Mr Tooks' Promise.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1751, 21 May 1886, Page 6

Mr Tooks' Promise.

It was always dark up where Mr. Tooks lived — up among the spiders and cobwebs, away up above the every-day life of busy men, among beams and rafters and pulley ropes, so thick that , it gave one the shokes just to look at . them. Mr Tooks lived there in this theat- : rical cloud-land, though he did not . call it his home. He was there before ( daylight in the morning, and never ( left at night, if he did leave at all, until , the great light in the hall across the . way had ceased to illuminate the } surroundings. Mr. Tooks went out , with that and came in again before the blush of morn, so that his life seemed , to spend itself in one eternal darkness, , as vast as it was black, and as black as it was sorrowful. There was only one happiness in Tooks' life, and that was a promise ; yet that promise danced ever before him like a will-o-the-wisp, casting joyful rays along the stretching vistas of blackness. Tooks hoped some day to make a ' hit.' Just what it was t a make a 'hit' Tooks hardly knew. It always came with a great clapping of hands and stamping of feet and hurrahs and cat-calls, and such a general bustling about that every one seemed filled with a pleasurable ex- ] citement ; and that ' hit ' was talked of away up there in Mr Tooks' dark « loft for days and weeks to come. Just how he was to make this ' hit' was another enigma that Tooks' mind ] had never taken to as in a death grip, but ihat it would be made the promise - was always there ; and Tooks saw : himself out before those flaring, mystifying footlights, for th : ,s Mr Tooks was in a theatrical way, and he heard the great storm ot clashing palms, he saw that vast sea of upturned faces, just as he had seen them through the peep-hole in the curtain many and many a time, though they had not seen Mr Tooks ; and in the great silence that followed he could hear himself thanking the owners of these same joyful faces for having made happy and bright his whole future existence. He thanked j them for having thus dragged him up, , or rather down by tbe neck, as it were, from his awful obscurity j for having straightened out his little shrivelled right leg — for what was a shrivelled right leg upon a man who had made so famous a ' hit ? ' — and his eyes sparkled until they ehone like meteors through the dusky surroundings, and a laugh , ventured to gurgle out of his facial ' orifice, so sharp, so clear, and withal co positive, that snip, the long-bodied, short-legged little terrier that kept watch over the chalk lines and portecrayonß, actully barked with joyous surprise. Snip was a discreet dog, and only barked upon great occasions, if he ever barked at all. To hear Tooks laugh was to say that one had lived more than a decade ; ior, although a smile frequently ventured to steal quietly up and down Tooks' wrinkled, careworn face, a laugh must be of the boldest sort to even echo in his neighbourhood, Tooks did laugh, however, though the little row of gasjets just at his back burned steadily on, not heeding tbe unusual interruption. As a careful artist — for it was as an artist that Mr Tooks was known on the 'house bills' — he painted slowly, dreaming betimes, while away off through that canvas, primed and reprimed and thickened with its many coloured coats as it was, Tooks' eyes followed the promise 5 and his ears heard, besides the sweet sounds of that madly -intoxicating applause, the cheery laugh of a little child who loved Papa Tooks, grim and grizzled and sad and sallow as he was, who saw in his little shrivelled right leg the proportions oi Adonis ; who, through his shock, grizzled hair saw a halo of glory; and to whom his sallow, sad face was a beacon-light of joy. Others had made ' hits,' and Tooks knew he must some day, though as said before, just how he had never thought to ask himself. After all, the ' hit ' was not so much to Tooks. It was only Vi he cared for. Vi was the little golden- haired cherub Tooks saw through his canvas-bound dream. Tooks always saw Vi hoyering about somewhere when that Bky-larkiug promise brought the ' hit ' to dangle under his nose. The ' hit ' in reality was for Vi and not for Tooks at ail. It was a m mument he was going to builu for her, that she might some day lay his withered body under when the tired spirit had foresaken so miserable a frame, and bringing the neighbours around say, ' Well he was called out. It's writ there on the stone.' That was the promise of Tooke' life. and the darkness was bright to him as he painted on in the miserable gloom, not seeing that the great light in the hall across the way had gone glimmering out almost an hour ago. This light was a signal for Mr Tooks to lay down his tools and quit. The darkness of yesterday had blended into the darkness of to-day and with the deepening shadows Tooks departed. Throne-chairs and other stage properties stood about him fairly crying to be guilded. The sky on that broad expanse of muslin had barely been made to merge in with the distant landscape, and the drying edges threatened destruction to the beauty of the entire picture ', but when that light went Tooks went, though the glue pot bubbled with disappointment, and the palette groaned to be relieved of its burden of colour. There's more flats to prime 'gin pwrnin,' called out Sullie, Mr, Tooks' ',

assistant — for Tooks had long since risen to the dignity of employing an assistant ; but the sallow little man heeded him not, for the process of disrobing had begun. Tooks' wardrobe was, like Tooks himself, unique. His face is mixed yellow and grey, as to complexion, was shaded from (above by a heavy visored cap of silk, black as the surrounding gloom. About his neck was a comforter of many folds and divers colours, an inseparable part almost of the man, while a dark coloured short coat hung from his shoulders and heavy breeches long and loose, encased bis lower limbs. A red sash of fantastic shape was bound several times about his waist, giving Mr Tooks the air of a private king of some diminutive sort, and as he clambered about among the ropes and fly-rails he was in constant danger of being mistaken by even the most prosaic of his fellows as a sad sea-dog. But Tooks was nothing of the sort. Tooks was, as the few, and among them Sullie his assistant, chose to call him, a scenic artist, but, as many understood, he was a stage-carpenter, property-man, artist, scene-shifter, and everything in general, about a dimly lighted, poorly equipped, and badly managed little theatre, the manager of which hod not scrupled to write ' opera house' over the door. Here was where Tooks was going to make his ' hit ' and to this end he had toiled for years. Down from the flies he had scrambled and across the silent stage he wended his way. The door was open and as Mr Tooks stepped from the inner to the outer darkness, the wood wings pictured with the images of mighty oaks, seemed to bow their heads in silent admiration of the sorrowing little man. Snip had scrambled down as had Mr Tooks, and Snip and Sullie went out into the darkness with him. It was first to the east and then to the north that Mr Tooks took his way. He passed by pie-shops redolent of the fumes of coffee and rolls, and encountered not dozens but scores of sausage-peddlars, with their smocking and, to the nostrils of the famished Mr Tooks, savory viands ; but Tooks must come to Scylla and Charybdis before he allowed the inner Mr Tooks to think of either brat-wurst or potpies. Scylla and Charybdis were two tall tenements that towered on either Bide of the way, escaping one of which Mr Tooks had fallen into the other. In its dingy attic he found a low hipped room, where Mrs Tooks, Vi, and the promise all dwelt together. Snip looked once in a while to see how Vi came on, but Mrs Tooks' temper was such that the dog generally preferred to await his master in the hall below, and having pre-empted a little nook under the stairway, managed to avoid both the porter and Mrs Tooks. Tooks had many burdens to bear, but the greatest, most lasting, and seemingly never perishable one was Mrs Tooks. Mrs Tooks was not exactly a scolding wife, but she was so superior to Tooks in the matter of worldly knowledge that but for the one promise of his life Tooks would have despised himself. Mrs Tooks had only married Tooks through sympathy, and but for the fact that he might have some day forgotten to come in out of the cold, and that his death would then have been laid at her door, she probably would have ceased to concern herself about him altogether. She knew she was a fool to care about him at all, but as women were made for sorrow she accepted Tooks as her allotted portion and grumbled but little save when he snored or put his cold feet upon ber. Mrs Tooks knew nothing cf theatres or their applause. The painted gardens or gilded barges tbat Tooks talked of had for her no existence other than in the speaker's mind, and as for a ' hit,' she failed to comprehend it at all ; co that Tooks' promise, like Tooks' dog, was forced to keep itself as much as possible from the presence of the master's wife. Mrs Tooks, in a way peculiarly her own, generally contrived to build up a monument of sorrow against bis coming, in the shadow of which he took his meals. Tooks was thinkine of this as he ploughed through the darkness of the narrow street leading to the portals of Charybdis, his home. He had scarcely rounded the corner, however, when a spectre, blacker thau the surroundings, planted itself directly in the pathway, and a voice welled up from it like a squeaky bubble, saying. 'If you please, Mr Tooks, you're wanted.' Tooks was rarely ever surprised. Life to him was a sort of fitful dream, gazing out upon the horizon of which as a picture he only saw two object?, Vi and tbat promise, and but few incidents of any character ever brought back to him the debasing realisms of the day. However, that he should be wanted at home had a tendency to awaken him, and though he uttered not a syllable, his gesture was one of questioning surprise. ' Yes, sir, if you please,' said the diminutive bit of blackness before him, as if in answer to his implied mfc rrogatory 'Vi is took suddenly ill, and they wanted you at home.' Vi ! Vi ! Tooks waited to hear no more, He brushed, up this dirty, squeaking, but withal plaintive bit of voice, which continued muttering aa co the frequency of the doctor's visits and the dangerous nature of the » fever which had come upon her» I

Tooks' lameness was no hindrance to his progress ; he seemed to fly, and for once at least his eagerness could not keep pace with his ambling little legs. The doors of Charybdis were fairly burst open : its five flights of steps were as nothing to him ; and before the imp-like messenger realized that Mr Tooks had been spoken to, Tooks himself stood trembling besido the fever ridden couch, away up among the eaves of his towering tenement. Mrs Tooks said nothing about hia entrance. She was of an unforgiving nature, and Tooks had skulked of late. For three days he had not ventured near the home. This was the only outward sign Tooks ever gave of his inward sufferings ; it was his only rebellious action. When the weeds hung heaviest upon Mrs Tooks' laboriously-erected monument, aud when they sought to wrap their clammy folds about him, Tooks went down and out of Charybdis, and up and into tho chokey paint-loft, among the cobwebs and spiders and remained until little Vi brought a peace offering in tbe way of some boiled tripe, or cheesecake and a pot of beer. But Vi had not come this timo, and Tooks was ashy white when the little burniug hands reached out to him from beneath the coverlet and the parched and feverish lips said, ' Papa, why didn't you come ? ' A great groan lifted itself clear up against that Jittle hipped roof, and the shrivelled right leg bent aud tho body lowered itself down across the little bed, but Tooks said never a word. Mr Tooks knew all. He saw that little black box that went out two days later covered with its sombre pall; and heard the horrible rumble of the clods as the earth closed upon it, shutting out for ever from his sight those golden ringlets and laughing eyes, and the little hands that used to pluck imaginary nosegays from the painted fields of canvae away up on that old paint-frame, and in Vis grave they laid Tooks' heart. The flowers still blosomed in the window-garden up there in Chary bdia. The geraniums blossomed in the tomato can, while the dusty miller and wandering Jew fought for supremacy in the old soap box, just as of old ; but the prodding of the dirt about their roots reminded Tooks of the grave digger's grind, and their once delightful odours now smelt to him but of tae tomb. ISo upon the third day, Tooks and Snip went down and out of Charybdis again but the promise followed them not. Again the darkness found Mr Tooks up in that mysterious labyrinth of ropes and crossbeams, but his big brush twisted slowly over the canvas and his tawdry paintings seemed more lustreless than ever. The day wore on apace, though night came slowly enough. Still Tooks murmured not. The great light across the way flickered uneasily awhile and went out ; but Tooks made no sign. Trie palette was cleaned in the Btockjars, tbe few stubs of brushes washed, aud Sullie stole noiselessly away. Mr Tooks was at last alone. Suddenly he looked ; something had startled him. He gazed out upon the darkness, and there was that promise only a few feet away, but clearer aud plainer and brighter than "ever before, it beckoned Mr Tooks and he followed. in a trice he was down upon the stage. He heard the mumurnings of a vast audience, then their applause. Pdltn sounded against palm, and there was a stamping of feet and the usual uproar from the gallery. Then the curtain rose* A full blaze of golden light burst upon the scene, and Mr Tooks heard his own name called as from a thousand throats. He felt himself gently bufc irresistibly led ou, and as a^sofc voice whispered to him he lifted his eyes and saw Vi. Tooks had waited many years, but his * bit ' was made at last. From out the darkness he had been called and the promise fulfilled, brighter on account of its sorrows and most enduring because for all time, and there under the great roll of the lifting curtain, in the full glare of that mysterious light, .poor Tooks lay dead.