CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND SOWING
It is no part of mine to narrate the adventures of John Nicholson, whichwere many, but simply his more momentous misadventures, which were morethan he desired, and by human standards more than he deserved; how hereached California, how he was rooked, and robbed, and beaten, andstarved; how he was at last taken up by charitable folk, restored tosome degree of self-complacency, and installed as a clerk in a bank inSan Francisco, it would take too long to tell; nor in these episodeswere there any marks of the peculiar Nicholsonic destiny, for they werejust such matters as befell some thousands of other young adventurers inthe same days and places. But once posted in the bank, he fell for atime into a high degree of good fortune, which, as it was only a longerway about to fresh disaster, it behoves me to explain.
It was his luck to meet a young man in what is technically called a"dive," and, thanks to his monthly wages, to extricate this newacquaintance from a position of present disgrace and possible danger inthe future. This young man was the nephew of one of the Nob Hillmagnates, who run the San Francisco Stock Exchange much as more humbleadventurers, in the corner of some public park at home, may be seen toperform the simple artifice of pea and thimble: for their own profit,that is to say, and the discouragement of public gambling. It was hencein his power--and, as he was of grateful temper, it was among the thingsthat he desired--to put John in the way of growing rich; and thus,without thought or industry, or so much as even understanding the gameat which he played, but by simply buying and selling what he was told tobuy and sell, that plaything of fortune was presently at the head ofbetween eleven and twelve thousand pounds, or, as he reckoned it, ofupwards of sixty thousand dollars.
How he had come to deserve this wealth, any more than how he had formerlyearned disgrace at home, was a problem beyond the reach of his philosophy.It was true that he had been industrious at the bank, but no more so thanthe cashier, who had seven small children and was visibly sinking in adecline. Nor was the step which had determined his advance--a visit to adive with a month's wages in his pocket--an act of such transcendentvirtue, or even wisdom, as to seem to merit the favour of the gods. Fromsome sense of this and of the dizzy see-saw--heaven-high, hell-deep--onwhich men sit clutching; or perhaps fearing that the sources of hisfortune might be insidiously traced to some root in the field of pettycash; he stuck to his work, said not a word of his new circumstances, andkept his account with a bank in a different quarter of the town. Theconcealment, innocent as it seems, was the first step in the secondtragicomedy of John's existence.
Meanwhile he had never written home. Whether from diffidence or shame,or a touch of anger, or mere procrastination, or because (as we haveseen) he had no skill in literary arts, or because (as I am sometimestempted to suppose) there is a law in human nature that prevents youngmen--not otherwise beasts--from the performance of this simple act ofpiety:--months and years had gone by, and John had never written. Thehabit of not writing, indeed, was already fixed before he had begun tocome into his fortune; and it was only the difficulty of breaking thislong silence that withheld him from an instant restitution of the moneyhe had stolen or (as he preferred to call it) borrowed. In vain he satbefore paper, attending on inspiration; that heavenly nymph, beyondsuggesting the words "My dear father," remained obstinately silent; andpresently John would crumple up the sheet and decide, as soon as he had"a good chance," to carry the money home in person. And this delay,which is indefensible, was his second step into the snares of fortune.
Ten years had passed, and John was drawing near to thirty. He had keptthe promise of his boyhood, and was now of a lusty frame, vergingtowards corpulence; good features, good eyes, a genial manner, a readylaugh, a long pair of sandy whiskers, a dash of an American accent, aclose familiarity with the great American joke, and a certain likenessto a R-y-l P-rs-n-ge, who shall remain nameless for me, made up theman's externals, as he could be viewed in society. Inwardly, in spite ofhis gross body and highly masculine whiskers, he was more like a maidenlady than a man of twenty-nine.
It chanced one day, as he was strolling down Market Street on the eve ofhis fortnight's holiday, that his eye was caught by certain railwaybills, and in very idleness of mind he calculated that he might be homefor Christmas if he started on the morrow. The fancy thrilled him withdesire, and in one moment he decided he would go.
There was much to be done: his portmanteau to be packed, a credit to begot from the bank where he was a wealthy customer, and certain officesto be transacted for that other bank in which he was a humble clerk; andit chanced, in conformity with human nature, that out of all thisbusiness it was the last that came to be neglected. Night found him notonly equipped with money of his own, but once more (as on that formeroccasion) saddled with a considerable sum of other people's.
Now it chanced there lived in the same boarding-house a fellow-clerk ofhis, an honest fellow, with what is called a weakness for drink--thoughit might, in this case, have been called a strength, for the victim hadbeen drunk for weeks together without the briefest intermission. To thisunfortunate John intrusted a letter with an inclosure of bonds,addressed to the bank manager. Even as he did so he thought heperceived a certain haziness of eye and speech in his trustee; but hewas too hopeful to be stayed, silenced the voice of warning in hisbosom, and with one and the same gesture committed the money to theclerk, and himself into the hands of destiny.
I dwell, even at the risk of tedium, on John's minutest errors, his casebeing so perplexing to the moralist; but we have done with them now, theroll is closed, the reader has the worst of our poor hero, and I leavehim to judge for himself whether he or John has been the less deserving.Henceforth we have to follow the spectacle of a man who was a merewhip-top for calamity; on whose unmerited misadventures not even thehumorist can look without pity, and not even the philosopher withoutalarm.
That same night the clerk entered upon a bout of drunkenness soconsistent as to surprise even his intimate acquaintance. He wasspeedily ejected from the boarding-house; deposited his portmanteau witha perfect stranger, who did not even catch his name; wandered he knewnot where, and was at last hove-to, all standing, in a hospital atSacramento. There, under the impenetrable _alias_ of the number of hisbed, the crapulous being lay for some more days unconscious of allthings, and of one thing in particular: that the police were after him.Two months had come and gone before the convalescent in the Sacramentohospital was identified with Kirkman, the absconding San Franciscoclerk; even then, there must elapse nearly a fortnight more till theperfect stranger could be hunted up, the portmanteau recovered, andJohn's letter carried at length to its destination, the seal stillunbroken, the inclosure still intact.
Meanwhile John had gone upon his holidays without a word, which wasirregular; and there had disappeared with him a certain sum of money,which was out of all bounds of palliation. But he was known to becareless, and believed to be honest; the manager besides had a regardfor him; and little was said, although something was no doubt thought,until the fortnight was finally at an end, and the time had come forJohn to reappear. Then, indeed, the affair began to look black; and wheninquiries were made, and the penniless clerk was found to have amassedthousands of dollars, and kept them secretly in a rival establishment,the stoutest of his friends abandoned him, the books were overhauled fortraces of ancient and artful fraud, and though none were found, therestill prevailed a general impression of loss. The telegraph was set inmotion; and the correspondent of the bank in Edinburgh, for which placeit was understood that John had armed himself with extensive credits,was warned to communicate with the police.
Now this correspondent was a friend of Mr. Nicholson's; he was wellacquainted with the tale of John's calamitous disappearance fromEdinburgh; and putting one thing with another, hasted with the firstword of this scandal, not to the police, but to his friend. The oldgentleman had long regarded his son as one dead; John's place had beentaken, the memory of his faults had already fallen to be one of thoseold aches,
which awaken again indeed upon occasion, but which we canalways vanquish by an effort of the will; and to have the long lostresuscitated in a fresh disgrace was doubly bitter.
"MacEwen," said the old man, "this must be hushed up, if possible. If Igive you a cheque for this sum, about which they are certain, could youtake it on yourself to let the matter rest?"
"I will," said MacEwen. "I will take the risk of it."
"You understand," resumed Mr. Nicholson, speaking precisely, but withashen lips, "I do this for my family, not for that unhappy young man. Ifit should turn out that these suspicions are correct, and he hasembezzled large sums, he must lie on his bed as he has made it." Andthen looking up at MacEwen with a nod, and one of his strange smiles:"Good-bye," said he; and MacEwen, perceiving the case to be too gravefor consolation, took himself off, and blessed God on his way home thathe was childless.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 10 Page 5