Mr. Heathcote now became morose and silent. Much of his lofty and patronizing air disappeared, although the desire to instruct would crop out at times. Usually he was watchful and suspicious, but the struggle for bread and a place to sleep necessarily consumed a large portion of his energies. As time dragged on his manner became that of one hunted, but doggedly enduring, nevertheless. The candidate always spoke to him courteously, whenever he had a chance, but then there was little time for conversation, as the campaign was now hot and fast. Mr. Heathcote was, in fact, a man alone in the world, and outlawed too. The weight upon him grew heavier and heavier as his path became thornier and thornier; the angles, the corners, and the pitfalls seemed to multiply, and always he was the victim. Jimmy Grayson looked now and then as if he would like to interfere, but there was no way for him to interfere, nor any one with whom he could interfere.
Mr. Heathcote still clung bravely to some portions of his glorious wardrobe. The white spats he yet sported, in the face of a belligerent Western democracy, and he paid the full price. Harley acknowledged this merit in him, and once or twice, when the committeeman, amid the comments of the ribald crowd, turned a pathetic look upon him, he was moved to pity and a desire to help; but the last feeling he resolutely crushed, and held on his way.
The campaign swung farther westward and northward, and into a primitive wilderness, where the audiences were composed solely of miners and cowboys. Old Senator Curtis and several other of the Colorado men were still with them, and one night they spoke at a mining hamlet on the slope of a mountain that shot ten thousand feet above them. The candidate was in great form, and made one of his best speeches, amid roars of applause. The audience was so well pleased that it would not disperse when he finished, and wished vociferously to know if there were not another spellbinder on the stage. Then the spirit of mischief entered the soul of Hobart.
The Honorable Herbert sat at the corner of the stage, the white spats still gleaming defiance, his whole appearance, despite recent modifications, showing that he was a strange bird in a strange land. Hobart constituted himself chairman for the moment, and, pointing to Mr. Heathcote, said:
"Gentlemen, one of the ablest and most famous of our national committeemen is upon the stage, and he will be glad to address you."
The audience cheered, half in expectation and half in derision, but the Honorable Herbert, who had never made a speech in his life, rose to the cry. His figure straightened up, there was a new light in his eye, and Harley, startled, did not know Mr. Heathcote. As he advanced to the edge of the stage the shouts of derision overcame those of expectation. Harley heard the words "Dude!" "Tenderfoot!" mingled with the cries, but the Honorable Herbert gave no sign that he heard. He reached the edge of the stage, waved his hand, and then there was silence.
"Friends," he said--"I call you such, though you have not received me in a friendly manner--"
The crowd breathed hard, and some one uttered a threat, but another man commanded silence. "Give him a chance!" he said.
"You have not received me in a friendly manner," resumed the Honorable Herbert, "but I am your friend, and I am resolved that you shall be mine. I cannot make a speech to you, but I will tell you a story which perhaps will serve as well."
"Go on with the story," said the men, doubtfully. On the stage there was a general waking-up. Correspondents and politicians alike recognized the Honorable Herbert's new manner, and they bent forward with interest.
"My story," said Mr. Heathcote, "is of a man who had a fond and perhaps too generous father. This father had suffered great hardships, and he wished to save his son from them. What more natural? But perhaps, in his tenderness, he did the son a wrong. So this son grew up, not seeing the rough side of life, and finding all things easy. He lived in a part of the country that is old and rich, where what is called necessity you call luxury. He knew nothing of the world except that portion of it to which he was used. What more natural? Is not that human nature everywhere? He saw himself petted and admired, and in the course of time he felt himself a person of importance. Is not that natural, too?"
He paused and looked over the audience, which was silent and attentive, held by the interest of something unusual and the deep, almost painful, earnestness of Mr. Heathcote's manner.
"What's he coming to?" whispered Hobart.
"I don't know; wait and see," replied Harley.
"Thus the man grew up to know only a little world," the Honorable Herbert went on, "and he did not know how little it was. He was like a prisoner in a gorgeous room, who sees, without, snow and storm that cannot touch him, but who is a prisoner nevertheless. Those whom he met and with whom he lived his daily life were like him, and they thought they were the heart of this world. Everything about them was golden; they saw that people wished to hear of them, to read of them, to know all that they did, and their view of their importance grew every day. What more natural? Was not that human nature?"
"I think I see which way he is going," whispered Hobart.
Harley nodded. The audience was still and intent, hanging on the words of the speaker.
"This youth," continued Mr. Heathcote, "was sent by-and-by to Europe to have his education finished, and there all the ideas formed by his life in this country were confirmed in him. He saw a society, organized centuries ago, in which every man found a definite place for life assigned to him, in accordance with what fortune had done for him at birth. There he received deference and homage, even more than before, and the great, changing world, with its mighty tides and storms that flowed about his little group, leaving it untouched, was yet unknown to him.
"He came back to his own country, and the strong father who had sheltered him died. He was filled with an ambition to be a political power, as his father had been, and the dead hand brought him the place. Then he came into the West to join in a great political campaign, but it was his first real excursion into the real world, and his ignorance was heavy upon him."
A deep "Ah!" ran through the crowd, and Harley noticed a sudden look of respect upon the brown faces. They were beginning to see where the thread of the story would lead. Then Harley glanced at old Senator Curtis, whose lips moved tremulously for a moment. "King" Plummer was regarding the committeeman with astonished interest.
"This man, I repeat," continued Mr. Heathcote, "came West with his ignorance, I might almost say with his sins heavy upon him, but it was not his fault; it was the fault, rather, of circumstances. He seemed a strange, a grotesque figure to these people of the West, but they should not have forgotten that they also seemed strange to him. It has been said that it takes many kinds of people to make a world, and they cannot all be alike. One point of view may differ from another point of view, and both may be right. If this man did anything wrong--and he admits that he did--he did it in ignorance. There were some with him who knew both points of view who might have helped him, but who did not; instead, they made life hard; they put countless difficulties in his way; they made him feel very wretched, very mean, and very little. He saw the other point of view at last, but he was not permitted to show that he saw it; he was put in such a position that his pride would not let him."
The crowd suddenly burst into cheers. The keen Western men understood, and the mountain-slope gave back the echo, "Hurrah for Heathcote!" The Honorable Herbert's figure swelled and his eyes flashed. Grateful water was falling at last on the parched desert sands.
"But, friends," he continued, "this man, though his lesson has been rough, comes to you with no resentment. He has broken the bars of his prison; he is in the real world at last, and he comes to you asking to be one of you, to give and take with the crowd. Will you have him?"
"Yes!" a chorus of a thousand voices roared against the side of the mountain and came back in a thunderous echo.
Old Senator Curtis sprang to his feet, seized Mr. Heathcote by the hand, and shouted:
"Gentlemen, I, too, need to apologize, and also I want to introduce to you a real man, Mr. Herbert Henry Heathcote."
"Put me down for an apology, too," said "King" Plummer, in his big, booming tones.
Jimmy Grayson, on the outskirts of the crowd, returning to learn what the noise was about, saw and heard all, and murmured to a friend:
"There is now a new member of our group, and all is well again."
XII
CHURCHILL STRIKES
The conversion and adoption of Mr. Heathcote, as Hobart called it, was a pleasant incident in several senses, bringing much quiet gratification to them all, and particularly and obviously to the candidate. A hostile element, one intended by others to be hostile and interfering, had become friendly, which, of itself, was a great gain. Moreover, the smoothness of social intercourse was increased, and there, too, was a new type, adding to the variety and interest of the group.