The Idler

Summary

Mark Cross—London dandy turned frontier drifter—gambles his aristocratic birthright for the dust of an unmapped gold camp, while John Harding, disinherited baronet-in-waiting, claws at the same quartz veins to escape clerkly obscurity. A solicitor’s letter—ink still wet—pronounces Harding Sir John, just as a tavern scuffle leaves Felix Strong bleeding out beneath a swinging kerosene lamp. The bullet was never meant for him, yet the camp howls “murder”; a vigilante posse, led by Felix’s granite-jawed brother Simeon, swears blood for blood. Harding boards the next east-bound steamer, the Rocky Mountains shrinking in his wake like a guilty conscience. Years later, gaslight London: Harding, now married to the violet-eyed beauty both men once coveted, glides through Covent Garden in white tie while Cross and Strong—partners in a bonanza that could buy half of Parliament—descend from a glittering carriage. Cross, embittered by squandered chances, fans Strong’s smoldering vendetta; a gloved slap outside the opera house demands “satisfaction,” pistols at dawn on Putney Heath. Meanwhile, Cross lures Lady Harding to his velvet-lined den, promising revelations; her husband bursts in, roaring curses, only to find his wife stepping from behind a Chinese screen like Nemesis in silk. Her righteous fury scorches both men—one for distrust, the other for treachery—until shame drips from their immaculate shirtfronts. Pistols are lowered, gloves replaced; Cross, stripped of illusion, orders trunks packed for a nameless horizon, the Thames fog swallowing his silhouette as the curtain falls.

Synopsis

"The Idler" is Mark Cross, a young man of good family, who in a wild fit of daredeviltry has emigrated from London to the far west. John Harding, also well-born of wealthy parents, but disinherited, and a poor clerk, is also seeking his fortune in the gold fields. One day Harding receives a letter from a firm of London solicitors informing him that his father has died and that he is now Sir John Harding, Bart. He sets out at once to make his preparations for his return to civilization and to take up the station in life that is rightfully his. But that very day he becomes involved in a quarrel with Felix Strong, the young brother of a miner named Simeon Strong, and Felix is shot accidentally during the dispute. Harding is accused of murder, but flees to England in time to escape the vengeance of a posse, headed by Simeon Strong, who is determined to avenge his brother. Years after in London, Harding, who has married the girl both he and Cross were in love with before they emigrated, comes face to face with Cross and Strong, who have become partners and have "struck it rich." In order to win Lady Harding for his own Cross allows the evil side of his nature to get the upper hand of him and plots to have Strong kill Sir John in a duel. Strong slaps Harding in the face in the foyer of the opera house in order that he may involve him in "an affair of honor" and avenge his brother's death by killing Harding. Cross in the meantime lures Lady Harding to his rooms where Sir John comes to seek her. She hides in Mark Cross's bedroom, but reveals herself at a dramatic moment when Harding, shouting "Curse you, I'll kill you," springs at Cross's throat. Her splendid nature, as shown in her denunciation of both men, one as a husband without faith in his wife and the other as the would-be destroyer of a home, overcomes them with shame. They shake hands and Mark, parting forever with Lady Harding, orders his valet to pack his things for he is off "on a long trail."