Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1883 — MY FRIEND FITZGERALD. [ARTICLE]

MY FRIEND FITZGERALD.

I I am a little fellow with insignificant shoulders and legs not worth considering. I have no talent, and no distinguished eccentricity. My manner, what there is of it, is timid and awkward. I know that mankind as a species does not regard me at all, that only mercenary motives restrain my tailor from expressing his contempt for me. There is nothing more to say about myself, except that I have no imagination, whicn may serve to substantiate the facts I am about to narrate. My friend Fitzgerald Avas my antipodes. He was tall and strong and winning. His name betrays his nationality, and his nationality furnishes the key-note to a happy, fun-loving nature. For six years, at school and at college, we were close companions, and then for four years we were separated. I, being by lucky accident rich, traveled for improvement and amusement; Fitzgerald Avorked for his living. He chose to be an engineer—l say chose, for whatever he had set his mind to do he would do brilliantly. When I had got round the world back to my point of departure, I found Fitzgerald about setting out for the northwest of Canada, whero ho Avas to conduct a Government survey. He expected to be absent at least two years. Since coming home had meant little more than coming back to him, this plan of his filled me with disappointment. When he suggested that I should accompany. the expedition X agreed joyfully. The day before that fixed for our departure he came to my rooms, looking nervous and excited: Feigning not to notice his perturbation, I began running over a memorandum of things to be done. He interrupted me sharply. “Look, here, Jack, I Avant you to go out with me ot 3 o’clock this afternoon to ,” mentioning a small town some twenty miles distant. “We will get there at 4, leave again at 5:30, and reach home in time for dinner. ” My time being precious, I objected. “Do it, Jack. The matter is of vital importance to me. ” An appeal from Fitzgerald Avas irresistible. I agreed at once. At 3 o’clock I met him at the railway sta- ' tion. We had been ten minutes on our way when he said, abruptly: “Jack, I am going to be married.” “The devil.”

My emphatic expletive echoed through the car, and then he added: “I should not feel quite right about it if you were not there, and that is how I persuaded Emily. Beside,” he continued, after a short pause, "I want you to see her. It will be much to me during two years of separation to have some one near me who. has seen her. ” Then, the gates of his confidence being opened, he plunged into lovers’ hyberbole. I listened silently, my hat Blouched over my eyes and my hands thrust deep in my pockets. I could listen and at the same time mentally review the years of our friendship. It had been ray habit •' to scoff—an envious scoff, of course, at his love affairs. I knew now that the time of scoffing was past, and I realized (with more than a woman’s jealousy—l confess it) that his love for his family would endure, and henceforth be the guiding influence of his life, whether for good or ill. On arriving at our station Fitzgerald went at once to the ladies’ waiting-room. He returned with a young girl on his arm, whom he introduced to me as Miss Emily Gordon. I shook hands with her vigorously, and stretched on tiptoe to get a nearer view of her face, for she was very tall. As I stared at her I chilled with disappointment—not a vague sentiment, but a decided opinion, that the face was not worth what Fitzgerald would sacrifice for it. The face was fair and finely featured, flushed just now with excitement. The eyes were dark, and though their wavering regard was childish and pretty, and, under the circumstances, to be expected, that it was which made my heart sink. The restless glance struck me not as a trick of the moment demanded by the situation, but as expressing undesirable characteristics in the woman. There was not a gleam of the steady, spiritual light such as it would have pleased me to see in the eyes of the woman who was to be Fitzgerald’s wife. They were married in a Methodist parsonage by a very old man, and the marriage was witnessed by the clergyman’s wife and myself. Mrs. Fitzgerald insisted on ■ her husband’s taking her marriage certificate, affirming childishly that she would surely lose it. She had left her home that morning with the avowed intention of visiting friends. She was now to proceed on her journey, and her train would leave twenty minutes before ours for the city. I shook hands with her at the parsonage Kte, saying with elaborate tict that I d always longed to pry about this peculiarly interesting town. She was crying and dinging closely to Fitzgerald. She held my hand a moment. “He is going so far from me, and two years are so long! You will bike 4 care of him. Promise me—oh, promise me!” “I do, with my whole heart,” I answered, and turned away from them. Hiked her better. The tears and the sob in her voice had touched me, almost won me. My dull senses were partially wakened to the attractions which such a creature might have for a man of strong passions and imagination. If it had not been for that first wretched impression, I should have been in love on the spot with FitzgerWe were on our way home when he

praised her in the Ijpst words I conld find, and thought I was acquitting myself well. Fitzgerald’s hand fell on my shoulder. “What are yon saying, Jack? You are a* cold as ice, ” “Yon forget. You are at fever heat.” “Then what are yon feeling?” he burst out irritably. “What are you thinking that detracts from her?” ... Iliad been coldly thinking the worst of her. I was startled into an unequivocal answer. “I am thinking that she has not the strength to appreciate you, or to be true to you. lam fearing that nothing but ill will come to yon of what you have done to-day.” I expected that he would turn upon me furiously, but he did not. His face lost its color, and he said, as if reasoning to himself, not in answer to me: „It was her own wish. I would have trusted hee without any pledge. It will be strange if she does not regret this day, yet X stake my soul that she never will.” I said to myself: “He has given her his best; surely that cannot have been unworthily bestowed.” I dug a grave for my doubts and suspicions, and tried to cover them deep.

ii. We were in winter quarters in a canyon es the Frazer river. We had no mail for several weeks, and toward the end of the year we concluded that there were a noble army of martyrs and an accumulation of mail-bags beneath the snow-drifts which stretched almost unbroken for a hundred miles, the distance to the nearest post station. One day, after a week of almost uninterruptedly fine weather, the welcome messenger arrived—arrived on his low sledge drawn by eight sure-footed dogs—arrived in hot haste, with bells jingling, and frost-powdered beard, and bright eyes gleaming out from a frame of furs, for all the world like a belated Santa Claus.

Fitzgerald, as usual, opened the bag, and I knew by his puzzled look that the letters eagerly expected by him from his wife wero missing. He kept apart from us all day, but in the evening joined the group round the fire, with a pipe and newspaper. There was a youngster in our party whom I knew was fully informed of the love of Fitzgerald and Miss Emily Gordon—as far, that is, as the affair had been gossiped over by his mamma and her Avomen friends. When this youth, buried in a home paper, whistled shrilly, and shouted,“Say, Fitzgerald, here’s a nut for you!” I felt certain that he had bad news of Fitzgerald’s wife. “What is it?” Fitzgerald asked, indifferently, not looking up from his paper, “About that stunning Miss Gordon—the girl you were such spoons on. Do you remember ?” Fitzgerald took his pipe from his mouth. “I remember. What about her?” “ ‘lt is reported from Rome that Miss Emily Gordon, one of our fairest daughters, is to marry the young and distinguished Count Mondelia. The wedding is soon to be celebrated in the Holy City with great eclat.’ ” I wondered how Fitzgerald could quietly listen to this announcement, read in the most deliberate manner, i could barely refrain from getting up and yelling. My astonishment increased when, having asked for the paper, he carefully re-read the item; then taking his great fur coat, he left the room. In a few minutes I joined him, and we walked to and fro together on the hardpacked snow before the shanty. “You see, Jack, I must leave at once.” “Yes,” I acquiesced; “I suppose you could not rest here.” Then I protested: “Fitzgerald, let her go. She is weak, faithless, unworthy.”

He repeated my adjectives with ev£ dent perplexity. “I" see. Your old injustice to her. You misunderstand. The case is as plain as daylight. This Count dances attendance on her; her parents encourage him; people talk of them together, and a wholesale manufacturer of lies—a newspaper correspondent—sends idle gossip to America as fact. She is the victim of a persecution. They may have discovered our Becret, and prevented her writing to. me. How far away is she? Not miles, days—ten, twenty, thirty. I shall not rest till she is safe in my arms, for she is my wife. You know it, Jack. They may marry her to a thousand Counts, but she is my wife.” Feeling that the moment was not happy for the presentation of views, I presented no more. I agreed to all the absurdities he chose to advance. The next morning he announced to the camp that he was going to Fort Garry to consult some engineers, and would probably be absent about two months. I was to accompany him, and undertook to prepare for the journey. About noon an Indian runner came in on snow shoes with an extra mail. There was one letter for Fitzgerald, and the handwriting was that of his Wife. I sent the letter to his private room. In about half an hour I knocked at his door, and he said. “Come in.” He was sitting before a table, leaning on it with folded arms. As if anticipating and wishing to evade inquiry, he said, “I suppose you have been getting things ready.” “Yes. We can leave at any minute.” “I am undecided about going now. I think I will put it off until to-morrow, at all events. lam sorry to have given you so much trouble.” “Just as you please,” I said. “I am indifferent.” “What a good fellow you are, Jack,” he said, standing up and looking at me. A casual observer might have thought his face only pale from overwork or want of rest. To me it was dead, like a fine portrait without any light in the eyes. I thrust my hands in my pockets and shuffled my feet, overcome by the embarrassment which words of sincere kindliness always excite in me. “Can’t I help you ? Tell me something to do for yon,” “The kindest thing you can do is to let me alone. ” I sidled to the door. “Do go, Jack,” he burst out, impetuously. “I can’t bear to have even you —” Before he could finish the sentence I was oh the other side of the door. I felt that Mrs. Fitzgerald’s letter had merely confirmed the newspaper report. If the marriage, which had been but a legal form, could be annulled, I suspected that Fitzgerald would do it. I had no doubt that he would scorn to strike the woman who had wounded him mortally. When I fell asleep that night all my suspicions and beliefs had merged into burning her, and a determination gome imperishable ill >

I fell asleep with this one ides in my brain, and I was wakened from that sleep by a cry. “Jack! Jack! Help! help!” My senses were penetrated by the voice of a man in great agony, crying for succor, crying to me, and the voice was the voice of my friend Fitzgerald. I tried to-lift myself from my bed bnt a heavy weight held me down. I struggled to speak, but my tongue was tied.. I rubbed my eyes, but the lids seemed glued. At last they parted slowly, and I saw that of which my mind has never lost the slightest im?ression. I was not lying on my bed; was not in the low, square room, with half a dozen men sleeping about me. I was standing on the river’s brink, several miles below the station, standing there alone in the awful stillness of a winter night in the wilderness. The moonlight was so brilliant that every object was distinctly visible. I saw not twenty feet from me a break in the ice, and the blue water bubbling up clearly. Above the water rose a man’s fair, strong head, and two hands grasping, trying to lift the body beneath up to the ice, which broke and crumbled away from their touch. He was dying before my eyes, and 1 could not stir an inch to save him. I saw the beating of his hand grow feebler and the tension of his face relax. “Spare her, Jack!—spare her!” he cried. I was silent.

Then once again he cried, and that sound I think will always echo about the world with me: “Speak to me. Give me a sign.” I forgot my hatred of her and my resolve to hurt her; I was sensible only of his pitiful pleading. By a great effort I flung up my right arm as a sign of acquiescence. His hands fell, his head sank backward, and the blue water sparkled and bubbled in the moonlight. I shouted, “Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald 1” I seemed to spring forward, when the whole scene was transformed. I was sitting up in bed, and the watch by the fire was saying, drowsily: “What’s the matter? What are you making such a row about?” “Where is Fitzgerald?” I said, looking round, and seeing that his place in the row of mattresses was vacant. “He went out about an hour ago. He said he couldn’t sleep,, and was going to skate up the river to Thompson’s Station. ” I got up slowly, and the motion was painful, for my whole body was numb. I spoke with hesitation, as if the power of speech was new to me. “Fitzgerald did not go up the river; he went doAvn .toward Carter Station. He has been drowned six miles below.” My shout had aroused most of the men. They all exclaimed incredulously that I had been dreaming. I stood my ground, and was already getting ready to go out. The dogged persistence of such a matter-of-fact fellow as I impressed them, and they prepared to accompany me. When we reached the river we put on our skates. We could not distinguish tracks, for we had recently been skating a great deal, taking advantage of the clear ice, rare so lata in the season. I led doAvn the river, the others following, laughing at my expense. Soon the infection of my profound hopelessness spread, and in ten minutes all were skating swiftly, silently toward whatever awaited us. When but a sharp headland lay between us and the spot I had seen in my vision I halted. “He is lying just beyond there. If the ice is broken we shall know. ” We rounded the point in line. The ice was broken and thrown up in pieces and the water still bubbling. I have not much more to tell. It was afterward discovered that he had struck one of the shallow springs on a sandy bottom which never freeze solidly. The water would not have covered him standing, but the numbing influence of the intense cold and the frailness of the surrounding ice had prevented his saving himself. I offer no explanation of what I have said that I saw and heard, but six men can testify that, when miles away from him, I saw the dying face and heard the dying words of my friend Fitzgerald, and that I led them to the spot- where they found him. He had left a letter for me in his private room. He said that he was going to take legal advice and find the quickest means of rendering void the mar--riage ceremony I had witnessed. He asked me to look after his traps, and assured me that as soon as- he felt able to take up old associations he would let me know. As I read this letter I cried like a girl.

In his pocketbook I found his marriage certificate and the last letter she had written him. I carefully dried both, and as carefully read the latter. What a weak, miserable cringing effusion, characteristic of the writer 1 Pages of alternate whining and bullying, ending with this paragraph: “If you force'any claim, the courts will set it aside. That would make a scandal, and I have never been talked about, and I should be very nervous under disagreeable talk. It would be very unmanly and underbred in you to to give me such trouble, and at least I have always considered you a gentleman.” I swore that she should have cause to be nervous. I knew that such a woman could not be wounded, mentally or spiritually, and that the blow must be struck at material comforts. I left the station immediately. From the first telegraph station I reached I sent a message to Miss Emily Gordon.to her Roman address: “Fear nothing. I will arrange as you desire.” I signed Fitzgerald’s name. ‘ **„.;*, A month afterward I was in Venice, in the hotel with the Count and Countess Mondella. On the night of my arrival I made a package of letters beginning “My. hm»band,” with a variety of tender qualifications, and signed “Emily Fitzgerald.” With these I placed the marriage certificate and the last letter. I addressed the package to the Count Mondella intending that the next morning it should be put in his hands. I went to bed feeling comparatively cheerful. My sleep was but a repetition of the sleep in which' I saw Fitzgerald die. When I cam© to my senses, I knew that I must spare her. I did not doubt then, and have never doubted since, that the repetition of the vision was the work of an excited brain, but the impression was so vivid that I felt myself bound by an oath to the dead to spare her. I re-addressed the package to the Countess Mondella, and ortjered my messenger to deliver it into no hands but her own. So with my own hands I deprived myself of the means of aveng-

diction to my own insignificant rage and vindictive desire. I saw her once in the corridor leaning on the arm of her husband, beautiful and triumphant, with her false eyes flickering still: ,1 wondered then why such a woman showered on her the gifts that the world hold best, and why a man who, bv the mere chance of living in it, made tlie world better,, should be lying -dead in a wilderness, heart-broken and murdered by her.— Harper's Weekly.