latter was bringing down his right hand uponthe palm of his left with a gesture almost foreign in its expressiveenergy.
"I tell you," declared he, with a voice that while low, reverberatedthrough the hollow vault above him with strange intensity, "I tell youI've got my grip on a certain rich man in this city, and if you willonly wait, you shall see strange things. I don't know his name and Idon't know his face, but I do know what he has done, and a thousanddollars down couldn't buy the knowledge of me."
"But if you don't know his name and don't know his face, how in the nameof all that's mischievous are you going to know your man?"
"Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more richman goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I've not the wit thatstarvation usually teaches."
The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestationsof interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred thetwo girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thoughtsave that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting upher voice, Paula said,
"Are either of you the father of a little lame lad--"
Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who hadalso been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and shesaw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many adisgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to beanything but involuntary.
"Is he hurt?" gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of thewoman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing thatthe persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least avery beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that togetherwith what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerousclass among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably tothe bad.
"I am afraid he is, sir," said Paula. "He was attempting to cross theroad, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him." She had not courageto say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seizedhim at these words.
"Where is he?" cried he. "Where's my poor boy?" And he bounded up thesteps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and hiswhole form expressive of the utmost alarm.
"Down by the carriage road," called out Paula, finding it impossible forthem to keep up with such haste.
"But is he much injured?" cried a smooth voice at their side.
They turned; it was the short thickset man who had been the other'scompanion in the conversation above recorded.
"We trust not," answered Cicely; "his arm received the blow, and hesuffers very much, but we hope it is not serious;" and they hurried on.
They found the father seated on the grass holding the little fellow inhis arms. The look on his once handsome but now thoroughly corrupt anddissipated face, made their hearts melt within them. However wicked hemight be--and that sly treacherous eye, that false impudent lip, thatsettling of the whole face into the mould which Vice applies to all hervotaries, left no doubt of his complete depravity--he dearly loved hischild, and love, no matter how it is expressed, or in what garb itappears, is a sacred and beautiful thing, and ennobles for the timebeing any creature who displays it.
"'Twas a hard knock up, Dad," came from the white lips of the child ashe felt his father's trembling hand feel up and down his arm, "but Iguess the 'little fellar' can stand it." "Little feller" was evidentlythe name by which his father was accustomed to address him.
"There are no bones broken," said the father. "To be lame and maimed toowould be--"
He did not finish, for a delicately gloved hand was here laid on hissleeve, and a gentle voice whispered, "Money cannot pay for an injurylike that, but please accept this;" and Paula thrust a purse into hishand.
He clutched it eagerly, but at her next request that he should tell herwhere he lived that they might inquire after the boy, he shook his headwith a return of his old emphasis.
"The haunts of bats and jackals are not for ladies." Then as he caughtsight of her pitiful face bending in farewell over the little urchin,some remembrance perhaps of the days when he had a right to stoop to theear of beautiful women and walk unrebuked at their side, returned to himfrom the past, and respectfully lowering his voice, he asked her name.
She gave it and he seemed to lay it away in his mind; then as the ladiesturned to remount their horses, rose and began carrying the littlefellow off. As he vanished in the turn of the path that led towards themain entrance, they perceived a tall dark figure arise from a seat inthe distance and stand looking after him, with a leer on its face and amalicious hugging of itself in a long black cloak, that proclaimed herto be the same ominous being who had before so grievously startled them.