Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1909-04-08
THE FOOTSTEPS
OF FEAR
By FANNY KEMBLE JOHNSON


as every other man may hear If he
stops to listen. The trouble with Her
rick was that he had stopped too often
and listened too long Now. II one
waits until they come too close, 1t Is
difficult to distance them again, and II
one listens until they ring too clearly
there is no sound in the world, not
even the whisper OF woman, that can
ever again quite drown them. And the
worst OF 1t is that no man can race
this Fear-that, however the bravest
man may turn, it is always from be-
hind that he hears the steps which
follow as IL coward fed.
All men do not hear them-only the
exceptional may, or the men excep-
tionally situated. Herrick happened
to be both. Many men have bequeathed
to them an inheritance Of death; but
Herrick had also an inheritance of per
feet loneliness. His people were all
at peace in the graveyard plots belong
ing to the different health resorts OF
two continents, and he had lived alone
since a lad in an old house haunted by
their portraits, and their names on the
fyleaf of every book from which he
learned life. Herrick was not cow
ard; but one day he locked up the
house and went out through the green
old garden. At the gate he looked
back.
Il was born in you" he said to his
home. "and If the girl love didn't
have to drag over Europe with an in
valid mother, / would live in you, be-
cause you are next door to her, and
make the most of my time. But /
won't stay by myself-and maybe I'll
never see you again"
He looked away for a moment to the
war-defaced college buildings on the
low green hills beyond. They had
been home, too. He hesitated, and a
blush rose to his face. Then he kissed
his hands to 1t all with the impulsive
gesture OF a child and turned his back
on his too quiet past.
/ In the station by the river he bought
a ticket to the biggest and noisest city
/ in his native state, which was a south
ern one We will omit the intermedi-
/ ate stages. Enough that in a month
/ he had been able to fulfill his intention
4 of getting a position on one of the big
gest and noisest papers in that city.
He reasonably argued that a re-
/ porter on night duty with six-hour
margin of daylight would not have
much time in which to lie awake
listening. and. having an income, he
could afford this hypothesis. Herrick
was after mental excitement, and he
got it. For the first time he was real
ly taken out of his own brain-life and
into the lives of others. That was a
good result to begin with. His an
cestors we're the same short-lived set
of idiots, and the footsteps sauntered
as cynically as ever on his trail. But
he had not time to consciously listen
or to fret over the selfishness Of the
girls mother, who. doubtless. heard
footsteps hunting her down, too, poor
thing! or to write minor poetry, which
is the silliest thing a grown-up man
with an intellect can do-unless he
can sell It, He had only time for his
work and he found out that he was
good at 1t. He also found out that sil
hours of midday when one slept was
worth a night of ten hours to lie awake
and listen in, and that only crazy peo
, pie may safely cultivate their magma
r tions. Therefore, he endeavored L
confne his attention to his daily worl
! and to let his ancestors alone. On tht
whole, he succeeded. Every morning
with his brain at its busiest, he wrot,
he that To Ln
/ Saturday letter to the girl he loved
! When that was done he ran down. al
| in a minute, 1t seemed. Sometimes h,
dropped his head on the letter an
went to sleep. Oftener he reeled to tn
: bed and fell on it, the daylight on hi
eyelids, black night beneath them. H
. had not leisure to think of himself a
all But there was a drawback to this
1t was good for his mind, but it wa
not always good for his body. Some
times a trivial seeming cough worrie
at his throat for days, and sometime
neuralgia gripped with a clutch not t
be Ioosened except with red-hot whit
ky. Usually. however, he was deaC
ened to these discomforts. His cor
seriousness was filed with other thing
; the tearing hurry and devious d,
vices of his work-its crowds, and car
! didates, and cc2fessions-its murder
c and its marriages. And there wer
storms of music-there were civic bal
!, quets-there we're noted divines undo
whom he catnapped in the galleries {
the first churches. But better than a
u these were the thousand special an
II individual occurrences that took b
= breath away and made his flesh glo
VI with the discoveries rapture. He hs
lived so among books for his rs veal
that he had not known before thi
things which had never been put I'M
I, books ever happened.
Once, while musing under a note
divine. he got to thinking over this.
II What stories 1 could writei" I
cried to himself He sat there starir
at the speaker, but saw him no mo-
than he saw the red and gray Sal
John, or the blue Mary Mother in Il